Jesus freak
 | It has been suggested that this article be merged into Jesus movement. (Discuss) Proposed since March 2025. |
"Jesus freak" is a term arising from the late 1960s and early 1970s counterculture and is frequently used as a pejorative for those involved in the Jesus movement.
As Tom Wolfe illustrates in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the term "freak" with a preceding qualifier was a strictly neutral term and described any counterculture member with a specific interest in a given subject; hence "acid freak" and "Jesus freak".[1] The term "freak" was in common-enough currency that Hunter S. Thompson's failed bid for sheriff of Pitkin County, Colorado, was as a member of the "Freak Power" party.[2]
However, many later members of the movement, those misunderstanding the countercultural roots, believed the term to be negative, and co-opted and embraced the term, and its usage broadened to describe a Christian subculture throughout the hippie and back-to-the-land movements that focused on universal love and pacifism, and relished the radical nature of Jesus' message. Jesus freaks often carried and distributed copies of the Good News for Modern Man,[3] a 1966 translation of the New Testament written in modern English. In Australia, and other countries, the term "Jesus freak", along with "Bible basher", is still used in a derogatory manner. In Germany, there is a Christian youth culture, also called Jesus Freaks International, that claims to have its roots in the U.S. movement.[4]
See also
[edit]
References
[edit]- ^ Prothero, S. (2004). American Jesus: How the Son of God Became a National Icon. Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 978-1466806054.
- ^ Denevi, T. (2018). Freak Kingdom: Hunter S. Thompson's Manic Ten-Year Crusade Against American Fascism. PublicAffairs. ISBN 978-1541767959.
- ^ "Musician Barry McGuire's Testimony: Eve of Destruction". WashedRed.com. Archived from the original on 2010-04-07. Retrieved December 8, 2011.
- ^ Pederson, Duane (2009). "The new Jesus Freaks Movement in Europe". The Hollywood Free Paper. Archived from the original on 2011-07-23.
Further reading
[edit]- Call, Keith. "Jesus Freaks Archived 2010-06-10 at the Wayback Machine." Special Collections. 15 January 2009.
- Di Sabatino, David. The Jesus People Movement: An Annotated Bibliography and General Resource (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999). Jesus People Movement
- Geisler, Gertude. Ramey, B., Jessie. "Jesus Freaks." 2004.
- Payne, Leah (2024). God Gave Rock and Roll to You: A History of Contemporary Christian Music. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0197555248.
- Ream, D. L. (2024). Hippie Voices to God's Heart: Calvary Chapel Encounters God. Wipf and Stock Publishers. ISBN 978-1666779905.
- Shires, Preston David (2002). Hippies of the religious Right: The counterculture and American evangelicalism in the 1960s and 1970s (PhD dissertation). University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Retrieved 2025-03-06.
- Simpson, T. A. (2019). The Bride and Moral Purity. Christian Faith Publishing. ISBN 978-1645693000.
- White, L. Michael. The First Christians: The Jesus Movement.
- Young, Shawn David. "From Hippies to Jesus Freaks: Christian Radicalism in Chicago's Inner-City." Journal of Religion and Popular Culture. Vol 22(2) Summer 2010.
- Young, Shawn David (2015). Gray Sabbath: Jesus People USA, the Evangelical Left, and the Evolution of Christian Rock. Columbia University Press. ISBN 978-0231172394