The Jesus Movement was a conspicuous feature of American religion during the late 1960's and early 1970's. Beginning in California and the Pacific Northwest regions, the movement swept the nation and elicited both positive and negative responses from both the religious and secular communities of the nation. The movement tended to draw hippies, drug-addicts, and ex-addicts who began practicing fundamentalist, charismatic Christianity; adherents also generally possessed strong apocalyptic beliefs and displayed an interest in communitarian life-styles.
At present, almost all of the Jesus People communes have disbanded. However, one such group, Jesus People USA, still exists and appears to be thriving in urban Chicago. The goal of this thesis is to chronicle the history of this group until the present day, and to examine how the group has changed over the eighteen years of its existence.
While the group is found to have greatly increased in size and scope since its inception, having added numerous business enterprises and religious and social outreaches to its operations, the Jesus People of Chicago appear to have remained committed to most of their original goals of spreading the Gospel message and serving those in need. It is also suggested that the most conspicuous hazard facing this group at present is excessive financial success.
The Quest for Community
Societal Critiques
Slater's Pursuit of Loneliness
One Set of Alternatives
Chapter 2 The Counter-Culture and the Jesus Movement
The Rise of the Counter-Culture
The Origins of the Jesus Movement
Characteristics of the Jesus Movement
Chapter 3 The History of Jesus People USA
Group Origins and Early History
Recent History to Present
Outreaches
Beliefs of the Jesus People
Characteristics of the Commune Members
Entering the Community
Life Within the Jesus People Community
Activities Within the Community
The Prominent Role of Rules
Marriage Within the Jesus People Community
Children
The Role of the Elders
Planning for the Future
The Future of Jesus People USA
Changes Over Time
A Final Assessment
General References
Jesus People USA Publications
Interviews
The members of the Committee approve the thesis of John M. Bozeman defended on August 15, 1990.
Leo Sandon, Jr.
Professor Directing Thesis
John E. Kelsay
Committee Member
Walter L. Moore
Committee Member
Studying a Christian commune first-hand rapidly causes one to become aware of the multitude of conscious and unconscious exchanges that constantly take place between persons. One also becomes aware of the social debts that are incurred on a daily basis. I would thus like to acknowledge a few of those who have made this thesis possible. I would like to thank my committee members, Dr. Leo Sandon, Dr. John Kelsay, and Dr. Walter Moore, for their assistance and wise counsel in the preparation of the manuscript. I would also like to thank Dr. Maureen Tilley, Dr. Bruce Grindal, and Carol Abel for informal advice during this project.
I would like to give special thanks to members of the Jesus People USA community who assisted me immensely in this project: Mike Tabor, my first "buddy," Bruce Bitmead, Eric Pement, Tammy Tucker, Carl and Sarah Sullivan, Keith and Regan Williams, Becky West, Jon Trott, Henry Hwang, Ned Griffen, James ("Spyder") and Donna Harrar, Suzy Rowe, Leah Sweeney, Darren Davick, Angel Meintz, and Mike Urban. Other persons who I only know by first names should be mentioned as well: Dave, Lee, John, John, "Lupe," and Hans. In addition, I would like to express my gratitude to the elders of the JPUSA community for their assistance, and finally to the JPUSA mailroom.
Finally, appreciation must be expressed to those persons who encouraged me to turn my attention once again to the study of religion: Dr. Dennis Schmidt and Waltraud Dunn, of the University of Florida, and Ms. Mondi Mason. Finally, I must express my continued (and ever increasing) debt to my parents, James and Anne Bozeman, for their continued support.
The question of religious community has long occupied an important role in Christian ethics. In the earliest writings in the Christian New Testament we find as much concern for community issues as for issues of doctrine and faith. This interest continues and grows even more pronounced over time; witness, for example, the Fathers of the Egyptian desert of the third, fourth, and fifth centuries of the Common Era.(1) A similar situation arises in the fifth century with the Stylites of the Syrian desert who, though isolated on stone pillars, managed to collect sizable numbers of disciples and were periodically consulted by kings and emperors. The later rise of the monastic institution also contributes to the Christian awareness and understanding of community.
The question of the meaning of community is re-examined with the rise of Protestantism: the sectarian Franciscans, Waldensians, and later the church-oriented Lutheran(2) and Calvinist reformations along with the Anabaptist sects all place heavy emphasis upon various interpretations of community, in both secular and religious life.(3)
Such concerns are also found in American religious life and culture. Perhaps the best example of this is the communitarian vision of the New England Puritans. John Winthrop's sermon "A Model of Christian Charity," made on board ship in the Salem Harbor, is the classic example of the expression of this vision:
. . . [W]e must be knot together in this work as one man; we must entertain each other in brotherly Affection; we must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the need of others' necessities; we must uphold a familiar Commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liberty; we must delight in each other, making others' Conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our Commission and Community in work, our Community as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. . . . For we must consider that we shall be as a City upon a Hill, the eyes of all people upon us. So that if we deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause him to withdraw his present help from us . . . we shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into Curses upon us . . .(4)
Even more pronounced expressions of the vision of the beloved community, in both religious and secular versions, are found in various Perfectionist and utopian communities and communes that have populated America from the earliest times of European colonization. These have included the Labadists of Bohemia Manor, the Pietistic and semi-occult Woman in the Wilderness, Ephrata, the Shaker settlements, the Rappite communes, Zoar, the Amana villages, Beth El and Aurora, Oneida, and Brook Farm.
Many commentators have noted, however, that American culture is largely characterized by a lack of community. The potential for this situation was noted by Alexis de Tocqueville, with the level of criticism gradually increasing to the present day. A number of reasons have been advanced to explain this phenomenon. One is that societal atomization is a result of the rise of a "modern" society in which people are viewed as impersonal commodities to be manipulated for profit without regard to individual worth or intrinsic humanity.(5) Such attitudes play an integral role in how persons consider themselves, both as individuals and as members of cultural groups. More specifically, they are of vital concern today as American society becomes increasingly fragmented and stratified in a variety of ways--economically, intellectually, and religiously. Increasing economic divergence is illustrated by the gradually widening gap between highest and lowest income groups, while intellectual fragmentation is found in the growth of what some call the "cult of the expert." Religious fragmentation is also common, as religious pluralism becomes more and more pronounced.
A number of critiques and prescriptions have been offered to balance societal fragmentation with social solidarity. Erich Fromm, for example, suggests that the problem is not with society so much as with persons failing to realize and appreciate the desirability of individualism. Fromm thus suggests that we must realize
. . . the individualism that has been the ideological aim of modern thought since the Renaissance. The cultural and political crisis of our day is not due to the fact that there is too much individualism but that we believe individualism has become an empty shell. The victory of freedom is possible only if democracy develops into a society in which the individual, his growth and happiness, is the aim and purpose of culture, in which life does not need any justification in success or anything else, and in which the individual is not subordinated to or manipulated by any power outside of himself, be it the state or the economic machine; finally, a society in which his conscience and ideals are not the internalization of external demands, but are really his and express the aims that result from the peculiarity of his self.(6)
It would thus appear that Fromm, making this argument at the beginning of the 1940's, is saying that a person's feelings of isolation and aloneness in contemporary society are not due to a problem with the society, but rather with a failure of the individual to fully understand and appreciate the society in which he finds himself. Society is good; the individual needs adjusting.
Paul Goodman, writing in the 1950's from the perspective of an educator, suggests otherwise: there really is something wrong with American society. Goodman suggests that while our society is not bad, it could be made better. The author presents his case in Growing Up Absurd, concluding:
[T]he accumulation of the missed and compromised revolutions in modern times, with the consequent ambiguities and social imbalances, has fallen, and must fall, most heavily on the young, making it hard to grow up.(7)
Thus, while our society and its members periodically note the need for change, Goodman argues that we seldom make a sufficient enough change for it to be really effective. Goodman stresses the tremendous number of relatively minor absurdities and inconsistencies existing in our society that continue to exist because of the faltering half-way measures taken to deal with them.
In 1970, Charles Reich's extremely popular book, The Greening of America, was published. This work takes a substantially more radical approach, enumerating six major problems of our society that "[arise] out of the basic premises that we live by and that no major reform can touch . . ." These include:
1. Disorder, hypocrisy, corruption, and war.
2. Poverty, distorted priorities, and law-making by private power.
3. Uncontrolled technology and the destruction of environment.
4. Decline of democracy and liberty, as a result of an erosion of personal rights.
5. The artificiality of work and culture.
6. Absence of community, as a result of a loss of familial function, and as friendship is stifled by artificial roles imposed upon people.
7. Loss of self, as a person is "systemically stripped of his imagination, his creativity, his heritage, his dreams, and his personal uniqueness," in order to fit the person into society.(8)
Reich thus announces the coming of "Consciousness III," a new consciousness brought about by a new generation. Reich describes this new state as possessing a deep skepticism for analytical thought, and emphasizing the celebrated "self" of Whitman, and the "now" of Heidegger. The "absolute worth" of every self is emphasized; "excellence and comparative merit" are not recognized; people are not classified; manipulation of others is abandoned; love rules. Obligations and contractual agreements are abandoned in favor of honesty, and self-expression encouraged.(9) The author considers that this revolution in consciousness is taking place spontaneously as a result of America's promises to youth in the form of affluence, technology, liberation, and ideals, combined with the threat of the Vietnam War and nuclear conflagration.(10)
A more recent cultural critique is found in Robert Bellah et al.'s Habits of the Heart. This work begins by tracing the biblical and Republican themes present in the founding of the United States, as exemplified by John Winthrop and Thomas Jefferson, and notes the gradual increase of utilitarian and expressive individualism as found in the thoughts of Benjamin Franklin and Walt Whitman.(11) By the time of Tocqueville, the American ideal has shifted from the ideal of a "City on a Hill" to that of the independent citizen, as symbolized by Abraham Lincoln.(12) This ideal eventually led to the rise of the entrepreneur and the predatory capitalism symbolized by the robber barons. Other societal shifts occurred as well:
The most distinctive aspect of twentieth-century American society is the division of life into separate functional sectors: home and workplace; work and leisure, white collar and blue collar, public and private. This division suited the needs of the bureaucratic industrial corporations that provided the model for our preferred means of organizing society by the balancing and linking of sectors such as "departments" into a functional whole, as in a great business enterprise. Particularly powerful in molding our contemporary sense of things has been the division between the various "tracks" to achievement laid out in schools, corporations, government, and the professions, on the one hand, and the balancing life-sectors of home, personal ties, and "leisure" on the other. . . .
Under such conditions, it is not surprising that the major problems of life appear to be essentially individual matters, a question of negotiating a reliable and harmonious balance among the various sectors of life to which the individual has access.(13)
In such a society, the manager and the therapist become central characters. Each organizes human resources for effective action in a "given" society.(14)
The authors of Habits of the Heart found in the course of their interviews with American people a pervasive desire for individual experience and intimate relationships. They also found that contemporary American society, with its mobility and ideal of personal success, often frustrated these desires.(15) Unlike Fromm, however, the fault is not taken to lie with the individual, but rather with the society; this conclusion is at least partially based upon the "litmus test" of both the biblical and Republican traditions,(16) as well as the undesirability of various other economic and political solutions offered in the past. Rather, the authors feel that human decency must take precedence over economic success, preferably in a world where persons view themselves as participants in life rather than as onlookers.
One aspect of this is the recognition of the existence of a "social ecology." From this perspective, one realizes that, as in natural ecology, a continued drive for freedom, power, and wealth destroys the social environment, just as it destroys the physical world.(17) The authors thus advocate a "reconstitution of the social world."(18) One method to accomplish this end is the reduction of the punishments of failure and the rewards of success. In this way, persons would be more likely to make vocational choices on the basis of intrinsic interest than as a result of external obligation, and would be motivated more by the "pursuit of excellence" than by a desire for advancement or by acquisitiveness.(19) This would also allow for a greater overlap of public and private portions of life, as well as contributing to a renewal of interest in civic virtue and to a greater expression of ethnic and cultural differences.(20) It would also create a situation in which both social responsibility and the enjoyment of personal relationships would be engendered.(21)
Many of the concerns of the authors examined above may be found in Philip Slater's book, The Pursuit of Loneliness. In this work, Slater notes "three human desires that are deeply and uniquely frustrated by American culture."(22) These are:
1. The desire for community, or the wish to live in trust, cooperation, and friendship with those around one;
2. The desire for engagement, or the wish to come directly to grips with one's social and physical environment; and
3. The desire for dependence, or the wish to share responsibility for the control of one's impulses and the direction of one's life.(23)
The author notes that many of the "oases" in which one could "take refuge from the invidiousness of our frenzied economic system" have gradually vanished. Among these former refuges were the extended family and the stable local neighborhood.(24) The continued desire for community, engagement, and dependence continues to be displayed, however, in mass media, in the form of songs expressing longings for intimacy and decrying materialism.(25) In spite of this, persons continue to seek as much privacy as is possible:
We seek a private house, a private means of transportation, a private garden, a private laundry, self-service stores, and do-it-yourself skills of every kind. An enormous technology seems to have set itself the task of making it unnecessary for one human being ever to ask any thing of another in the course of going about his or her daily business. Even within the family Americans are unique in their feeling that every member should have a separate room, and even a separate telephone, television and car, when economically possible. We seek more and more privacy, and feel more and more alienated and lonely when we get it. What accidental contacts we do have, furthermore, seem more intrusive, not only because they are unsought but because they are unconnected with any familiar pattern of existence.(26)
Slater recognizes that America, being largely an immigrant nation, has had a tradition of adventurousness, daring, ambition, and mobility; however, these characteristics also have the negative complement of rootlessness, lack of loyalty, and in some cases evasiveness and anti-social behavior.(27)
Another mixed blessing comes from the extensive use of internalized principles in America. While this is beneficial in that persons are inculcated with the ability to have control over their own actions without continual societal pressure,(28) life as a result takes on a much more filtered, muted, and emotionally anesthetized character.(29)
A much more serious problem is found in what Slater calls the "Toilet Assumption": that things that we do not wish to see, such as the poor, the psychotic, the aged, the retarded, and the infirm, cease to exist once taken out of immediate view.(30) According to Slater, this metaphor can be taken one step further in that people react to both plumbing problems and social problems in essentially the same manner; in both cases, an expert is called to remove the problem from sight once again.(31)
We thus have noted a number of criticisms of American society. Indeed, many of the negative trends noted here have entered into religious bodies, to the point where a number of religious groups, traditionally considered to be bastions of the sacred and the humane, have taken on many aspects of the surrounding culture. Pains are taken to reach certain "productive" or "useful" groups, while others are excluded as "unreachable"; bureaucracies develop; distance increases between clergy and laity. One might thus ask, are there alternatives to such trends, at least in the realm of religion? Are there groups present in the United States that are actively seeking to affirm traditional Christian faith while rejecting the aspects of contemporary society that lead to feelings of alienation and estrangement?
Such groups have, in fact, been prominent in American culture in the late 1960's and in the early 1970's in the "Jesus Movement." Composed of hippies, drug addicts and former addicts, and other societal cast-offs, members of this group turned to the Christian faith to seek answers to the questions ignored or inadequately answered by the contemporary culture and the counter-culture alike. One such issue which was addressed was that of community; as a result a number of intentional communal groups developed.
What happened to this movement and the groups contained therein? Most appear to have either disbanded or been absorbed by more conventional expressions of Christianity. At least one fairly large community originating during this time period is still in existence and continues to grow: Jesus People USA, located in urban Chicago, Illinois. The purpose of this study is to examine this group. How has this group survived in the roughly eighteen years since its inception? How has the group (the leadership in particular) adapted to changing times? Has the group remained true to its original stated mission, or has the direction of the community evolved over time? How is the group dealing with the ageing of its original members? Does the group represent a vital, innovative response to many of the problems facing both the church and society today, or is it merely driven by nostalgia for what is perceived as an idyllic earlier age?
Accurate answers to these questions will only be forthcoming after considerable analysis of written records and personal interviews. In spite of difficulties, such questions need to be addressed, both for their own intrinsic interest and in order to achieve a better understanding of the interaction between minority religious communities and their surrounding culture.
This thesis, then, chronicles the development of Jesus People USA from its inception to the present day. While the first three years of the existance of the Jesus People USA commune was documented by David Frederick Gordon,(32) the present work provides the first objective description and analysis of this group in over fifteen years as well as providing the history of the group prior to settlement in Chicago.(33)
While occasional gaps do exist in certain portions of the story (due to factors such as members leaving and frequent lack of interest in formal record keeping), it is hoped that an accurate group history has been reconstructed through the methods of critical library research, site observation, and interviews with the members of the community. Observations and interviews were carried out during two visits to the community in Chicago on January 12-15 and March 16-22, 1990. Conversations were recorded and took place under a variety of circumstances. Interviews were recorded; initial questions posed to commune members were based upon an questionnaire designed by Bruce Grindal for a class in contemporary folk religion;(34) these original questions were modified slightly over time as some questions were dropped and others added as appropriate. While the design of the community prevented a methodical selection of informants, efforts were made to collect interviews from representatives a wide variety of ages, occupations, and length of time spent in the commune.
While efforts have been made to place events in proper historic context, a complete history of the counter-culture in general and Jesus movement in particular are not presented in detail, being judged to be beyond the scope of this paper.
The period of the 1960's was characterized by a number of social upheavals. One of the most significant developments of these was the development of the counter-culture. This subculture was a product of multiple causes, having been made possible by a prior period from 1945 to 1960 largely free of wide-spread social conflicts which was characterized as being a "better educated and affluent society."(35) However, beneath this apparently happy state of affairs lay a number of fears and anxieties: anxiety over atomic weapons, an awareness of the evil that humans were capable of producing, as in the case of Nazism, and worries over possible Communist expansion.(36) Some academicians also worried about apathy and uniformity among students, and others were concerned with possible losses of freedom brought about by the excesses of anti-Communist factions within the government.
The election of John F. Kennedy in 1960 to the Presidency appeared to offer a change from this potentially stifling situation, and an opportunity to "get America moving again."(37) Kennedy seemed to possess within himself the characteristics of youth, idealism, intellectualism, and energy,(38) as well as personal charm and charisma. Additionally, he was a cautious proponent of the civil rights movement, entertaining Martin Luther King, Jr., in the White House, and he appeared to recognize the problem of the nuclear threat while speaking of the possibility of peace.(39) While Kennedy's assassination was traumatic for the country many of his programs were carried on by his successor, Lyndon Johnson, with his "Great Society" and "war on poverty."
This atmosphere of optimism, idealism, and prosperity allowed thoughtful persons to suggest that certain problems, such as racism and poverty, might at last be eradicated. One result of the failure of these ideals to materialize was student protest.(40) This was exacerbated when Johnson was perceived as reneging on 1964 campaign promises to extricate the United States from the Vietnam conflict, with numbers of protestors coming to suggest that these failings resulted from an excessive concentration of political power among an elite establishment.(41)
This situation was aggravated by the 1966 decision to conscript students with low grades and, later, by threats to end college deferments for those participating in anti-war demonstrations.(42) These actions, as well as the continued troop deployments and reports of atrocities in Vietnam, tended to radicalize students. Another "radicalizing" factor was the ejection of white persons from an increasing militant civil rights movement.(43)
As a result, changes took place within the developing counter-culture. Up until this point, the counter-culture was predominantly guided by two groups: the activists, who were attempting to achieve real political ends, and the culturally alienated, who were apolitical, romantic, and aesthetically inclined.(44) With many avenues of protest closed off, a number of the former activists departed, leaving only the most committed,(45) who periodically advocated alternatives to rather than changes in the established society. Simultaniously, artistic, culturally alienated persons became more prominent in student dissent, resulting in the emergence of the hippies.
The latter group tended to be more interested in "bohemianism"--characterized by interest in aesthetics, self-expression, eroticism, occult interests, drug use, and the quest for vivid experience(46)--and were generally too pessimistic to demonstrate in an organized way; rather, individuals tended to protest through personal nonconformity in dress, ideology, and behavior.(47) Especially characteristic was the use of psychedelic drugs, the drug of choice being LSD.
In 1967 the press discovered Haight-Ashbury, considered by many to be the Mecca of the counter-culture.(48) The resulting publicity proved to be detrimental to the hippie culture there:
. . . [T]he result was in effect an advertisement for the neighborhood, but not the kind that had been hoped for. The press advertized free love, free lunch, . . . tolerance for the crazy and the outcast, and a New Age governed by love and innocence.(49)
As a result, the area was soon inundated not only with "visionaries," but also with runaways, dropouts, outcasts, and "crazies." Much of the community's economy collapsed due to overpopulation.(50) Further disillusionment was caused by changes in U.S. policy towards restrictions placed on foreign aid,(51) but especially as a result of disappointment with LSD:
How do you deal with the fact that the million visions of the possibilities of life you saw were humiliatingly tied to the perversely unchanging self you brought into the experience?(52)
The one thing that nearly everybody experienced from acid was the disappointment of realizing there was a point of diminishing returns, after which it was a hall of mirrors. The discovery was probably hardest on people who had taken Timothy Leary seriously, because his official line was that LSD was not a glimpse of anything to be integrated into normal life, it was the one True Reality itself.(53)
In spite of these problems and disillusionments new residents continued arriving. Crime rates began to escalate in the area as a result of various reasons that included the presence of a large number of naive potential victims, and the introduction and spread of heroin use.(54) By 1968, conflicts between the area's residents and street people were increasing in both frequency and violence, and interracial relations were severely damaged by the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.(55)
Prior to the demise of the original neighborhood, however, the Jesus Movement began. While this movement seems to have begun in a number of widely separated geographical areas at roughly the same time, the first stirring appears to have begun with Arthur Blessitt,(56) an ordained Baptist minister who arrived in San Francisco in 1965 to further his ministerial studies. Instead, Blessitt found fertile ground for the Gospel message with the hippies of North Beach. Blessitt also spent a sizable amount of time on Sunset Strip; there he soon ran into difficulties with the owners of the area coffee houses, who felt that Blessitt's presence slowed business. Periodically, police were called to aid in his removal, and a riot would ensue.(57) As a result, Blessitt became something of a celebrity.
Blessitt soon opened a coffee house of his own called His Place. The coffee shop was apparently a success, so much so that the neighboring bars and coffee houses complained, and there were extensive allegations of police harassment of His Place patrons. The evangelist also experienced difficulties in finding a new building after the original lease expired.(58) Although a new building was found, the popularity of the place waned.(59) Blessitt eventually felt called to go to Europe, to minister to American youth travelling there.(60)
Blessitt appears to have been one of the first leaders in the Jesus Movement, and was also responsible for many of the movement's slogans and merchandizing. A case might be made, however, that a more lasting and characteristic contribution originated in the Haight-Ashbury region. Toward the end of 1966, a Sausalito-based sail-maker in his late twenties became a Christian after reading a Bible. This man, Ted Wise, had been beset with marital problems prior to his conversion; apparently his new religious commitment contributed to marriage renewal, for soon afterward he and his wife Elizabeth began speaking to people about Jesus Christ in Haight-Ashbury. As a result of his continued use of marijuana,(61) Wise encountered several old friends in this region, who were soon converted to Christianity as well.(62)
By 1967, several of the couples and families had moved in with the Wises. The group continued to minister in the Haight-Ashbury area and, with the help of several local pastors, opened a Christian coffee house called The Living Room.(63) The group had also grown to the point that the friends had to move to a larger house, in nearby Novato. This house held five couples,(64) as well as a number of single young persons who moved in an out periodically. This group, which became known as The House of Acts, may have been the first of the Jesus communes.(65)
Another important contributor to and a founder of the fledgling Jesus Movement was Linda Meissner. Raised as a Methodist in rural Iowa, Meissner began her career as a youth evangelist under the tutelage of David Wilkerson, in his newly opened Teen Challenge center in Brooklyn in 1961.(66) After spending time ministering in the West Indies, Mexico, and Hong Kong, Meissner began receiving verbal messages from God telling her to go to Seattle, Washington. Arriving there in 1967, she began "recruiting" young street persons for her Jesus People's Army.(67) This group eventually claimed 5000 members;(68) a counseling center called The Ark and a coffee shop named The Catacombs were opened as well. An allied commune with extensive property formed in Vancouver under the leadership of Russ Griggs.(69)
A great diversity of other Jesus Movement groups existed as well. One of these is the still-extant Christian World Liberation Front,(70) a group originally led by a former college professor, Jack Sparks. This group, based at the University of California, Berkeley, ran several Christian communes and published the most intellectual of the Jesus Papers, Right On,(71) since renamed Radix. Unlike many the Jesus People groups of the time, the CWLF was not charismatic; the group especially appealed to practicing Christians who had grown up in the church but were looking for a more "authentic" way to live their faith.(72) This group also tended to be more socially concerned than many of the other groups.(73)
Another group that formed during the Jesus Movement was the now-notorious Children of God,(74) led by "Moses" David Berg, who had been a former Pentecostal evangelist. This group, begun in 1967, practiced extreme acts of separatism from the larger culture and, generally, from the rest of the Jesus Movement as well. Members practiced extremely aggressive witnessing and recruiting methods; the group also demanded total loyalty from members, tended to be highly secretive, and was characterized by an extremely mobile existence in order to cover more territory and also to avoid confrontations with parents and, later, problems with "deprogramming" attempts.
These and other groups made up the Jesus Movement, which was driven by a number of factors. Persons were frequently alienated from their families, were struggling with drug-abuse addictions, or were undergoing various emotional crises.(75) Another, more general factor was embitteredness:
Disoriented by drugs, embittered by politics, disillusioned by the apparent worthlessness of work and the transiency of love, they have found a way back through these movements.(76)
These groups also appeared to provide another chance to achieve many of the ends aspired to by the counter-culture: a sense of linkage, interdependency, self-expression, and above all, authentic experience.(77) Indeed, Jesus was frequently referred to as the "eternal high,"(78) along with other comparisons to previous drug experiences.(79)
Like both the larger counter-culture (and, ironically, traditional Christian fundamentalism), the Jesus Movement tended to be somewhat suspicious of modern intellectualism and modernity in general.(80) Similarly, both the counter-culture and the Jesus Movement were highly critical of middle-class life and compromise.(81) At the same time, however, the movement gave many youth an opportunity to reaffirm or return to earlier religious values.(82) The Jesus Movement offered an alternative to the morally permissive hippie culture and served as an alternative to the non-authoritarian drug culture which allowed a few social deviants to wreak havoc for the majority,(83) yet still allowed for experimentation with alternative forms of living arrangements such as communes. In many cases these experiments were positively encouraged in ways unlikely to have occurred if associated with the drug culture.(84)
The communal aspect of the Jesus People was considered by some to be one of the more impressive characteristics of the entire movement.(85) While it appears that the original communal impetus came from the counter-culture and was adopted out of expediency, Christian communes soon became one of the most distinctive marks of the entire movement. Ready acceptance for this way of life could be easily justified both on the basis of New Testament scripture(86) and through the precedent of Christian monasticism. This communal life offered much of what the Jesus People were seeking: an intense sense of community through interpersonal interaction, an environment conducive to both religious experience and discipline, and an alternative lifestyle that rejected many of the values of middle-class society and religion. These communes also allowed for personal transformation through a voluntary process of "dying to self" followed by "self-reconstitution."(87)
Critics of the Jesus People perceived several short-comings with the movement as a whole. While most critics were impressed by the "authentic love" that members displayed,(88) many expressed concern over excessive merchandizing and faddishness,(89) excessive emotionalism, a tendency to reduce complex issues into black-and-white absolutes, and theological shallowness.(90) The Jesus People also tended not to engage in long-range planning or social action as a result of apocalyptic expectations, causing some critics to suggest that persons involved were often shirking social responsibilities.(91)
The movement was also plagued by transiency, with a very high membership turnover rate; Meissner's Jesus People's Army, for example, had an annual turnover rate of fifty percent.(92) Another chronic problem was internal schisms and occasional competition between groups. As a result of these problems, some of these groups adopted more rigid structures in an attempt to provide more consistency and discipline within the groups; a number of commune leaders, including Meissner and Griggs, joined the Children of God for this reason.(93) Unfortunately, while providing both the desired structure and longevity, this already controversial group fell into extreme heterodoxy and developed a number of highly bizarre practices.(94)
By 1973, the press had largely ceased reporting on the activities of the Jesus Movement.(95) The movement by this time was spreading into the Midwest and Middle Atlantic regions, as well as into Europe and Australia.(96) The demise of the counter-culture and reduction in use of hard drugs by youth, as well as the delay of the Second Coming of Christ, caused many of the Jesus People to reenter society and to engage in more traditional religious practices. Emphasis shifted from witnessing and conversion to discipleship and church activity.(97)
Communal activity continued, however, and a number of communal Jesus People groups managed to successfully navigate the course between authoritarianism and dissolution for a number of years. These included Harvest House Ministries,(98) The Highway Missionaries (later renamed Missionaries of the Common Life),(99) and Shiloh Youth Revival Centers, which at its peak had groups in thirty states, Canada, and the Virgin Islands.(100) At present it appears that almost all of these groups have disbanded.(101)
Jesus People USA is one of the few that has continued to exist. The history of the group is the subject of the following chapter.
As mentioned earlier, Jesus People USA is a manifestation of the Jesus Movement which arose in the late 1960's and the early 1970's. The original impetus for the founding of this particular group occurred in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States. There, in the summer of 1968, a man named Jim Palosaari was converted to Christianity by Russ Griggs at a tent revival in the small town of Maltby, Washington. Prior to this, the recently divorced Palosaari had been traveling up and down the Pacific coast with his girlfriend, Sue. Afterward, his life took on a new meaning, as he followed along with the group that had been responsible for the revival: the Jesus People's Army. From Oregon he travelled with the group to Vancouver and then to Seattle, where he met the group's leader, the youth evangelist Linda Meissner. Palosaari joined the group and, soon afterward, married his erstwhile travelling companion. He also began to rise within the ranks of the Jesus People's Army.
In the spring of 1971, the Palosaaris felt called to move from the Seattle area to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.(102) The young evangelist there began a ministry to the youth of the area. Disturbed by what he perceived as a lack of biblical grounding and "discipleship training" in the greater Jesus Movement, he undertook to take new Christians and give them "basic Biblical training and grounding and send them out to form other groups."(103) Because some of the young people that he had converted "really had no place to go,"(104) Palosaari opened his home to them. Soon, seven people were members of the proto-commune. The group grew rapidly; by August there were thirty members, and the group had organized "The Jesus People Milwaukee Discipleship School."(105) The group also ran a coffee house, "The Jesus Christ Power House," published a newspaper-style periodical, Street Level, and had a folk band. By November the commune had sixty members,(106) and by January-February of the following year, this number had grown to between 100 and 150.(107) In order to accommodate the commune's growth, that January the group, which had until this time been located in two residential homes on the city's Eastside near the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, moved to a converted convalescent home.(108)
Earlier, however, in October of 1971, a series of events had taken place that would later be of considerable importance: a fifteen-year-old girl watched the band playing in a field one day. Her enthusiastic response to the group, and the later conversion of her older sister, coupled with her desire to join the community, aroused the interest of the parents, John Herrin, Sr., and his wife Dawn. They decided to investigate the group and its activities:
. . . [W]e thought we better check this place out. It might be weird, with everybody living together. They might be immoral. So we met Jim Palosaari, who was the elder there. He asked us to join. . . . [W]e thought that would be a neat thing . . . because when I learned about the Jesus Movement in Time magazine . . . I thought, "Man, those are the luckiest people that ever lived. They get to do like that for Jesus, and work with young people. . . ."
So when that came up, it seemed like a dream come true.(109)
John Herrin(110) soon became co-elder with Jim Palosaari. In March and April of 1972, Palosaari led successful youth revivals in the Duluth and Davenport areas. During this time, Herrin organized another outreach group, with its own band, "Charity." The latter group began evangelistic activity in Michigan. At the end of this period, the Milwaukee group had grown to a size of more than 200 people, and "Nobody wanted to be in charge of this big, stay-home [ministry]; they all wanted to be on the road, getting the excitement of it . . . ."(111)
As a result of this growing desire to do traveling evangelism, the decision was made to divide the ministry into three "semi-autonomous" groups that would travel during the summer, "and at the end of the summer come back and regroup in Milwaukee."(112) The first of these groups was to be a missionary venture to Europe. Using contacts that he had with the Full Gospel Business Men's Association, Palosaari arranged to take thirty people overseas to Scandinavia. After completing work in Sweden, however, a group of business men in Finland persuaded them to stay for an additional month, doing street witnessing. The group, which came to be known as Jesus People Europe, travelled through Germany, Belgium, and Holland. The group eventually came in contact with David Hoyt and Russ Griggs in the late fall of 1972. These two persons had been prominent youth evangelists before becoming associated with the Children of God; when the Jesus People Europe came into contact with them in Holland, they both had recently finished disassociating themselves with the Children of God movement. They were able to put the Jesus People Europe in contact with Kenneth Frampton in England, who had also recently disaffiliated with the Children.
In London the group set up another ministry, called "Outreach for Jesus," patterned on the Milwaukee community; this lasted from the Fall of 1972 to the time that the group disbanded in 1975. During their three-year existence, the group did street witnessing, published a newspaper called Everyman,(113) and had a Christian rock group, "Sheep." Trouble began to develop when Palosaari decided to stage a rock theater piece, "Lonesome Stone." My informant evaluated it as, "starting out as a good idea, but it ended up in almost an absurd state. As an outreach, the bottom dropped off . . . " as the focus changed from missionary outreach to "the artistically relevant."(114) Another problem was "a lack of pastoral stability and organization."(115) Returning to the United States, some of the members continued trying to put on performances of "Lonesome Stone"; however, the group soon disbanded permanently. Several of the Jesus People Europe members eventually ended up joining Jesus People USA.(116)
What happened to the members of Jesus People Milwaukee who remained in the United States? Approximately ten members joined a commune in Duluth, Minnesota.(117) A second group of approximately thirty, led by John Herrin, headed southward to Florida. This group was Jesus People USA, and will be dealt with in greater detail below. Approximately fifty followed Bill Lowery, a travelling tent evangelist.(118) The remainder of the group was supposed to maintain the discipleship training school; however, this effort was short-lived:
That lasted less than a year. A man [Frank Bass], who had been affiliated with Youth for Christ up in Duluth became charismatic during the revival time we were up there, moved down and joined us. And he was left with the youngest and the weirdest group of people out of the Milwaukee [group], and it just didn't fly. . . I don't think he was experienced. I think it was a little bit of a shame that he was left in charge, because here's a guy who just moved out of a family with three kids, working for Youth for Christ, and all of a sudden thrown in a situation where he had to watch over thirty spiritually spooky, weirded [sic], unstable people.(119)
Other factors contributed to the demise of the group as well. Even before Palosaari left for Europe with his group, his increasing absence from the community while carrying on evangelistic travels was causing strain in the community. While the group was run by his appointed, and thereby legitimated, successors while he was away, they apparently lacked both Palosaari's charisma and his financial contacts with the Full Gospel Business Men's Association.(120) While the hierarchy was successfully maintained, membership turnover became increasingly apparent.
A third factor, perhaps hinted at in Henry Hwang's statement above, was that Jesus People Milwaukee was attracting converts and proselytes that were significantly different from the converts that joined early in the commune's existence. The earlier converts were more likely to have experienced a "serious personal crisis" recently before first coming in contact with the Jesus People Milwaukee group.(121) The original plan to regroup at the end of the summer was unsuccessful.
When everybody went out, nobody wanted to come back. Everybody wanted their own ministry; everybody wanted their own team. Nobody wanted to come back to Milwaukee and be accountable to each other, [of] the three leaders.(122)
The demise of the parent organization left a number of debts that Palosaari later vowed to repay.(123)
As mentioned above, John Herrin and a group of thirty traveled south, after holding successful rallies in Illinois and Wisconsin. After passing through Kentucky, West Virginia, and Virginia, the group travelled along the East coast. This group called itself Jesus People USA, and intended to "evangelize the United States."(124) While Henry Hwang is of the opinion that the groups had originally intended to travel only for the summer, it appears that by the time the group reached Florida there was present the intent to organize a permanent base for evangelism.(125) The group traveled in a "caravan" composed of a red school bus and three cars, and funded itself through donations and the rock group, which changed its name to "Resurrection Band" and had the motto of, "Music to Wake the Dead." Accommodations were provided by various churches and "whoever would put us up."(126)
In Jacksonville, Florida, the group met a Young Life pastor whose group ran a coffee house and church. He was leaving to work at a summer camp for a month, and let the Jesus People(127) take care of the facilities during this time. In September of 1972 the group travelled to Gainesville; it was thought that, being a college town, Gainesville would be ideal for evangelism. However, the group stayed there only until December:
Really, it was a real dry place . . . You could witness all day on the college campus, and it seemed like hardly anybody would get saved. We went to all the charismatic prayer meetings and everything . . . We did gain some nice members in Florida, though, [including] a couple of guys now on the Council . . .(128)
The Jesus People decided to return home to the Milwaukee area for Christmas,(129) with the intention of returning to an empty church building in Florida which had been promised to the group.(130) However, upon returning to the North, the group began to receive numerous invitations for the band to play in the Milwaukee area, in Illinois, and in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Evangelistic efforts were also successful:
When we were up there, so many people got saved . . . we would stay for a week in a town, playing every night at a high school, witnessing in the street and having classes, then after the concert talking to the people that had gotten saved . . . We realized, "Boy, this is the place to be! The Bible belt didn't need any evangelism, but up here the people are really open."(131)
By this time, the members of the group were growing tired of the ministry's continual travelling. The group began looking at Chicago as a potential home, because of its central location,(132) and because the Jesus People felt "burdened by the need of the city."(133) The decision to locate in Chicago was made out of a sense of obedience to God rather than out of any personal desire to live in the area; most of the group was composed of "nature lovers . . . and hippies that wanted to live out in the woods."(134)
After arriving in the city, the group began looking for a place to live. Eventually, they moved into Faith Tabernacle, a church that had once hosted the group during the Milwaukee period. Though the Jesus People had originally intended to stay for a period of only two weeks, they ultimately stayed for two years, with girls living in the church basement, males staying in the sanctuary, and the few married couples living in church school rooms when not in use. This situation was facilitated by the fact that the church building was large but at the time overall attendance was very low, to the point that the church was on the verge of closing.(135) Soon after moving into Faith Tabernacle, the group was joined by Denny and Lou Cadieux and their family. Cadieux and his wife had wanted to join the group for some time but had not been able to, as their children were quite young. Once the Jesus People had settled into the church, however, the Cadieux's moved in and brought their family printing business with them, including their hot-metal printing press. The press was primarily utilized to print tracts and to continue the printing of the group's magazine, Cornerstone, a small newspaper which had been produced from the beginning of the journey as a means for disseminating information about the group while travelling. The business also brought in a small amount of money; however, the group survived mainly through donations of food and contributions from the magazine and the band, freedom from rent or taxes, and through money and possessions donated to the group by new members upon joining.(136)
As the number of Jesus People USA members increased, the church gradually began to pressure the group to find somewhere else to live.(137) The Jesus people had been searching for a suitable place since arriving in Chicago, but without success. The group was finally able to purchase a "six flat," or an apartment building containing six, four bedroom units, in a middle-class residential neighborhood. This was the "Paulina House," so-named because of the street location. Here the group resided from early 1975 to mid-1979.(138) The building had a three-car garage that was turned into a recording studio for the band.
Shortly before moving from the church, the group had begun organizing its first "real" business.(139) Like many aspects of the Jesus People's activities, it began almost by chance; the group helped persons living on a low or limited income move their belongings when they were evicted. Word spread about this activity and people began to want to hire the group for moving on a retail basis. The Jesus People had plenty of available labor and were willing to undertake such work. As the group had only a small truck or a station wagon available with which to move people, however, the movers began suggesting to potential clients that they pay for the rental of a truck for the group to use, and the client could give the group a small donation for their services. A moving company evolved, which became licensed in 1979 at the suggestion of the Illinois Commerce Commission,(140) thus chartering "J. P. Movers." Another very early business venture that developed soon afterwards was J. P. Painters, organized in 1975.(141) After the move to the Paulina residence, two other business ventures developed; J. P. Graphics, a spin off from the magazine, and J. P. Contracting. The latter business began to do drywall work, carpentry, general construction, and small renovations.(142)
Probably the most significant event to occur during the time at the Paulina Street residence was loss of the founder, John Herrin, as a result of persistent problems of "immorality" and his refusal to accept outside counseling to deal with this problem.(143) As a result, he was expelled from the group and his wife sued for divorce.
Many communes soon disband after the loss of the charismatic founder-leader. The Jesus People, however, had a well entrenched and accepted bureaucracy that had been in place since the Milwaukee period and was thus able to adapt to the crisis with relative ease. The council of elders, which until that point had been dominated by Herrin, became the decision making body; it was also expanded to a total of four by the promotion of two of the deacons to elder status.(144) No members were lost, and almost all of the members said they thought "it was a good thing because the group was much closer and felt like a family now."(145)
Another change in the group was increased specialization of tasks and the introduction of weekly "leadership classes,"(146) one for men and one for women. The purpose of these groups was to provide an opportunity for the discussion of personal problems so that all could "share in discussing solutions and in applying them to their own lives."(147) Further growth of the community caused these meetings to be supplemented by "family meetings." A similar procedure was instituted at the weekly meetings of the entire group; part of the time the group divided into "mini-body meetings" to facilitate individual participation.(148)
A third change that happened during this time was a merger that took place with another, smaller commune. Referred to today by the Jesus People community as "Southside," this commune began in 1975 as a black Bible study group called "New Life Fellowship." A number of members of the group desired to "serve the Lord full time."(149) In 1976 the group came in contact with Jesus People USA, and as a result were inspired to organize their own communal group. After a year and a half, however, most of the group "felt that God wanted us to merge with the Jesus People,"(150) with whom they had frequently been in contact. This took place in 1978, and resulted in the Jesus People gaining about eighteen to twenty members.(151)
The organization changed in other ways as well. The group had been holding its religious services ("Radical Christian Worship") for some time in a storefront church. Plans to redevelop the site for other purposes caused the group to acquire a building that had formerly been a Methodist church. In 1977, the group acquired 230 acres of rural, undeveloped land by taking over payments;(152) by 1979 the group had completed building a lodge on the land.(153)
In 1979 Jesus People USA became affiliated with a group of approximately eight other churches, the "Full Gospel Churches in Christ." This affiliation was viewed more as a legal convenience. Member churches were independent of each other; the main doctrinal requirement was affirmation of what the Jesus People considered to be a "real basic statement of faith."(154)
In April of 1979, the Jesus People purchased "Malden," a complex composed of an old hotel and a small apartment house: the Malden building proper, and the smaller, adjoining Annex. The community finished the move several months later, and the Paulina house was subdivided and sold as condominiums. Apparently the church building was sold during this time as well, as the worship services moved first to the Paulina house and then to the Malden residence. The acquisition of the Malden building was especially beneficial for the community, as it contained an industrial kitchen that would eventually see much use.
While the entire community continued to grow and develop during this time period, one may suggest that the move from Paulina to Malden marked one of the most significant events in the history of the community. The Jesus People had moved from a middle-class neighborhood(155) to a much poorer, racially mixed area of "Uptown," a region riddled with gang violence and a variety of social problems.(156) The Cornerstone issue published immediately after the move states, "Uptown is considered the poor ghetto of the North side. But moving here is like coming home in our hearts."(157) One member elaborated on this theme, saying that after the move,
I really feel my witnessing took on more of a depth. No longer were we going to just pass out tracts, [but also we would] integrate ourselves more into society and show people Christianity through our lives on a day-to-day basis.(158)
The decade of the 1980's saw continued growth(159) and diversification of the community. A third apartment building ("Maggie") was purchased in 1981, followed by the Wilson building in 1984 and the condemned Leland building in 1986. The first of these was put to use primarily as housing for married couples, while the Wilson building came to house the Cornerstone magazine staff and facilities, along with several other of the Jesus People's outreaches and businesses. The Leland building came to house most of the single male members of the community.(160)
In 1988 yet another apartment complex was purchased, the Greystone building. This building was occupied by tenants at the time of the purchase; the Jesus People renovated the building and, as tenants gradually move out, they are replaced either by married couples in the commune or by people from the surrounding Uptown neighborhood. Preference is given to single parents.
Lastly, in 1989, the commune, with the aid of the Evangelical Covenant Church and the City of Chicago, purchased the Clifton building. This unit now serves as a transitional shelter for homeless women and children in the Chicago area.(161)
Growth and diversification also took place among the group's businesses as personal interests of members gradually evolved into marketable services,as people joined that had particular skills,(162) and as members were forced to acquire knowledge of trades for the needs of the community. Tone Zone, the commune's state-of-the-art recording studio, was created in 1982 to reduce costs for the Rez Band's recording ventures.(163) In a similar manner, GRR Records, the commune's own record label, came about to aid in the production and marketing of Rez and other in-house musical groups. Another Rez-derived business of very recent origin is Belly Acres, which produces silk-screened clothing with avant-garde Christian art and slogans. This group, now trying to break into the lucrative T-shirt market, began by producing clothing to sell at Rez Band concerts.
A similar pattern of development is found in the case of J. P. Roofing, which also began in 1982. From this venture evolved a roofing supply house and sheet metal shop in 1986 and an insulation company in 1988. From J. P. Contracting came Creative Wood Design, in 1988; this enterprise specializes in custom cabinet work and bookshelves.
Three other businesses have begun in the community since 1988. One of these, Friar's Printing, is a commercial expansion of the community's extensive in-house printing activities. It is a descendant of the printing business that was maintained by the commune during its early years in Chicago. Another enterprise that is completely new to the community is the Jesus People's fashion label, "Worn Again." This business is unusual in that it was conceived and is run by women in the community. The business evolved from an idea of selling tie-died clothing at the commune's annual Jesus festivals.(164) The venture was successful enough that the elders suggested that the business be continued as a mail-order business, marketing products through the Jesus People's publication, Cornerstone. The business has continued to grow, and has expanded its catalog to include other somewhat avant-garde and progressive clothing items manufactured both in the community and imported from out of the country.(165)
Related to this business is the community's third recent venture, a boutique. This store serves as an outlet for Worn Again's clothes, as well as selling skateboards, antiques, and jewelry and crafts produced by the community. The boutique is actually a metamorphosis of another community enterprise and outreach, a thrift store that had been opened to provide an avenue for the distribution of excess amounts of clothing donated to the community.(166)
Parallel with the physical and economic growth of the community, and vastly more important in terms of the group's purpose, was the increasing number and depth of the Jesus People's missionary outreaches. When the group arrived in Chicago, these outreaches appear to have consisted primarily of a Christian rock and roll band, extensive street evangelism and witnessing, invitations to Bible studies and worship services, and a discipleship training school.(167) These were supplemented by various tracts and flyers, and Cornerstone.(168) With the move to Uptown, however, the group was confronted not only with the questions about individual sin, personal salvation, and individual morality, but also with questions of social evil, injustice, and hardship.
The Jesus People met these challenges with a combination of naivete and practicality, frequently looking to the Christian scriptures as a guide. An example of this is found in the case of the homeless. One member recalled,
. . . I think that we started [sheltering the homeless] just because our neighbors would sometimes be evicted and need a place to stay. . . . Through the years, more and more the Department of Human Services has, in a pinch, called us and said, "Oh, do you have a place? Could you house this person?"(169)
The group first began unofficially housing people in 1981;(170) people taken in by the Jesus People would then be housed in the commune itself, sleeping in the beds of people who were away on vacation. Inevitably, requests for shelter eventually exceeded the number of empty beds available. In the winter of 1988,
. . . DHS [Department of Human Services] was calling more and more, and there were more and more families and more single people who needed a place to stay. We just said, "We can't fit everybody up here; we can't even fit ourselves!"(171)
Having run out of room on the residential floors, the commune began using its dining room and lobby to shelter persons in need. The situation became more acute when most of the city-run shelters closed for the winter that March:
. . . [W]e didn't [close]! So . . . every night at ten o'clock, we'd let all the women and kids stay in the dining room. And then every morning, because we couldn't send them out in the cold--because you're talking about [people with] new-born babies, little kids, with no place to go--they would stay in our lobby. And for a whole year we did that, and it really got crazy. . . To the best of our ability, we would not turn people away. That's one of our big things.(172)
The people were being housed in a room that was also used to serve four meals a day (three for community residents and one to the underprivileged), as well as being used for various community meetings and worship services throughout the week. These problems were mitigated in December of 1989 with the opening of the transitional shelter in the Clifton building, the purchase of which was allowed by a mortgage made available through the Evangelical Covenant Church and through a grant from the city of Chicago.
The feeding program, alluded to above, developed in a somewhat similar manner. The Paulina house community had taken food to distribute in Uptown "when there was an excess of food."(173) However, when the community actually moved to Uptown,
. . . [P]eople started knocking on our door, asking if they could share a meal with us. And at dinner time people would come over that were hungry, because we had been passing out bread to them [earlier] . . . Eventually, it became so crowded downstairs that the community couldn't eat . . . .(174)
At the guests' suggestion, the visitors began being served at a different time from the community, in order to make more efficient use of space. As the program became known around the neighborhood, "two tables [of guests] quickly became ten tables. Now it is twenty to thirty tables."(175)
Other outreach programs developed as well. One of these was a jail ministry that began in 1980. Since at that time only major denominations were allowed to be assistant chaplains, a special arrangement was worked out through the "Light Bearers" program. This arrangement worked well because it allowed the Jesus People USA volunteers to be exempted from some of the requirements normally placed upon "official" chaplains, such as a requirement to see each inmate a certain amount of time. As a result of both this and the fact that the commune was able to support several persons to do full-time work at the jail, the Jesus People volunteers were able to build deeper relationships with the inmates than either the staff chaplain or part-time volunteers from other religious groups.
The Jesus People found the jail to be "a fertile ground for the Gospel."(176) Volunteers also did social work as well as strictly religious functions, carrying messages to and from relatives of those detained and finding people in the surrounding community to act as character witnesses. At times commune members themselves would appear before a judge to vouch for a person's character, and in some cases prisoners were released into the custody of the Jesus People on probation.(177)
Another ministry that developed was the Crisis Pregnancy Center (CPC), a pro-life agency that tries to aid women with unexpected pregnancies. This developed from a request in 1980 for the community to set up a WIC screening clinic. This program only lasted a few months because the community members participating in the project "didn't realize that we were supposed to go out and canvass, going out and pulling the people in . . ." However, through participation in the program the Jesus People developed
. . . a core of ten to fifteen girls that had met lots of families in the neighborhood. After that we went door-to-door in the neighborhood and met people, and developed relationships with families . . . Really, the CPC developed out of that philosophy of getting involved in people's lives, . . . imparting our love for the Lord in regular, everyday ways.(178)
Prior to this, the Jesus People had generally opposed abortion except to save the life of the mother; the community felt that "Scripture does teach the sanctity of human life from conception on."(179) However, as a result of their interaction with the neighboring community, the commune began to realize that
. . . if the church is going to take any kind of a position against abortion, then it better be ready with some kind of action: some kind of solid support for the women who we've talked out of the abortion. . . . It's got to be real stuff, too . . . [including] interims of long-term support for single parents . . . some real willingness to put yourself out, open your own home, put what ever you can into supporting her.(180)
Part of these needs were to by met be the CPC in the form of initial counselling and, later, provision of information about the care of infants and children. The agency also provides infant formula, baby food, cribs, and other physical necessities. At present the Jesus People's CPC handles about sixty clients per month.
An overlapping outreach is that of "Jesus People Low Income Housing," an outreach begun in 1987 in an attempt to partially compensate for escalating prices in the Uptown area caused by land speculation, development, and gentrification. The Greystone building, mentioned above, was purchased and renovated primarily for this purpose; at present the building contains twenty-one units that are let at rates substantially lower than most of the surrounding complexes.(181) While the old tenants were not displaced, strong preference is given to single women with children in the selection of new tenants. At present the community is seeking to buy another building in order to move the Jesus People out of the portion of the Greystone building that they now use, as well as to house the single male community members presently occupying the Leland building. At that point Leland will also be renovated and converted into twenty-one more units of low-income housing.
Similar concerns motivated the community to become involved in politics at a local level, at least on a few issues. Prior to this the community's strongly sectarian bias had prevented the development of a community-wide political consciousness; the local alderman had generally responded to the commune's activities favorably. This politically apathetic attitude was reevaluated when the Uptown region was declared a historical district, with the intention of facilitating redevelopment of the area. Such activities had the potential to "gentrify" the area and close off Chicago's traditional "port of entry for poor Whites and Asians," as well as promoting overcrowding as affordable housing units were lost.(182)
The consequences of the redevelopment plan became apparent to the Jesus People when a group of displaced Laotian and Cambodian refugee immigrant families marched on the alderman's residence, in protest of dramatic rises in rent costs and evictions. The commune's members, after investigating the cause of the commotion, joined the protest.(183) The actions of the alderman were investigated, leading the commune members to conclude, "We had been taken."(184) The commune members registered and then voted in a block, casting the deciding votes that resulted in the alderman's being replaced by a candidate running on an affordable housing political platform. The commune now participates in the Organization on Housing and Development in Uptown.
While Jesus People USA is involved in a large number of socially oriented ministries, the original ministry activities have been preserved and in most cases revised and expanded. The Discipleship Training School has been replaced by the visitation program where people come and stay and participate in the community for varying periods of time.(185) The community also allows internships in which a person interested in a particular area, such as shelter work or magazine production, can live in community and be assured of gaining experience in a particular area.(186) Street witnessing and distribution of tracts are still carried out, especially by the younger members.(187)
Similarly, charismatic church services are still held each Sunday, and the commune's rock group continues to perform during the services when members are not on tour. The number of pastors has grown from two to nine, with each presiding over a particular area of activity such as finances, community outreach, or publications. A drama troupe, in existence since the early days of the community, continues to stage productions,(188) and a twenty-four hour prayer, crisis, and counselling hot line continues to be maintained.
One of these "original" outreaches deserves special mention both because of its central role to, and its long term presence in, the community. This is the Jesus People's magazine, Cornerstone. This magazine had started as a small newpaper while the Jesus people were still a part of the greater Jesus People Milwaukee group, and was distributed in towns which the group passed through. Intended primarily to be a brief introduction to the Jesus People, the somewhat crudely produced paper usually contained a brief history of, and pictures from, the group's travels, a sermon by John Herrin, testimonials by members of the group, and occasional cartoons.
With the passage of time the publication became more refined; by the time the group settled in Chicago, the number of pages had increased and the publication's format was of tabloid proportions. Print and production quality had increased considerably. More complex theological topics were being addressed by the paper as well; issues contained articles, some with footnotes, dealing with questions such as evidence for the resurrection of Jesus(189) and the virgin birth of Christ,(190) the validity of alternative religious movements,(191) Christian ethics,(192) as well as a variety of other issues of a religious nature. By 1974 the paper began using color. Art work became increasingly sophisticated, fiction pieces were added, and broader social issues began to be addressed.(193) Immediately after the move from Paulina to Malden in 1979, Cornerstone changed to a magazine format. This has continued to the present day, with the publication now being printed in four colors on glossy paper stock in an over-size magazine format.(194) The magazine has continued to expand its scope, running articles on controversial topics such as child abuse,(195) elder abuse,(196) and incest.(197) Interviews with secular artists and figures have become fairly common,(198) and review essays and articles are printed on topics unusual for a magazine intended primarily for Christian youth. Examples of the last include articles about Catholic church history,(199) about the work of novelist Flannery O'Connor,(200) and about the philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.(201)
Another major outreach of the community is the annual Jesus festival, also named "Cornerstone." This event is considered to be one of the high points of the year and involves the entire community. First beginning in 1984, the festival came about as a result of community members feeling that many of the festivals were musically "much too straight" and "weren't really geared to the younger kids."(202) Christian rock music tended to be either excluded from the program or else relegated to a minor role. Another concern was that the teaching at these festivals was scattered and lacking in coherence, as well as being overly preoccupied with trendy issues.
One minute they had Joni Eareckson Tada up there talking about what God taught her through her handicaps, and immediately after that the artist that followed her disclaimed everything that she said, saying that God wanted to heal us all by faith. . . . We felt that that kind of approach to teaching really confused young people more that it helped.
. . . [W]e wanted to do music that we ourselves would enjoy going to, and secondly concentrate more on the major issues of Christianity, the ideas of discipleship and what does that mean in terms of approaching today's issues, rather than the fringe . . . [and] what's most popular, what's most "in". . . .(203)
After losing money for four years,(204) the festival broke even for the first time in 1989. The "Cornerstone '90" festival included a wide range of activities, including music, a visual arts center, a counseling center, a skateboard exhibition, Christian merchandise, and a large number of seminars on a variety of topics.
It is important to realize that the business ventures and the missionary outoutreaches of the Jesus People overlap considerably. The workers on the various money-making enterprises work to support the activities of the ministry as much as if not more than they work to provide for themselves and their famililies. This order of priorities is seen in the allocation of effort in the community: of the 450 to 475 persons present, only about 80 or 90 work in the more secular professions. Salaries from these jobs are all placed in the common fund. Additionally, the various arms of the ministry also work to support each other; for example, if the magazine is running particularly short of funds, some of the magazine staff may work temporarily for the roofing company. On the other hand, many of the persons who are primarily engaged in trades contribute time to the work of the ministry; the construction and painting crews contributed extensively in the renovation of the Clifton shelter building.
Indeed, the businesses often consider themselves to be a direct form of ministry and witnessing, as these enterprises frequently come into contact with the outside world. One employee described the boutique as being both an enterprise and an outreach, as workers could share the Gospel with customers as they got to know them. A similar sentiment was expressed by the person in charge of the moving company:
Moving became a business where we could make money, but it was also a source of income for us. With the moving as a business we would still sit with the customer afterwards and just share the Gospel with them. [Today] a lot of people are sophisticated and they don't want that, but if they are open, if they start talking, if they are congenial, we just share what the Lord is doing with us . . . They are really curious as to how we can be such happy people while we're moving a sofa bed, how we can be out there having fun. It's always amazed our clients, and they continue to call us back . . . They wany to know why we are different, and we just share what the Lord has done for our lives. . .(205)
Another example of the overlap between business and spirituality is found in the Jesus People's newly-instigated Galilee program. This is a day-labor service that hires up to twelve people a day from the surrounding community on a day-labor basis. This provides labor for the commune in occasional labor-intensive undertakings, while providing jobs and training to the temporarily unemployed and the unskilled. Occasionally, the day workers will bring their families to the church on Sunday--an occurrence thought by the community to be a "double reward."(206)
When asked more specifically about the monetary state of the commune, the reply was consistent. Paraphrasing one of the ministers, "It's not whether we're in the red or the black, but what shade of red the ink is."(207) Another community member stated,
We're constantly on the edge. Living in the community is like living in a miracle on the edge of a disaster [laughs]. We sometimes live from paycheck to paycheck. . . . Fortunately, our paycheck is a lot bigger--but our debts are alot bigger [too]. We pay $100,000 a year in phone bills alone . . . Sometimes we just can't make it and we have our water and electricity cut off.(208)
Though the commune is ninety to ninety-five percent self-supporting, the commune members do make use of a sliding-scale clinic and the city's socialized medical system, as members cannot afford private medical insurance.(209) Commune members, however, generally feel that this is somewhat balanced by the social work that the community performs.
In spite of debt and a chronic shortage of funds, the community continues to expand its ministries. One business manager stated,
[We] always have more plans than money, but somehow or another we scrape by. We're still here eighteen years later--usually a little broke.(210)
Up until this point, the main aspects of Jesus People USA to be examined have been origin, history, organization, and assets. We now turn to the beliefs held by members of the group, an acquaintance with which is essential to understand the behavior of the commune. These beliefs are summarized in a statement of faith found in a tract that the group issues, Meet Our Family.(211) This statement asserts that:
1. the group believes that "the Bible is the uniquely inspired and inerrant Word of God and is fully binding on all matters of faith, doctrine, and practice." The commune also accepts the Chicago Statement of Biblical Inerrancy.(212)
2. The doctrine of the Trinity is strongly affirmed.
3. Members "believe in the preexistence and full deity of the Lord Jesus Christ, who through the Incarnation became Man without ceasing to be God, . . . fully human and fully divine, in one person."
4. The group believes in "the historic Virgin Birth of Jesus, the prophesied Messiah of the Old Testament, His sinless life, His death on the cross for our sins, His bodily resurrection from the dead, and His ascension into Heaven . . ."
5. Members hold that "as a result of the historic, space- time Fall in the Garden of Eden, man became a sinner and hopelessly separated from God; that Jesus Christ is the only provision for atonement for sin and reconciliation to God; that without the new birth no man will see the kingdom of God, and because of God's grace, not his own works, man is justified by faith alone in the finished work of Christ; and that on the Coming Day of Judgement all men will be resurrected bodily--the saved to enjoy eternal life with God, and the unsaved to face an eternal, righteous punishment in Hell."
6. The Jesus People "believe in and practice baptism by immersion, and we celebrate the Lord's Supper."
7. The group believes in the "Second coming of Jesus Christ, in which he will personally and visibly return from Heaven to judge the living and the dead, and although no man can know the day, hour, or year, His return is imminent."
8. Members believe in "the ministry of the Holy Spirit, through whom all believers are justified, regenerated, and sanctified, Who is given to the Church to produce both fruit and gifts in its members, and that He makes it possible for a person who believes in Christ to live a godly life in this present fallen world."
9. Commune members "believe that all Christians are indwelt by the Holy Spirit upon their regeneration, and that the gifts of the Holy Spirit are valid for today's church."
10. The community believes in "the spiritual unity of all true believers in Christ . . . ."
These beliefs are central to the life in the community, serving both as doctrine and as a means of self-definition for both the group and its constituent members. It is obvious that these beliefs have been influenced by the conservative evangelical tradition, as well as by Pentecostalism.(213) Emphasis is placed upon having a personal relationship with Jesus, who is regarded to be not only the second person of the Trinity, but "also as a living person with whom one can interact."(214) God is not conceived of as an impersonal force, but rather in an anthropomorphic sense; God has "thoughts, emotions, and goals." Furthermore, it has been noted that when Jesus people pray, "it is often not clear whether they are addressing God or Jesus, and there is a tendency to switch back and forth between the two."(215)
This personal relationship with God (made possible through the human and divine Jesus) is paramount in the faith of the Jesus People, and is considered to be essential for salvation. In addition to belief in a personal God, the group also believes in the existence of a personal Satan; while God loves all men and women as his children and desires each of them to live with Him in Heaven after they die, Satan, out of pride and rebellion, wants the opposite: that individuals should follow him to destruction and eternal torment in Hell. The Jesus People also believe that a person, after being "saved," can "backslide" and thus lose his or her salvation; Satan actively tries to encourage this through various trials and temptations. Only through "dying to self," where a person abandons his or her selfish personal desires and comes to care only for the things of God, can a person be truly resistant to such demonic attacks.(216) However, all people must make a decision to follow either God (good) or Satan (evil); not making a choice is considered by the Jesus People to be by default a choice for evil.(217)
It is important to note, however, that the group strongly emphasizes concrete and graphic aspects of belief; this will be dealt with in more detail later. Suffice it to say here that a very strong emphasis is placed upon the lived Christian life, which includes Bible study, prayer, witnessing, helping others, and striving (with the help of the Holy Spirit) to live honestly and modestly. More abstract notions of doctrine are less emphasized. An example of this is found in the case of the sacraments. In the case of baptism, members agree that a person, once saved, ought to be baptized. This should be done by immersion if possible. However, the exact reason that one should be baptized is considerably less clear; when members were asked, one member stated that "Baptism is viewed as an outward expression of an inward work." Another said simply, "It's between you and the Lord."(218) Further prompting of the latter person elicited the response, "Baptism is an experience of, like [saying], "Hey, I want to serve the Lord. . . . I believe that it is a surrender of your heart." A similar attitude is found with method of baptism: anybody in the community can baptize. Furthermore, a person can be baptized more than once, if they so desire. One person said,
If you were baptized and you didn't feel that you were walking with the Lord [and] you weren't living right, and you wanted to make a statement before other people [of] "I am dying from my old life [and] living for the Lord," great. But there's no rule about anything, except that we would ask that people that have never been baptized before and have just come to salvation, [we would] try to explain baptism to them. . . . We just believe that it is one of the things that the Lord commands us to do.(219)
This attitude carries over into the understanding of communion, which is practiced only a few times a year in order to avoid excessive ritualism. Communion is viewed as a "representation," lacking any sort of salvific power in and of itself.
Thus, for the Jesus People, emphasis of the sacraments is subordinated to the issue of personal holiness. This point was elucidated by one of the members quoted earlier:
Is the person who gets a total submersion where his hand sticks out of the water, or a person [who] never gets baptized once in his life--is one more of a Christian than the other? Is one more of a member of the Church than the other? No. We believe that it's got to be a personal thing between you and Jesus. All along the way, your walk with the Lord, involving the Gifts [of the Spirit], involving baptism, involving any of the sacraments and stuff, has got to be between you and Jesus. And that is ultimately where it's at.(220)
This contrast between an ostensibly rigid evangelical doctrine on the one hand, and a somewhat subjective, experiential faith on the other, points to implicit theological beliefs that are not codified in the formal doctrine of the group. In the matter of sacraments, we see the group's great interest in maintaining a sense of balance. Gordon, when he was investigating the group during the latter half of the 1970's, noted the apparent contrast between the group's emphasis on absolutes and its coexistent interest in moderation:
The Jesus People see much of reality in terms of dichotomies: God and Satan, good and evil, saved and unsaved, spiritual and natural, and so on. These categories are irreconcilable and no middle or neutral ground between them is regarded as possible . . . In contrast to this way of thinking, balance as the existence of two alternatives seeks a middle path which combines the two alternatives. . . . Balances are often referred to include balancing structure and spontaneity, submission and love, criticism and praise, teaching and work, and recreation and work.(221)
Gordon goes on to cite specific examples of this principle in action. One of these is the case of Biblical interpretation:
Most Jesus People I have met are aware that much of the Bible is ambiguous and requires interpretation, that context is crucial to understanding passages, that the Bible does not contain all answers (although it does contain all necessary answers), and that careful study of the Bible and commentaries is necessary for full understanding.(222)
Other cases in which the group attempted to achieve balance were in the cases of witnessing, which was not to be excessively aggressive, and in the case of worship and charismatic experience, which, while recognized and encouraged, were not to be excessive. These concerns prevail to the present day.(223)
The result of this seemingly eclectic collection of attitudes, beliefs and tenets is a doctrinal system that can be expanded and occasionally modified if necessary. A good example of this is found in the case of the issues of abortion and civil disobedience. While the commune has always been pro-life(224) except in the event of the potential loss of the life of the mother,(225) this stance became more formalized with the passage of time--that life begins at conception and, as a result, abortion came to be regarded by the community as a form of legalized murder.(226) This caused a conflict within the community. On the one hand, the State is regarded as a divinely-ordained institution to be obeyed. On the other hand, the law resulted in the loss of several thousand lives per day.
A lively debate then developed within the community, extending all the way to the council, over the question of obedience to civil law. Some felt that conventional legal means were the best way to go about rectifying the situation; others felt that a situation resulting in what was perceived as a flagrant loss of life called for acts of peaceful civil disobedience. After a number of spirited interchanges, some of which occurred between elders, a consensus was ultimately reached that the laws of God were to be placed above the laws of Man, and thus acts of peaceful civil disobedience(227) were allowable in certain situations. As a result, many members of the group participated in the "Operation Rescue" movement. The commune recognizes that its position is somewhat unusual; one of the council members stated that
People who would care for the poor are pro-choice; people who would be pro-life feel that the poor are just lazy. There's not a holistic looking at the Word of God.(228)
The faith and practice of the Jesus People--conservative, evangelical doctrine, emphasis on practical matters over abstract issues, need for a lived Christian life, perception of matters in terms of dichotomies, and interest in balance and moderation--is doubtlessly a result of the backgrounds from which many of the members come. One is thus led to ask the question, "What kind of person joins Jesus People USA?" The commune contains a tremendous diversity of people coming from all walks of life. Occasionally reasons are given such as escape from parental abuse, or parents sending the children to the commune because they are incorrigible at home, or the witness of friends; however, such specific reasons are as numerous as the members. Closer examination reveals that most of the members come from backgrounds that contain one or more of the following characteristics:(229)
1. A past involvement with drugs and alcohol, frequently with overtones of the occult, a libertine lifestyle, alienation, and desperation.(230)
. . . After five years in the drug scene which only led to despair and confusion, I gave up. One night with nowhere to turn I cried out to God.
I said, "God if you're real, please help me!"
One month later I met this girl, who is now my wife. She told me about Jesus.
Sometime later I asked Jesus Christ to come into my life and change me. What I experienced that day was a complete transformation of my life. . . .
Another person recounted a similar story:
I grew up with a "religious" background, but I saw the hypocrisy in the church and began to look at the fun and life that the world had to offer.
I started doing drugs and everything was supposedly beautiful. I thought I was free. It wasn't long before the scene turned into hate and everyone was ripping each other off. . . .
My girl friend and I visited the Jesus House in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The people there told me of the love and concern Jesus had for my life. I knew it was the truth and was ashamed for denying God. There was no purpose in running anymore.
I called out to Jesus and He saved both my girlfriend . . . and myself.
A similar testimony was given by a young woman:
In high school I was able to maintain a "normal" existence, except that I started probing into the occult, astrology, and soul projection. By the end of my senior year I had also delved into mescaline. I was living on a mixture of rock music, witchcraft, and dope.
I thought that if I went to college that I could get myself straightened out, but after a year I only found myself deeper into everything. I had gotten into cocaine, LSD, and any type of speed that I could get my hands on. Along with this, many boyfriends "came and went." I was really searching for love, but I couldn't find it in the things that the world had to offer . . .
The situation improved briefly after marriage to a young man with a similar background, but after six months the two were experiencing severe marital problems.
. . . [W]e heard about a free rock concert, so we went. It turned out to be Jesus rock by "Resurrection" and we rejected it. We decided that we were too smart to believe that Jesus Christ could possibly exist. However, one thing that we couldn't reject was the love that was pouring out of these people. Something really hit me in my heart.
A few nights later, we went back and decided to put our intellect aside and open up our hearts to see if Jesus was who He said he was. . . .(231)
It appears that the longer a member has been with the group, the more likely the member was once involved with heavy drugs or was an addict. Drug use was mentioned among a vast majority of the older members.(232)
2. A fairly recent conversion experience (or sudden, radical rediscovery of the remnants of one's traditional faith) soon before encountering the group for the first time. The commune then offers an avenue to deepen this burgeoning faith or to keep oneself from falling into temptation and backsliding.
I had a sense that I needed to do something vital with my Christianity, or I would probably not continue with it. I had no traditional roots in Christianity, and I sort of instinctively knew that the enthusiasm of my conversion would go away at some point, that if I really believed the gospel that I needed to do something with my life that . . . the gospel was an integral part of.
It was soon after I had become a Christian that I met the Jesus people . . . quite by accident, and eventually [I] really felt called to be a part of it.(233)
The latter case, that of rediscovery of some sort of prior faith, takes place after a long period of alienation from Christianity in general as a result of perceptions of hypocrisy within the church:
Being raised in a Lutheran church I had always heard that there was a God, but by the time I was sixteen, I dropped out of the church because of the hypocrisy that I could see in so many of the people there, including myself.(234)
Joining after a fairly recent salvation or "re-awakening" experience was mentioned less frequently than drug use; however, it too was mentioned mostly by members of the community that had lived there for a long period of time.
3. An interest in "community" and communal living. This interest is intriguing in that many of the older members give the impression of either taking communal life somewhat for granted or viewing it largely as a means to an end, while some of the younger members, especially those who are already practicing Christians, are attracted primarily because of the communal nature of the group.(235)
I always wanted to live with a lot of people. When I was younger I was always into communal lifestyles. I had friends who lived [at the Farm],(236) and I was planning on living there [before becoming a Christian].
Another person I spoke to had lived in a Kibbutz in Israel,(237) and several other of both the newer and the older members referred to experience in other communities.
A great number of times, however, this desire was expressed in more implicit terms:
. . . I was really desiring to do right with the Lord, but had not been able to do right. I didn't have a strong enough walk . . . I knew if I could be somewhere with other Christians, I could be supported by other Christians, that it would be a great help. And also that it would be in a place where people just live a Christian lifestyle . . . .
Another member said:
I graduated, got a job in a department, and strayed from the Lord, . . . [falling] back into some things I had in my past. And I really realized that, you know, I need believers around me. I need accountability.
One is tempted to infer that while the circumstances may have been different for the older and younger members,(238) the same motivating factors prevail: a need for companionship and an avoidance of loneliness and isolation, along with a need for structure.(239)
4. A wandering, searching nature; in a testimony from the early days of the ministry in Chicago, one of the members described himself as follows:
In eighteen years of searching for the truth, I looked for it in sex, dope, booze, intellectualism, humanitarianism, music, and even "religions."
But I found only fear, pain, bondage, and loneliness. Peace and truth are like doves that flutter away just when you think that you have hold of them.(240)
While a number of persons conveyed a sense of searching for something, this tended to be mentioned with other concerns in such a way as to make any sort of assessment difficult.(241)
5. An artistic nature. While this almost never came up in testimonials or interviews as a reason for joining, one cannot help but be struck by the number of artists, craftspersons, and musicians that the group attracts. The commune possesses a Christian rock and roll group, an Irish folk group, and a gospel choir, each of which has been or is in the process of producing records; several amateur musical groups are present as well.(242) Members, artists or not, also show a predilection for films, poetry, and classical literature; music is almost continuously present in the commune through persons with portable tape players.(243)
6. A desire to make an active Christian faith the centerpoint of one's existence and to submit the self to the will of God more fully. Often this is accompanied by a desire to serve the poor. In this case the person finds out about the Jesus People through their record albums, concerts, and magazine. For example, one member said:
I had heard about the community through the magazine, Cornerstone, and the band. When I was sixteen or seventeen I visited for a summer. . . A year later I joined. I grew up Baptist, and went to some nondenominational churches in junior high and high school. In the second semester of my first and only college year, I was really praying, "Lord, what do You want me to do with my life? . . . Whatever You want me to do, let me know; show me through whatever means you want me.
. . . He spoke to me one day, and said, "Go to Chicago." I called the next day and was here in two weeks.
This sentiment appears to be much more common to new arrivals than to the older members. This is doubtless due to the group's increased visibility and acceptability among "straight" Christians. Cornerstone, while still publishing challenging articles on controversial subjects, has adopted a more conventional, less "underground" format. Circulation has also increased to about 100,000. The Rez Band is now fairly well known, and Jesus rock in general is now quite common. As a result, the Jesus People now attract large numbers of Christians seeking for a deeper, more intense, and more vital faith, as opposed to only attracting the truly desperate.
7. A strong desire to change certain behavior patterns considered by the individual and the group to be anti-biblical, destructive, or both. For example, about twenty-five of the commune's members have chronic anger problems, for which there is a support group. Similar support groups exist for a number of other subgroups, such as persons struggling with pornography fixations or homosexuality.
Yeah, I had a big anger problem. I mean big league. But the one thing you learn in community--especially here--[if] you have problems, you deal with them. You deal with them then.
In a sense, this group might be considered to be the true heirs of the original Jesus movement; many come as a result of personal crisis and are willing to the point of desperation to break their ties with their former existence for the sake of salvation and personal healing. Though drugs are not mentioned as frequently in this context, reference to past drinking problems is common, as are feelings of alienation. One somewhat extreme but illustrative example of this is the case of a member of the community who is an ex-drug addict and an ex-homosexual, and who is dying of AIDS:
My sister . . . has been in the community for eighteen years. Of course, she was real religious and I was in the gay scene all my life, before I was saved. Her and I weren't close or anything at all. With my lifestyle, I figured that she pretty well condemned me . . . And then I was diagnosed with AIDS. . . Her and her husband came up to Minnesota to see me a few times. He talked me into coming and visiting. I came here for the Cornerstone festival . . . It was real neat because they weren't condemning me, which really made me feel good. I was saved the first visit, and it really changed my life.
All my life I had grown up thinking that because I was in the gay scene that God couldn't forgive me for that--in fact, I had a preacher tell me that. . . even if I quit and tried to change, it wouldn't make any difference. But [my sister and her husband] showed me a lot of love and read and showed me the scriptures. You know--told me I could be saved. That's what I really wanted and desired. And I really did--I was frightened of death. I knew that I had a terminal illness and that I wasn't going to live too long. So I was born again . . . And the peace that came over my body and my heart was just tremendous . . . I started witnessing to a lot of my gay friends . . . .
Prior to this particular interview, this person had said,
Knowing I needed the strength that comes from being around other believers . . . I moved to Jesus People USA. I don't know how long I have to live, but I want to live the rest of my days for the Lord.(244)
Very often, a number of these motivations will appear in the stories of the individuals. One twenty-seven year old woman and six-year resident in the commune told the following story:
I had graduated from college. I was working in a doctor's office; I was a phlebotomist by trade, and a paramedic as a volunteer . . . really, it was the weirdest thing. One day I decided I was going to leave. . . . [In Washington, D.C.] I met up with the CCNV,(245) and two months later I moved in. Really, I didn't know what homelessness was; I wasn't interested in politics. I was interested in community. . . . We ran a thousand-bed shelter . . . . On the side, because homelessness is a political issue at CCNV and nationwide, we did things like organize acts of civil disobedience, demonstrations, every day . . . .
This marked the beginning of her very prolific activity as a political activist. Soon afterward, she encountered a "born again" Christian.
He had long hair, and a whale on his shirt . . . He was different only because I lived in the same place with him, and that I knew that he didn't do drugs. I knew that he didn't swear around and yell and swear like the rest of us. He was different, but only if you lived with him . . . . [A]fter about two years, I said, "I want what you have." And he told me how to get it. . . . I became a born again Christian . . . I was sitting on my bed and said, "You know, God, You're probably out there. I don't really know what to do. I really don't know what to say; I feel like I should be doing or saying something, but here's what it is--I'm a mess. . . I need help, I know that I'm a major sinner, and I believe that Jesus Christ is alive and well and that he died on the cross for me."
. . . [I]t was almost six months later when I left, because I just couldn't stay and live the same lifestyle . . . And I started reading my Bible, and I saw that if you read the Bible, there are definite "do's" and "don'ts" in there . . . .
At this point she spent a year hitchhiking all over the country.
Eventually, I ended up in Omaha, Nebraska, of all places, in an upper-middle class Southern Baptist church, run by a man named Calvin Miller. . . . "Omaha" says it all. It was the weirdest thing in the world. Why did I end up here? Well, the Lord ordained it, but I don't know why. . . . I even thought at the moment, "If my friends could see me now--." Well, they weren't my friends, because they didn't want to be. . . . So that's where I learned the basics of Christianity. Before that I was just going on [saying], "Hey, wow, this is fun, hey, I love Jesus, peace," with no foundation.
. . . I stayed there for a while. I ended up leaving and coming back, I mean some more travelling. I was looking for community. I met the Christians in Vermont . . . . I never stayed at Sojourners, because they wouldn't let me. [Also] it had to be an inner city mission . . .
There [were] several Catholic Worker houses, one in Omaha, in which I lived for six months or so . . . They served the poor, but they weren't evangelistic at all.
After returning to Omaha and moving into the Catholic worker house, she continued searching for other communities to visit. Along with participating in the liturgies, she resumed attendance at the Baptist Church, doing homeless work, and demonstrating for various political causes. At one worship service, Miller referred briefly to a group of inner city missionaries in Chicago, who were serving the poor. He had met them at Cornerstone '84 festival.
So I went up after the service [and said], "Tell me about these--Jesus People." He said, "Well, they're right-on Christians, but they look a little funny." I thought that was great--[the Baptist congregation] thought I looked a little funny!
. . . I finally got my hands on a Cornerstone and called the number, and I said, "Hi--I'm coming to visit . . . I mean, I'm moving in!" I came here with full knowledge of my staying, because they had managed to send me a Cornerstone in the mail, and I read it, and I knew I was staying.
This story, told by a moderately long-term resident of the community, illustrates how many of the members come to the community for a variety of reasons. In this case, we see a desire to change parts of one's lifestyle, a conversion experience, a wandering nature, and perhaps most of all, a need for community. The strong predilection for political activity, the member's apparently boundless energy, and the lack of reference to parents appears to be idiosyncratic to this individual.
We are now ready to ask the question of what happens to a person after he or she arrives at the community. Most people appear to arrive for a visit (if from out of town, as between half and two-thirds of the members are), go home, and then write to the commune expressing a desire to commit to the community for a period of anywhere from a few months to, preferably, a year.(246) Once a person has arrived either to visit or to live, he or she is generally designated as an "available brother" or as an "available sister." These persons are then assigned to various unskilled tasks around the community, usually around other people.(247) Women, for example, frequently work in the shelter, while men generally are assigned to kitchen duty. During this period the people are informally observed and evaluated for their ability to perform menial tasks, to submit to authority without excessive complaining, and most importantly, to get along with others.
This period, which is intentionally unglamorous, serves several purposes. One of these is providing unskilled labor for doing miscellaneous chores around the community, such as serving guests in the daily neighborhood feeding program. More importantly, it is used to determine a new person's strengths and weaknesses in areas such as patience, industriousness, physical strength, specific talents, and so on. This period is highly variable in length, but generally lasts for six months to a year as a person is gradually integrated into the community.(248)
On the basis of temperament shown during this trial period, as well as any other demonstrated aptitudes noted by friends and the elders and the needs of the community at that particular time, a person is then given a more permanent but still somewhat provisional assignment on a work crew or on one of the group's many outreaches. One woman, who arrived with a bachelor's degree in social work, said
I was a cook for my first year, and then my next year I taught pre-school . . . and I taught third grade the next year,(249). . .and then I got asked to [work for] the magazine. . . . They were needing some more writers at that time. I used to write all the time when I was in school . . . [but] I was never into journalism. I was quite amazed when [Dawn Herrin] first asked me.
This also serves to illustrate another aspect of the community: often people are put to work in areas in which they have no particular training because of the needs of the community and also out of a desire to keep a group from becoming too inbred or stagnant.(250) For example, the person in charge of the painting group stated,
We've got pretty much a set [number] of guys. It fluctuates a little bit, depending on who comes here to visit, and who's going to paint, and who's doing what.(251) . . . You got to have a lot of guys who are used to working with each other and know how to do the work. We only take a couple of guys at a time . . . You can't take a whole bunch of new guys and throw them on a project and expect it to get done right . . .
But on the other hand you've got to be open . . . It would be easy to say, "Oh, we've got these ten guys; we don't need anybody else. It's a headache [and] a hassle to train these guys." It is [a hassle], but I've always felt the Lord wants us to keep our doors open and say, "Hey, let's take on another guy. Let's work with him [and] give him a shot," even though it is probably one out of twenty that make it.
As soon as a visitor or new member arrives, he or she is assigned to a "buddy" of the same sex, a person who has lived in the community for a while and who assists the new arrival while settling in. This buddy is responsible for showing the person around the community and informing the individual of the various rules and regulations.
The new person is also placed in a "family," normally the one of which the buddy is a member.(252) These families are considered to be one of the foundations of the community. If the new arrival experiences difficulties either in community life or in spiritual life, the buddy, who is responsible for the socialization of the new person into the community and for his or her spiritual well-being, will first try to rectify the problem. That failing, the matter will be discussed with the family head.(253)
The person entering into the community is immediately bombarded by rules and demands of various sorts. These might be provisionally divided into two sets of obligations, that of duty and that of lifestyle. "Duty" may be thought of as the chores and responsibilities one incurs as a member of the community, subject to the "deac" in charge(254) or the kitchen supervisor. As an available brother, one is potentially "on call twenty-four hours a day"(255) to answer telephones and run the lobby desk, or to work at the shelter. However, "lifestyle" is equally important if not more so. This includes rules for how to deal with people of the opposite sex and adaptation to the system of mutual accountability, and will be described in more detail below.
At the end of the initial period of commitment, the person is then asked by the council whether they would like to continue on or not. This is generally considered to be a mere request for information and not an implied demand for a commitment of a more permanent nature. It appears that there is not a great deal of pressure placed upon the individual to donate all of his or her goods to the community; however, the individual is not generally permitted to make use of these belongings while living in community, except for toiletries, linens, and small items such as books, albums, and portable tape decks.(256) Money is provided to members for personal use; this is done through the institutional allocation of cash presents to individuals and families at Christmas, on birthdays, on anniversaries, for vacations, and on special occasions such as weddings.(257)
Life in the Jesus People USA community is characterized by four things: busyness, noisiness, togetherness, and spirituality. If Brigham Young chose to symbolize the Mormon life with a beehive, because of its business and industry, then the symbol of the Jesus People would be the ant hill. Almost everything in the whole community is done in groups: eating, living, and working. Even if a person is only traveling a few blocks from one residential building to the other, another person will usually go along as well.(258) When asked about this, the answer will often be that the reason is to uplift each other spiritually and to maintain accountability.(259)
Similarly, business and activity are present everywhere. Visitors, guests for the feeding program, the group's numerous children, and the residents themselves all move about the community, executing various tasks. This activity is not necessarily a sign of efficiency, however; community, spirituality, and service all rank more highly on the members' minds. Consider, for example this statement by the head of the painting crew:
To be a long-term painter, somewhere down the line you [have] to get it in your head that "the Lord is calling me to do this, and this is a burden I have from God." Because you're not putting money in your own pocket. Unless you have some sort of vision for the whole community--what we try to do here as a whole; that this is just a small part of the big picture--Unless you can keep that--who wants to paint for painting's sake? I mean, of the guys in the painting company, they are not here because their sole desire in life is to be a great painter. They are here because their sole desire in life is to be committed to Jesus.
Spirituality is central to the group. It is difficult to overemphasize how central prayer is both to the life of the individual and to the life of the group. Prayer takes place before meals and before embarking on any sort of vehicular journey. A person in the Jesus People commune may feel led to pray or request prayer(260) at almost anytime about almost anything--work, relationships, personal illness, feelings of anger, depression, happiness, or whatever. These prayers are intended in a very literal sense; if a person were to pray for enlightenment, healing, or divine guidance, he or she would expect results in the near future. A lack of results or the wrong result generally is interpreted by the person praying as a sign that what was requested is inappropriate and that God, in His superior wisdom, has chosen to answer in a different way than expected. In cases of extreme need or in praying about matters of great importance, fasting may be employed as well.
Persons are almost continuously reading the Bible, both alone and collectively. Books about theology and devotion are also read very frequently by the community members; favorite authors include C. S. Lewis, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Francis Schaeffer, and James Dobson.
Two elements of the community that combine the concerns of community and spirituality are those of mutual submission and mutual accountability, mentioned earlier. This is considered to be one of the most central tenets of the Jesus People's praxis. This takes place at both a spiritual and a material level, in the form of elaborate authority structures. For example, the new member is accountable to his or her buddy, who in turn is accountable to the sub-family and older brothers and sisters, who are then responsible to the head couple of the family, with wives being nominally subordinate to the husbands.(261)
At this point the first level of "official" authority is encountered, the "deacs." These are experienced men and women appointed by the council to oversee the allocation of the commune's vehicles and the daily running of the community and the execution of routine chores, mainly as regarding the available brothers and sisters.(262) Above the deac is the work crew leader. Deacons and deaconesses occupy the next higher level, and generally consist of older brothers and sisters of the community.(263) The final and highest level of authority is the council of elders, or just "the council." At each level of authority, however, each person is held to be mutually accountable and in submission to each other. Council members are also mutually accountable to each other. This is to provide a plurality of leadership at all levels of organization.
While this structure would appear to be a rigid chain of command, in practice it is not due to a number of mitigating factors. For example, such a system would appear to relegate women to the lowest levels of authority, according to certain biblical passages that proscribe a woman from having authority over a man. In the system of mutual submission used by the Jesus People, all persons of equal "rank" are in submission to the will of the other. Also important is the fact that most people in the community are involved in a number of projects, some of which overlap and result in one person being of higher rank in one case, and the other person having greater authority in another.
Perhaps most importantly, all people in the community are acknowledged to be under the same biblical rule, and are therefore morally equal. Thus, the council is morally responsible to the entire community. Moral deviations of council members are not tolerated to any greater extent than they would be with any other member. Members questioned on this issue point to the case of the founder and first elder, who was ejected from the group for persistent moral improprieties. Indeed, the cumbrous nature of the governing system is viewed as an asset, as it prevents the excessive concentration of power into the hands of any one person.
Mutual accountability appears in the community in another form as well. This is a somewhat less codified system of mutual moral accountability. As mentioned previously, members seldom do things alone. This is not only due to the desire for fellowship, but also in order to keep from falling into tempting or compromising situations. Going about business alone, especially if one is in an unmarried state, is considered to be tempting fate or even to be leaving oneself open to temptation by a personal Satan. Members who do "fall into sin" are encouraged to confess their sin to their brothers or sisters, either to someone considered to be a spiritual equal, such as a prayer partner, or to a person considered to be more spiritually advanced, such as a family head.
Occasionally, a sin will become widespread enough to require a special meeting, generally held after the Tuesday night group meeting or "community gathering" (see below). After the group meeting, the issue is confronted. In one case, for example, after the group meeting was over, the women of the community were dismissed. The male elders stated that a bundle of pornographic magazines had been found in the men's dormitory. A confession was then asked from the person or persons responsible. Several persons then came forward to confess that they had been aware of the magazines and had read them on occasion and to request the prayers of the community. Other persons spoke as well, asking for prayers in overcoming related weaknesses and temptations; also, a few requests were made by some people in the community to be sensitive to the weaknesses of the other. While the original owner of the magazines never came forward,(264) the meeting provided an outlet for the purging of a widespread community problem.
Indicative of the focus of the community are the various meetings held throughout the week. On Sunday there is a two-hour worship service that is best described as "mildly charismatic." This service is generally filled beyond capacity, with standing room only and people watching through the door. During this service there is enthusiastic singing with music provided by the Rez Band. The gospel choir, Grace and Glory, also performs. Sermons are usually centered upon a fairly literal application of Biblical values to contemporary social issues, combined with moral exhortation also drawn from the Christian scriptures. Prayer is conducted in a variety of ways, with the speaker leading at times, persons being called upon or volunteering at others, and group prayers at still others. During these prayers, one occasionally overhears private prayers employing glossolalia; however, this is considered to be a private matter and is not generally a public occurrence.
After the service is over, lunch is served, with the families generally eating together. The rest of the day is free, though occasionally persons engage in work-related activity in the afternoon. Families meet together for dinner as well. At seven in the evening, chairs are set up in the dining room for "Sunday Night Videos" for those interested; at this time three movies are shown on TV using one of the community's VCR units. The first movie is generally a feature length cartoon such as Disney's "Snow White" or "The Sword and the Stone." The next film is a film for somewhat older children, such as "The Princess Bride." The final film is usually a film such as "The Abyss" or an "Indiana Jones" film. Persons from all over the commune enjoy watching these films as they are chosen for both age-appropriateness and for broad appeal.(265)
Monday is regarded as a day off for the entire community. The only obligations are those portions of the ministry that must be carried out seven days a week, such as kitchen duty, the neighborhood feeding program, shelter work, and running the lobby desk.(266) Such routine duties are generally staffed on a rotating basis by different individuals or families in the commune. Commune members generally spend this time working on hobbies, talking, and of course reading the Bible. Small groups of people may also do shopping or go to see secular films and inexpensive cultural events.
Tuesday marks the beginning of the commune's workweek.(267) In the evening there are usually two class sessions where six-week long courses are offered in a variety of areas by elders and persons with special training. These are open to the public; topics include an introduction to worship, Old and New Testament surveys, studies in books of the Bible, and classes on New Age religions and "cults." Choir practice takes place for Grace and Glory, the commune's Gospel choir. Also on Tuesday night is the already-mentioned community gathering, which includes singing and an informal lesson, followed by division into smaller groups to pray about concerns raised by the lesson or about other personal matters.(268)
Wednesday night is family night. In the afternoon or evening the members of an extended family gather to spend time together. Often this time is used for worship, singing, and prayer. Birthdays are celebrated at this time, and the family may periodically use the time for recreational activity together.
Thursday night is generally free except for the evening classes. Friday night is also largely open, except for a class for engaged couples. Saturday night is also largely open, though many of the members use this time for street witnessing. This activity is especially encouraged among the new members.(269) Saturday night is also the meeting night for a number of the commune's mutual-support groups that come together to deal with anger problems, overeating, sexual fixations, and other difficulties.
Other activities go on as well, on a slightly different schedule. For example, available brothers have a brief Bible study that meets in the morning, Tuesday through Saturday. Additionally, a great number of informal activities take place in the community; married couples may have Bible studies together, along with many of the activities that were mentioned as taking place on Monday.
The word "fellowship" is used very frequently when describing both planned and spontaneous activities. This catch-all phrase includes Bible study, informal musical practice sessions, poetry reading, hobbies, videos, and films--anything that can be done in a single-sex or married group of people. The goal is to enjoy each other's company as much as to enjoy the event itself.
Spiritual and moral edification is also a constant goal. When one becomes more concerned with an end product, results, or personal achievement than with fellowship and moral and spiritual enhancement of both self and neighbor, the person is said to be "in the flesh."(270)
One of the most significant aspects of life in the Jesus People USA commune is its rules about personal behavior and the code of conduct between the sexes. These regulations are considered by the commune members to be "very commonsensical;" long term members had difficulty naming any rule that they found unreasonable. A typical response was,
A lot of people, when they first come . . . need rules. They have to stop doing things for their own good, and they have to have it in rule form. Then there are other people--I mean I think with myself I knew the rules, but it wasn't this thing that I thought of as, "This is an absolute thing." Because I understood that if I partook of things like that they would stumble people and it wouldn't help anybody.(271)
It is difficult to attain a complete understanding of all of these rules as most are not written down; generally they are only mentioned when they are breached. This situation is further complicated by their somewhat flexible and "slow acting" nature. For example, smoking is allowed, but not inside the buildings. As a result, almost everybody who enters the commune quits smoking on their own after several months; the activity is not reenforced by persons in the community and in effect causes the person to be isolated from the community while indulging in the habit. Given the premium value placed on fellowship in the community, this might be seen as a very mild form of operant conditioning.
Drinking is not allowed in the community, partially for economic reasons but mainly because of possible deleterious effects on the community as a whole as a result of a large number of former alcoholics in the group. Drug use is also not permitted. However in both cases leeway is permitted to persons trying to overcome past habits.
You always have times [when one says], "Oh, so-and-so's been getting high or something." But then you usually go and talk to the person and see how they are doing. It depends; again there is no black-and-white thing like, "As soon as you're caught twice, you're out!" If one person has been jerking around the whole time and never meaning anything, and then [has] been, maybe, trying to get somebody who's trying to do better, like to get off drugs or whatever--he may have to leave right away, because he is stumbling someone else. But if it's just somebody who's here, and they're trying to get off drugs, but then they had a bad night and snuck off and got high and came back--then usually someone will just talk to them [and say], "Hey, what's going on? What happened so you had to go get high?" Or whatever it was."(272)
Such tolerance is displayed toward persons as long as they do not prove to be a physical threat to other commune members(273) and as long as they strive to overcome the offending behavior. However, expectations increase with time, and behavior tolerated in new participants is not considered to be acceptable in the older members.
Similarly, interaction between unmarried members of the opposite sex is heavily regulated. Flirting is not allowed, and the men and women may not touch each other except in emergencies. While single men and women in the community frequently meet and converse in common areas,(274) such conversations are in no way intimate in any sense of the word. An unmarried man and woman are never allowed to go anyplace except with a chaperon. The sexes are largely self-segregating, at least in part as a result of men and women usually occupying different jobs in the community.(275) One single brother summed up the situation by saying,
You can't hang out with a sister. You can talk . . . but it's better for brothers to do brother things, and sisters to do the sister things. . . . It's better spiritual growth for both of us.
How, then, does one account for the large number of married couples in the community? How does one enter into a relationship with a person of the opposite sex? One engaged brother(276) answered this question:
First off, you have to live in the community for at least a year. . . . [After this period] if you see somebody that you are attracted to in the community, and you like them, and you think that it might be God's will for you to get together, you go . . . to your family head, to the person that you are accountable to, whoever you counsel with and fellowship with . . . .
Another brother then spoke:
. . . [N]ow whether they think it's the Lord's will or not, just leave that in God's hands. They usually pray, pray for you, and then it's brought before the council . . . They talk about it, and they look at both of you, and they decide, "Well, they're both doing good for the year or so they've been here. Are they both living lives for the Lord?" And they discuss it a little bit.
Once the council gives their approval, a couple can "get to know each other." This step is also heavily restricted.
. . . [Y]ou can't touch her at all. Period. You can't hold hands. You can't touch the girl at all--ever--until you are engaged. You cannot lay a finger on her. . . . [Y]ou can go out for a date, but you need a chaperone.
This period, called the "dating time," usually lasts for about five months. The couple may then become engaged.
After you are engaged, you can put your arm around her, hold her hand. You get one kiss a day (and the kiss is not an "affectionate" kiss; in other words, you can't French kiss her), and you cannot touch her "private areas" . . . . You give her a hug, and that's it.
. . . [Y]ou're engaged at least a year . . . mostly, a year and a half.
Other persons in the community amplified upon this procedure. At least in some cases, for example, each person in the prospective couple must submit an essay to the council giving the reason that they desire to date the other person. Also, a woman can initiate the dating procedure.
How do community members perceive this system? In general, members view it as both essential to the survival of the community and one of the community's assets.
We've got to live according to the Word of God, and . . . in the Word, we're not to set ourselves to where we are setting a snare, so that we can stumble. By living as close as we do in community, it can be easy for us to stumble if there aren't avenues that are taken to these precautions . . . .
There is a slight separation [between the brothers and sisters], and that separation is for our own good, because of the way we live. It has to be that way, or else it will not work. And it has had problems in the past, because guidelines are bent or not enough guidelines are set down. . . . The guidelines work, and they exist that way only because they work.
Regarding the heavy restrictions placed on dating, the brothers said:
. . . [T]hat really is a good rule, because that way you build your relationships with a friendship first, before a physical relationship. Because [a] physical relationship can get out of hand. Once you start touching, all kinds of things start happening . . . .
. . . [W]e want our engaged couples to grow in the Lord together, to learn to serve God together, and in order to do that they have to build a relationship first--not over physical things. Once you start getting physical, you just bring problems upon yourself, because we are emotional people. We have emotions; we're supposed to be living by God's word in the Bible.
. . . [This] way we know that our relationships are grounded in the Bible, and are grounded on God . . . . The truth of the matter is, we're not perfect, and we need to take precautions in order to have a Godly and pure life.
Speaking personally, one person said:
I know for myself that I want my wife to be a Godly woman. I want to be in love with her. I want her to be in love with me. I want her to respect me. I want her to look up to me, and how is she going to respect me if I'm just jiving her, and doing [sinful] things with her? How am I going to respect her for doing them with me? I mean, that's not a way to start a relationship. The way to start a relationship is on the Word of God . . .
Another person, a young male resident who had been living in the community for eight months, stated:
I hated [all the dating rules] when I first c[a]me here. As a result, I got into trouble [laughs]. . . I hated it, but now I see the wisdom of it. I mean you come here, . . . it's fast paced, it's high pressure. You make or you break. And you don't need, and this is going to sound chauvinist, some woman distracting you. You need to keep your mind on God and [to] grow.
One engaged male was asked if he would rather that his fiancee love God before him. He replied,
Definitely. . . . Really, if God is not in her life, she's not going to make me happy, and vice versa. I believe that, one hundred percent. Because I've lived my life; I've messed up hundreds of times, and really the only way I'm happy is serving God.
These opinions are reenforced by persons who have entered the community after having had a divorce. While the reasons for the divorce are varied and frequently entail adultery, abuse, and desertion,(277) the failure of the marriage is virtually always ultimately accredited to a lack of faith and religious understanding on the part of one or both of the persons involved. Once a couple does marry, the restrictions are removed. The only restriction is that, as mentioned above, a few forms of birth control are not allowed.(278) Similarly, the choice of when to have children is also left to the couple.
Marriages that take place in the community are frequently double weddings, because of their somewhat elaborate nature. While wedding location and sequence of events vary greatly, the event is celebrated by the entire commune. Decorations and cakes are produced by the artisans of the community, and there is a large dinner for the entire group afterwards. Interracial weddings are not unusual; out of the Jesus People's approximately 130 couples, eight are racially mixed.
Interestingly, married couples are discouraged from joining the ministry. This is for practical reasons, however; one incident was recalled by community members in which a married couple who, having been friends with the members of the community for years and admiring their work, decided to join.
They sold their house . . . and business and moved down; they'd been friends with the community for years and would come down every weekend or every other weekend to visit . . . [They] stayed maybe a week and left. It was disastrous.
. . . It was a couple in their early thirties. [They] had a nice house and business. They gave all that up because they said they wanted to serve the Lord. It's easy to submit and do what you are asked when you don't really want to do it, when you know you can go back home and relax and do what you want to. But when you realize, "I'm not going back home--this is home," it gets to you real quick.(279)
The Jesus People now encourage married couples to spend a year in the commune before making any drastic, irrevocable decisions.
During that year we tell them, "Don't sell your car; leave [it] at your parent's house. Sublet your apartment. Don't quit your job--try to get a way to go back. It's hard for married people to come here. Usually one wants to come more than the other . . . A lot of times, for the first two weeks, people think, "This is great! Everybody lives here, everybody loves each other. But people are people, too. We all do love each other, but we all rub on each other's nerves and stuff.
I think it's easier for single people, when they come in, to go back out. With married couples, you usually had a house; you've had jobs. It's harder to instantly pop back out and find somewhere to live if you cut all your ties.(280)
In contrast to the difficulties experienced by couples joining the community after marriage, most of the persons who marry while in the community appear happy with life in the commune. There have been few cases of divorce.(281) When asked about married life in the community, one person responded,
For me it's great, because you have all of these married couples around you. A lot of older married couples, who have been married fifteen, sixteen years, who you can get advice from. [To] a newlywed, something may seem like a big thing. But then you can talk to someone who's been married for fifteen years; they're like, "That's nothing. It's normal."
That's one of the blessings of the ministry. Some people [ask], "How can you handle not having a house?" But on the other hand, at any time of night I can [find someone]. Each floor is like a house, almost. . . . We visit each other all the time.(282)
How does a person or family leave Jesus People USA? There does not appear to be a set pattern. Occasionally people simply pack and leave. At other times, the council will ask a person to leave, generally if they are showing no evidence of spiritual growth or are considered to be detrimental to the life and ministry of the group.(283) More often, a person will "feel called elsewhere," and either ask to leave or ask that the community pray about the decision. Even if the person is ejected from the community for serious misconduct, however, he or she is frequently readmitted to group fellowship.
As families have formed, children have become prevalent within the community. Total group membership is estimated at 450 to 475 persons; of these, about 150 are children.(284) The first children in the Jesus People commune came when their parents joined; couples who married after joining generally abstained from having children at first. As a result, these children are not evenly distributed by age. So far only a limited number have come to adulthood while in the community; the small number that have, have lived only a fraction of their lives in the commune.
Children are housed in "dorms," except for infants and newborns, who may live in the parents' room.(285) The dorms are rooms within the family residential buildings of the community that contain several children who are of the same sex and approximate age. Parents live either next door or in a room nearby. As the doors to these rooms are usually open, adults of the community can monitor the activities of the children. Much of the time, however, the children are with their parents, are doing homework, or are playing in the hallways.(286) This arrangement of the community's children is perceived by members to be in some ways advantageous. One of the adult members said,
It's kind of a neat thing for the kids. . . Our kids can grow up and be together . . . like staying overnight with your friends every night. The little conversations that you have--things on the Word [of God], along with your sports and other things. It's just a neat way to grow up.(287)
The commune's method of raising children was perceived by this member to be in some ways superior to his own upbringing:
I know when I was a kid I would have loved to have been here and had other kids in the room. I was in a room by myself all the time. If I had had other kids, it might have been rough getting me to go to bed at night, because you always want to play with your friends . . . And the neat thing is that they are all raised in the Lord. We have our own school, which has the things of the Lord in it.(288)
Another member described other aspects of the children's life in the community: "It gives them an advantage as far as they get to be kids for a long time. They don't have to grow up and be groovy and all that stuff." A third person stated,
There's not a big division [between the children and the adults]. Even though we want obedience from our kids, the kids really see the adults apologize, the kids get to see the adults get in the flesh(289) and get prayer; they sort of see adults as more human.
. . . [A] lot of times the mom and the dad are up there saying, "You just do as I say." There's not a lot of communication. I'm not saying that we're perfect at communication, but there's way, way more talking things over because we live together . . . You can't be up on a pedestal when you're living with everybody.(290)
The commune's school was mentioned several times by the adult members as being one of the community's strong points. When the Jesus People first took up residence in Chicago, the few children in the community were sent to a Baptist-affiliated private school. At the end of the first year, however, it was felt that this atmosphere was too worldly, and the school-age children were tutored within the community instead.(291)
Eventually, however, the community felt a necessity to formalize the education process somewhat, due to the number of children in the community. Public schools were not considered to be a viable option, as the community felt that the ones in the area were unacceptable for both academic and moral reasons. As a result, the commune set up its own educational system, in the form of Uptown Christian School.(292)
The school graduated its first class in 1983, of five persons.(293) The next class graduated in 1985 and consisted of four persons, all of whom remained in the community. A third class consisting of five girls and six boys graduated in 1987; of these, four left the group.(294) One "borderline" case is a male who is now attending North Park Bible College, a school affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church.
The next graduating class was the class of 1990;(295) from this point on, it appears that there are sufficient numbers of students each year to require no combination of age groups, as was done in some of the early classes.(296) Uptown Christian School has gradually expanded its curriculum, partially through use of videotaped Abeka classes in Spanish, world history, science, and English in teaching junior high and high school.
When asked about the role of college in the plans of the children of community members, the community member in charge of the school replied,
The jury is still out. Some of them are tied in right away to things they want to do right in the community. I can look at our seniors' class [of 1990] and tell you quite a few have no interest in furthering their education; not because they don't believe in it, not because it's not Christian and good. They just are raring to work in things they really want to do right now. If they want to go on, that's open to them, too.(297)
As alluded to previously, these students come from a variety of backgrounds. In addition to the children of commune members, some of the students are children sent to the commune because the parents cannot deal with them adequately at home, and a few are persons who are allowed to live as students in the community because "they want to come so badly and they have so much trouble serving God in public school." A few are also temporary students who are enrolled while their parents live in community for a year while working out marital problems.
The community's school master described the overall school program as "fairly successful." She added,
I think that people sometimes think, "Well, you live in this Christian community--it must be this sort of utopia thing." It's really not true. We have a lot of hurting people coming here, with quite a lot of hurting children because of it. And the community doesn't solve all these ills. We don't take the children away; you can't force parents to be nice to their children. You can't force parents to give their children values, Christian values. . . . And you end up with a lot of hurting families and hurting children, which you are definitely working with, and you're struggling with; but it's not this glossed over, perfect situation by any means.(298)
Earlier it was noted that the community has so far retained most of the members graduating from the community school. How is the transition from student to adult member made? Do the older children work in the commune?
The answer to the last question appears to be "no." Students are considered to be too occupied with school and homework to really learn a trade, though occasionally the sons will help their fathers at work.(299) The tenth, eleventh, and twelfth grade students may also work in the community during the summer; however, this is limited somewhat in that the school runs at least half-days all year long.(300)
At one point the question was raised by the interviewer as to how a person raised in the community would adapt to the outside world if he or she felt called to leave at some point. Community members wonder about the same question; several persons mentioned that it was hoped that the Jesus People USA commune's recent joining of the Evangelical Covenant Church would aid in such a transition by providing ex-members with a denominational affiliation in the outside world. The commune's overall feeling about this is largely summarized by the following statement by one of the members:
Most of the kids are not naive . . . about sin. They see it every day. They see what alcohol does. They see the street people, they've seen the tons of people come in on drugs, they've seen . . . girls who come and stay here--single moms. They know the whole spectrum of what goes on in the world. They're not shocked by it; they're probably way more exposed to it than any suburb kid would ever be . . . .
We had a family across the street . . . . The building caught on fire two days before Christmas, and a lot of people got burned out of their home. And all the kids went around and collected up some toys to give away, and their own clothes. [On the other hand,] they know the depths Man can go.(301)
Interaction with the outside world is also present in that the children of the community are also allowed to play with the other children of the neighborhood, under certain circumstances. The community has a basketball hoop, four-square court, and a fairly extensive skateboard ramp in the yard, as well as other toys that both the neighborhood's and the Jesus People's children use together, under supervision of the commune's adults. A commune child is generally not allowed to visit others in the neighborhood unless the child's parents go along as well.
In spite of the conspicuous presence of Christian faith and praxis in the community, it is not assumed that all of the children will choose to affirm the faith of their parents:
They have to face it, like everybody has to face it. They have to make their own decision about Christ. Nobody thinks that just because our kids are raised here, they are going to stay and be a part of the ministry. It doesn't even guarantee that they are going to be Christian.(302)
If a graduating person does not choose to follow a Christian path, or if the student decides to go elsewhere,
. . . [I]t's sad, but you'd be sad anyway. I mean, you still love them. They can come back and visit; their families still live here. You just keep loving them, but that would be just like [with] anybody else.(303)
It is obvious that the elders have a crucial role in the operation of the community. They represent the highest level of temporal authority in an unabashedly hierarchical group. In a sense the elders also represent a high level of spiritual authority; as council members they are also the group's pastors and thus frequently lead Bible studies and are usually responsible for preaching on Sunday morning. Is the community dominated by the personalities of the council of elders?
The answer to this question appears to be "no." While the leaders are ultimately responsible for all activity that goes on within the community, their role is generally more one of facilitation than initiation of community activities. The elders tend to encourage certain trends and talents found in the community, as well as exploiting circumstances that arise from the commune's interactions with the surrounding secular society. Examples are found in many of the business ventures and especially in the shelter program; these were merely allowed to evolve, rather than to have been actively instigated. One elder described this aspect of the community by saying: "People have a vision for a business and we'll try it and see. . . . After a few years we'll stand back and see." Additionally, day-to-day operation of many of the businesses and outreaches are managed by deacons and deaconesses, who play an active role in decision-making processes.
The leadership of the Jesus People is perhaps best described as "uncharismatic."(304) While each of the council members appears to have the ability of projecting authority when necessary, as when addressing groups of people or in situations where rapid action is required, in most cases the council members do not display dynamic personalities.(305) The one exception to this overall trend is Glenn Kaiser, who is also the leader of the Rez Band and often acts as a spokesperson for the commune. However, he appears to shun anything which he regards as adulation.
One can find a number of factors contributing to the somewhat undynamic nature of the council. One of these is the doctrine of "mutual submission" discussed earlier. This doctrine manifests itself here in policy; any major purchase or program change by the community requires unanimous consent of all nine elders. Persons in the community also are aware of the dangers of unquestioned authority and cults of personality.(306) One community member said,
People make mistakes. That's what happened with Jim Jones and the Guyana tragedy. When Jim Jones started out, he was a very on-fire Christian . . . . He was solid in the faith, and solid in the Lord . . . . But after a while, after being in charge of so many things and not being submitted to anyone or accounting to anyone, he got on a trip and started doing loose things with people in the church. Things that weren't right. Things that weren't of God. And gradually he wound up in a state that annihilated his people. The same thing happened to the T.V. pastors who ended up in problems. . . .
But as they are doing [wrong] things, people following these people, when they should have their eyes on God, are falling into the same sins--the blind are leading the blind. Paul says in the Bible, "To follow my example as I follow Christ." It is also spread throughout the word that we should never look at a person more than we do at God . . . . Because if we follow a person too closely, not only are we going to pick up some of the good qualities, but also their negative qualities.(307)
In spite of the divine mission imputed by members to the commune and the ideal of submission both to the will of God and to other, it would appear a healthy trace of skepticism remains present within the community. Though an ideal of holiness pervades the community, this does not preclude an appreciation for the fallen state of the world.
Discussion of the future of the commune with the members leads to frustration for the interviewer. The commune, perhaps somewhat self-consciously, lacks any particular goal for the future.
. . . [W]e didn't really plan these programs. We were just trying to live in faith and the door was just sort of opened by the Lord . . . . The same thing happened with the shelter. Ever since we've lived in this house we've had people come and spend the night . . .In the last couple of years it's gotten worse and worse--it's gotten so heavy that we didn't have room, so they had to start spending the night in our dining room and lobby. That's really how our shelter program started. It wasn't because we sat down and said, "We'll have a shelter.". . .
We could dream of South Africa. We could dream of Mexico, which very well might happen, as Mexico would be a nice place for our teenagers to go and serve and give them a change of pace. It's also a real needed [sic] place . . . . We already have some folks who said that they would give us beans and rice to pass out . . . . We know where Mother Teresa's home is and we could help serve there.(308)
It was mentioned that the Jesus People periodically have disagreements with persons who would like to see the group expand:
. . . [They] think we should divide and multiply, divide and multiply--franchising Jesus People per se across the nation! But we figure that we are part of the body of Christ--there are Christians in those cities that can do what's supposed to be done in those cities . . . . What's held us together is just a lot of hours being together, interacting, and working through all our pains and struggles together.(309)
The average age of the members is gradually increasing. When the ministry began, the average age was approximately eighteen; at present, it is estimated to be about twenty-eight.(310) Furthermore, the community is presently growing at a slow rate, gaining only about five new members per year. It is thus difficult to ascertain the meaning of this rise in age, especially without further data on the future career choices of the children and youth in the community. One thus has no real way to know whether the group is becoming senescent, or whether the group is merely in the process of forming an age distribution that will eventually stabilize.(311)
The group also currently lacks anything resembling a retirement plan. One elder, in a semi-joking manner, said that they were hoping the Lord would return before such a plan became necessary.(312) Another elder stated,
You don't really see retirement in the Bible. Corrie Tenboom was still travelling when she was eight-five . . . . We do understand; obviously, if you had everyone a hundred years old together--again, the Lord so far, because we've walked in trust and tried to be wise and also tried to listen, or to watch what doors were open--I think that everything will work out as we go along.(313)
It was also pointed out that the community with all of its outreaches supports itself at present from the income produced by only eighty to ninety workers,(314) implying that survival would be possible in the future even if this source of income were to be reduced.
In spite of such apparently vague and naive planning, the community appears to be doing well both materially and spiritually. The community is presently expanding once again in both of these directions: recently a group of men was sent to Mexico to build houses for people left homeless as a result of a hurricane and, as mentioned earlier (p. 63), the commune is presently experimenting with Galilee, a combination outreach and temporary work service for men in the surrounding community. The group is also planning to move and consolidate its residence buildings in the near future, through the acquisition of a hotel and subsequent sale of Malden, the Annex, and Magnolia. Such a move would allow the Jesus People additional room to expand as families grow in size, as well as allowing the shelter program to be enlarged. The anticipated move would also allow the low rent housing projects to be expanded, as members would move out of the Greystone building.
One possible future asset for the community may be the children. If a substantial number of them stay in the community, an event that seems likely at present, it would appear that the commune will continue to expand in size. Also, due to the apparently high reproduction rate of members and the strong traditional family values espoused by the community, the children appear quite likely to attend to the eventual needs of their parents. This potentiality was alluded to in a conversation with two of the elders of the group:
Don't you think that the old ways, let's say the old farm folk, where they lived in the extended family--grandma, grandpa, maybe an old aunt that was widowed, then you had some brothers and sisters who lived close by, and the kids were running around, and everybody helped each other with the children . . . .(315)
I don't know if the grandmother and grandfather were both worried that they had to put away their stash . . . .(316)
Barring some disaster, it appears that the community has the potential to exist for quite some time. A number of reasons may be marshalled to support this statement. The community continues to attract young persons, as well as people of other ages. The community has shown, and continues to show, a very adaptable nature, as far as the economic base is concerned. The group also is founded on a vision of the Absolute that is still compelling to both older members and newer ones.
Jesus People USA has also shown itself to be quite adaptable over time. The group's unofficial historian suggests that Jesus People USA's conflict with the greater American culture in the early days of the group made the members more aware of the need for cultural flexibility:
For example, take Punk. Punk wasn't part of the '70's era; it was part of the '80's era . . . It was not part of the Jesus movement. But that was a culture and a music style and an art form . . . that took people some time to get over. Then you have the art form called "New Wave" . . . So we learned a little bit about the new wave thing. I think for us, it gave us a real appreciation for cross-cultural evangelism and the need for the Christian to adapt himself to the culture of the day.(317)
This cultural tolerance is extended to the children of the community as well:
[H]opefully, we won't reject our kids if they decide to go straight and wear three-piece suits and white shirts and ties. . . If the Lord asks you to do that, fine. But if the Lord calls you to shave your head or grow your hair long . . . you want to be open to being Christians regardless of dress or appearance. Man looks at appearance; God looks in the heart.(318)
Obviously, the continued existence of the Jesus People USA commune is largely predicated upon a continued influx of new members and the continued loyalty of older members and, perhaps even more importantly, their children. The group, at present is growing slowly as a result of an influx of new members and the exit of older ones. There have been too few children to come of age in the commune to really tell if a trend is emerging for persons staying or leaving. Results so far appear encouraging, however, and the birth rate within the community appears fairly high--about fifteen to twenty children are born in the community per year.
Has the group been faithful to the original vision of holiness and evangelism? The answer to this question would appear to be largely "yes." Some of the more grandiose of the original goals, such as world evangelism, appear to have been tabled in favor of more limited and practical tasks. The evangelizing of the United States continues in an altered form; the original divide-and-multiply policy of the Jesus People Milwaukee commune appears to have been abandoned; however, the group's influence has spread widely in the United States and in several foreign countries through Rez band albums and musical tours, as well as through Cornerstone magazine, which currently has about 100,000 readers.
The rules and regulations of the community have become more moderate over the passage of time. For example, early in the community's history, music was not permitted in the community before five o'clock in the afternoon, with teaching tapes favored instead. Furthermore, the interaction of men and women was more strictly regulated: "You could say 'please' or 'thank you', and use terms of common courtesy and so forth--but single men had no reason or need to talk to the younger sisters."(319) While such rules appear somewhat draconian,(320) they were felt to be justified:
. . . [J]ust as we had been radical for the devil, living lives of pure self-indulgence--drugs, sex, rock and roll, [stealing, and betrayal]--these views, as we became Christians, [became] radically different. . . .
Also, when you live in a community, or commune, your life is under such scrutiny by the outside world, by your parents, by everybody else who is going to judge the whole entire Christian world by what you represent, that it is necessary to live a life beyond reproach--your reputation [must be] spotless, so you can stand the closest scrutiny.(321)
Another reason for this strictness is found in the characteristics of the early members themselves, most of whom were single persons in their late teens; one goal of the rules was to keep persons from joining the commune in search of a spouse. Thus, with the gradual ageing and marriage of the commune members, some of these regulations became less urgent. With the move to the Malden building, the teaching tape library was "lost,"(322) allowing music to be played through the day. The increase in the number of married couples is thought to have been a source of stability to the community, allowing the rules to shift from explicit statements to the slightly more subtle form that exists today.
To summarize, the same goal is still present: that of discipline for the sake of being a better follower of Christ and the reduction of factors that might detract from this goal.
As numbers change, rules change. The rules that we have had have never been without reason, and they weren't there simply as exercises of authority and control. They were there to make sure that you have a sense of that you are here because you are called to be a missionary.(323)
While the changes in some of the policies and rules are thought of as natural changes brought about by the maturation of the members of the group, it is also understood that in some ways the mission of the community and its members has changed.
. . . [I]n the earlier days of the ministry, we really felt that if you came, you really had to have a word from the Lord. This was God's calling on your life . . . . Nowadays, when a person joins Jesus People USA, we've had a lot of people come in without any sense of direction or guidance. And instead of, maybe, seeing this as a life-long vocation or a calling as an evangelist for a particular area, we know that a lot of the people the Lord will call here just to be here for a short period of time. And so there is not the earlier emphasis that we placed ten or twelve . . . or fourteen years ago [on staying]. What occurred in 1975 or 1974 is not what is happening in 1990. . . . As we grow larger, we are going to naturally attract a larger number of visitors, a larger number of people without any clear sense [of calling].(324)
Perhaps the most significant change within the group has been a lessening of the commune's collective sense of apocalyptic urgency. The imminent return of Jesus Christ is still a part of the group's doctrine and is still seen as a very real possibility in the near future; however, it also seems apparent that the group has moderated its original stance somewhat. Most members no longer witness on the streets for several hours a day, and business ventures are maintained and encouraged by the community. Children are common among the families of the group, and the members are aware of the possibility of growing old.
Nevertheless, the Jesus People appear to have remained committed to their beliefs, faith, and most of the practices over the eighteen years of the group's existence. The group continues to proclaim the Gospel message to both the greater American culture and to a variety of sub- and counter-cultures. An extreme emphasis is placed on personal holiness, biblical literacy, and practice of faith; and the group continues to expand the scope of its ministries more as a result of perceived needs than in terms of organized, self-defined group missions.
Perhaps most significantly, a strong sense of community has been maintained for eighteen years, an unusual occurrence for most intentional communities of this type. A number of reasons might be suggested for the group's longevity.
As mentioned earlier, the doctrine of the Jesus People is central to the life of the commune as well as being focused on the more tangible, less abstract matters of faith. Indeed, these very characteristics serve as mechanisms that contribute to the unity of the commune. For example, the entire group appeals to the Bible for guidance in all segments of life. As such, everybody from the leaders to the newest members are bound to try to pattern their lives according to the precepts and commandments contained within it. The potential problem of variant interpretations of the text is reduced by the community's continuous study of the scriptures, both alone and in groups. Thus questions that arise tend to be conferred upon with others until a consensus is reached.
This continuous Bible reading also serves as a means for the socialization of new members into the group. Often these new members are either recently converted, and therefore having the material presented to them for the first time, or else they already subscribe to a conservative, evangelical interpretation of the text.
Another overlapping aspect of the community that serves to promote the unity of the group is the fact that the group is mildly charismatic.(325) This characteristic gives a certain amount of flexibility that is often lacking among scriptural literalists. The text is viewed as being the Word of God; but since God is living, the text is in some sense living as well. Thus, while the text may be considered to be perfect and inerrant, God can reveal new things through it as new situations arise.
The issue of family also tends to keep the group together. Many of the members of the group have come from radically dysfunctional families; the commune gives these people the mutual support that they lack. In a like manner, many aspects of the communal life of the Jesus People are characterized by a "group therapy" atmosphere, in which members can help each other overcome limitations.(326)
With most people here, it is like a doctor-patient scenario. We are all doctors and we are all patients. Most of the people [who] live here, live here because . . . they need accountability. They need to stay accountable because when they go into the outside world they get tempted, and they have no outside brothers to back them, to support them, and they fall and stumble. "Confess your sins one to another, that you may be healed." It says that in James.(327)
Another factor that contributes to the cohesion of the group is its at times self-consciously deviant nature. The group tends to perceive itself as composed of the cast-offs of the more traditional branches of orthodox Christianity; as such the group considers itself to occupy a relatively unique role in the body of Christ and senses, therefore, an increased unity of purpose. Members of the group, with their literal view of the Bible, consider their mission to be to bring the Good News to people overlooked by the more mainline bodies, to people who would quite literally burn in Hell for all of eternity because of this oversight. When their unusual appearance, lifestyle, or work is commented upon, the Jesus People will frequently point out that Jesus Himself was a friend to tax collectors, prostitutes, and other undesirables. Similarly, a high percentage of the members of the community consider themselves to have once belonged to this very same group of people, having once been involved with drugs and/or engaging in a libertine lifestyle. Their disaffection with their former lives is the very thing that causes them to embrace such a radical form of Christianity.(328) This acute disaffection also contributes to the members of the group accepting the rules of the community.
Related to and contributing to all of these issues is the Jesus People's premillennialist beliefs that have traditionally lent an apocalyptic urgency to their actions. This has also contributed to their tendency to overlook "surface" characteristics such as appearance and personal idiosyncracies, as long as they are not perceived as being anti-biblical.
The Jesus People, with their strong convictions about the need to spread the Gospel message and about the need to serve one's neighbor, feel that the community is the best way to realize those ends. As such, the community is regarded as a tool and not an end unto itself. One result of this is that the group tries to make a conscious effort to keep itself from turning inward excessively. Members appear to enjoy interacting with visitors, and members frequently go out in groups on weekends to attend inexpensive movies and cultural events. The community appears to be stable enough that it can be confident in its dealings with the outside world.(329)
Indeed, the group's location, which might once have been considered a weakness, has revealed itself to be a strength. The neighborhood, with its prevalent gangs, vandalism, and drug-related activity, provided the group both with a sense of mission and with a perpetual reminder of the consequences of sin and Godlessness. The hostility of this environment has tended to serve as a reminder of the joy of the involvement in the Christian communal family, as compared to the bleak isolation, temptation, and danger of the secular world.
At the outset of this study, three questions were posed: 1) What was the origin of the Jesus People USA commune? 2) How has the group changed and adapted over time? 3) Does this group represent a vital response to the problems of the contemporary world, or is the group primarily motivated out of nostalgia for a past era? The answers to the first pair of questions have been examined in the preceeding text. The final question now needs to be dealt with explicitly.
In the introductory section of this paper, we noted a number of dissatisfatcions with contemporary society. Many of these concerns are mentioned in Phillip Slater's book, The Pursuit of Lonliness. Briefly, the criticisms presented in the book include a lack of community in contemporary society, a lack of engagement (defined as the wish to come to grips with both social and physical environments), and a lack of interdependence. It would appear that the miniature society represented by Jesus People USA deals with most if not all of Slater's social criticsms. Members of the community are continuously, and happily, engaged in grappling with the social and physical environment in which they exist. Furthermore, the group has an intense community orientation in which people live in trust, love, and friendship with those surrounding them. Members, from the leaders to the available brothers and sisters, live in conditions of mutual dependence and shared responsibilities for both individual and collective activity.
Furthermore, most of the other societal problems mentioned by Slater are addressed. The Jesus People, as memtioned earlier, rid themselves of the merely curious by assigning visitors and potential members to menial jobs for several months after arrival. Other factors, such as the group's strict behavioral and moral codes and the intense religious atmosphere, would tend to discourage the frivolous.
Similarly, the group shuns Slater's "Toilet Assumption." In fact, one of the main goals of the group is to provide assistance to those overlooked by the American social system. The group not only tries to help and absorb such persons; it also calls attention to their existence. Within the community as well, efforts are made to assist those with particular problems and handicaps. Furthermore, life in the community cannot be called overly "muted" or "filtered" in most senses of the words. Members are constantly engaged in acts of self expression, verbally, artistically, and musically. This is true in worship as well, which is "mildly charismatic."
It would indeed appear that the group does represent an innovative response, one which would seem to be attractive to many persons today. While a number of the members, especially the later arrivals, joined at least partly out of a search for community, it is overwhelmingly clear that the community was formed and is maintained not out of social reasons, but instead out of religious ones. The entire community appears to be bound together and motivated by a common faith in and dependency upon that of worship of the Christian God. Without such faith and commitment, the chances for the sustainability of the community would be infinitessimally small.(330)
Members of the Jesus People themselves are aware of the uniqueness of their group. In the course of interviewing members of Jesus People USA, one question was repeatedly asked: should everyone live in a commune? The answer to this question was almost always "no."(331) This was recognized as being especially true in the case of married persons, who had already established living habits. Rather, the community sees its role in the world as more exemplary than normative. One member suggested,
I think that the biggest gift that we have is the gift of knowing how to live together. There are piles of social agencies, and piles of people who do a million things, but we know how to live together. That's really something that the world doesn't know about.
Another person said,
I think we have a lot to say to the church in the sense of possessiveness and acquiring greater property . . . . We have a visible demonstration of what it would be to live communally and to really have an outreach through the sharing of our resources. I don't think that community is for everyone, but I do think that it is for some people. And I hope . . . that it would be for more than just one or two small groups in the United States.
Is the Jesus People USA commune a success? The answer to this question would of course depend upon one's criteria for success. A number of persons, including Rosabeth Moss Kanter, suggest that a convenient measure might be that of simple existence, given the high rate of failure for such enterprises.(332) She suggests that the criterion for longevity be placed at twenty-five years, as this is the "sociological unit for one generation."(333) As such, the Jesus People commune cannot be assessed, as it has not yet existed for this length of time. Nor have any members who have been born in community yet reached adulthood; at the present time they are about to enter the eighth grade in school.
While such a measure of success has several positive aspects (it is easy to measure and lends itself to empirical analysis), it might be argued that this presents a somewhat incomplete picture. One might opt for other, more humanistic measures. Has the community withstood crises well? Has the community remained true to its original purpose, in this case spreading the Gospel message, serving others, and fostering individual holiness? While judgement of such critera is highly subjective, and it is very difficult to compare this group with others on such a basis, these questions need to be considered.
Using the latter criteria, the Jesus People do appear to be succeeding. The early crisis over of the loss of the first elder was dealt with effectively. The community furthermore appears to have remained true to its original mission while adapting to changing needs and circumstances within both the local and the national environments.
J. Gordon Melton(334) suggests that successful communes possess several characteristics. One of these is the possession of a charismatic leader or a "strong system of social control and behavior." It is obvious that Jesus People USA possesses the latter, a gift intentionally bestowed upon the group by the commune's one-time mentor, Jim Palosaari.(335) Melton additionally points out the need for a commune to possess economomic self-sufficiency. This, too, is a characteristic of the Jesus People.
A third desirable trait is "removal from the outside world."(336) The Jesus People also possess this; while they are in the midst of downtown Chicago, the group has managed to remove itself from outside influences considerably. While members of the group are in communication with the outside world and have access to both news and family, many forms of mass media and entertainment are avoided. When excursions are made, especially by single persons, they are almost always done in groups. The commune is very attentive to the children in the group, and even possesses its own school; additionally, all members work at jobs within the community. Decisions by members are almost always based on evangelical, biblical principles and prayer; also, the commune exists in a ghetto area with street gang activity. The contrasts between the commune and the surrounding culture are so great that at times one receives the impression that the Jesus People USA commune is actually highly religious, rural mid-western town of the first third of this century that has been magically transplanted into tenements of present-day Chicago.
Melton also suggests five main reasons for the failure of communes.(337) The first of these is that communes may be formed for "shallow reasons," by people "wanting to escape their lives." A reading of the history of communal activity in the United States reveals that many times persons form communes in order to escape from everyday responsibilities or unpleasant situations. The Jesus People have avoided this problem; members join who want to change their lives and who are willing to put forth an effort in both the secular and the religious life of the group.
A second reason for failure is poor planning, as when persons from the city attempt to exist in a rural or agrarian environment. This hurdle also appears to have been cleared by Jesus People USA; members originally lived primarily from donations of goods and money until the group gradually developed low-overhead businesses based on unskilled labor. Later, more skilled and capital-intensive enterprises were gradually added.
The third potential source of problems, lack of order, was also overcome. This was probably due to the group's strong sense of hierarchy as well as relatively benign environment during the intial formative years.
Hostility from the surrounding enviroment has also not bothered the group extensively. While in 1977 the group was accused of "unlawful restraint" by a parent of one of the members, a subsequent investigation caused the judge presiding over the case to find in favor of the Jesus People. After the move to the Malden residence, the group experienced some minor difficulties, as in the case of the destruction of an automobile; however, the group appears generally to be on good terms with the neighboring residents.(338) The city also appears to be favorably disposed toward the group, as a result of the urban work which the group carries out.
Perhaps the greatest threat to the group is the prospect of financial success,(339) a "malady" suffered by other communes such as Amana,(340) the Rappite commune of Economy,(341) and Oneida.(342) The Jesus People now own and operate a number of businesses, and it is apparent that the standard of living for the group, though low, is gradually increasing. It will be interesting to watch the group in the coming years to see if the Jesus People can withstand the encroachment of creeping capitalism and financial success.
It is difficult to fully describe the Jesus People and to do justice to either the uniqueness of the group or to the diversity of the members. The commune has managed to maintain an unusual sense of balance while affirming a number of absolute propositions in both thought and action. Thus far, the Jesus People have avoided the most common problems that faced the other Jesus communes: the group has not slid into either disorder or into authoritarianism. The group also appears unlikely to suffer the fate of many of the other Jesus People groups elsewhere that often were absorbed by larger Pentecostal bodies.(343) The Jesus People have shown themselves to be open to further adaptation as necessary, in order to continue being able to reach the cast-offs of both the mainline Christian churches and the larger society. It would appear that the group is likely to continue its lifestyle and ministry for some time to come.
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Pritchett, W. Douglas. The Children of God/Family of Love. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985.
Reich, Charles A. The Greening of America. 1970. New York: Bantam, 1971.
Richardson, James T., Mary White Stewart, and Robert B. Simmonds. Organized Miracles. New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1979.
Roszak, Theodore. The Making of a Counter-Culture. Garden City: Doubleday, 1969.
Rubenstein, Richard L. The Age of Triage. Boston: Beacon Press, 1983.
Scammon, Richard M., and Ben J. Wattenburg. The Real Majority. New York: Coward-McCann, 1970.
Slater, Philip. The Pursuit of Loneliness. Boston: Beacon Press, 1970.
---. The Pursuit of Loneliness. 2nd ed. Boston: Beacon Press, 1976.
Snyder, Harold A. and Quincy Smith-Newcomb. "Servant Band: Prophets to the Rock Generation." Christianity Today 22 Oct. 1982: 76-77.
Tipton, Steven. Getting Saved from the Sixties. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Troeltsch, Ernst. The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches. 2 vols. 1911. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981.
Wagner, Frederick N. "A Theological and Historical Assessment of the Jesus Phenomenon." Diss. Fuller Theological Seminary, 1971.
Ward, Hiley H. The Far-Out Saints of the Jesus Communes. New York: Association Press, 1972.
Winthrop, John. "A Model of Christian Charity." Winthrop Papers. 2 vols. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1931.
Zablocki, Benjamin. Alienation and Charisma. New York: Free Press, 1980.
Bently, Joe [pseud.]. "Am I Worth Being Loved?" Interview. By Chris Ramsey. Cornerstone 17.87 (1987): 6.
"Chicago Statement." Cornerstone 7.45 (1979): 12.
"Cornerstone's Near Miss Interviews with John Todd and Madalyn Murray O'Hair." Cornerstone 8.48 (1979): 40-41.
Denton, Jim, and Jon Trott. "The Existential Christian Kierkegaard." Cornerstone 17.88 (1989): 23-24.
"Down on the Farm." Cornerstone 8.47 (1979): 35.
"Evolution vs. Creation." 6.38 (1977): 38.
Herrin, John. "Born Again." Cornerstone (n. d.): 2.
"Jesus People-USA." Cornerstone (n. d.): 5.
"JPUSA Summer." Cornerstone 8:47 (1979): 34.
Meet Our Family. Chicago: Jesus People USA, n. d.
Passantino, Bob and Gretchen. "From Catacomb to Vatican." Cornerstone 13.71 (1984): 18-20.
Ramsey, Chris. "Todd Rundgren." Cornerstone 15.80 (1986): 37.
Ramsey, Chris. "An American Tragedy." Cornerstone 16.85 (1987): 21.
Ramsey, Chris. "Iggy Popped." Cornerstone 10.57 (1981): 42.
Ramsey, Chris. "Incest, a Family Portrait." Cornerstone 13.70 (1984): 12-13.
"Situation Ethics." Cornerstone issue 18 (n. d.): 3.
Street Level (n. d.): 5.
Sullivan, Sarah. "When Justice Is Blind." Cornerstone 18.90 (1989): 8-11.
"The Virgin Birth-Conceivable?" Cornerstone issue 12 (n. d.): 9.
"Torture . . . Anyone?" Cornerstone 5.32 (1975): 5.
Trott, James and Roseann. "Images of Salvation in the Works of Flannery O'Connor." Cornerstone 14.75 (1985): 21- 22.
"Truth or Consequences." Cornerstone 7.45 (1979): 12-14.
"Who is Guru Maharaj Ji? False Prophet or the Exploited Adolescent." Cornerstone issue 12 (n. d.): 4.
"Who Moved the Stone?" Cornerstone issue 10 (n. d.): 3-4.
Williams, Katherine. "One Crime--Two Victims." Cornerstone 10.55 (1981): 12.
Bitmead, Bruce. Telephone interview. 8 Aug. 1990.
Bragg, Dennis. Personal interview. 18 March 1990.
Cameron, Tom. Personal interview. 20 March 1990.
Davick, Darren. Personal interview. 14 Jan. 1990.
Enroth, Ronald. Telephone interview. 17 Nov. 1989.
Griffin, Ned. Personal interview. 18 March 1990.
Harrar, Spyder. Personal interview. 20 March 1990.
Herrin, Dawn. Personal interview. 22 March 1990.
Hwang, Henry. Personal interview. 21 March 1990.
Jackson, Lida. Personal interview. 16 March 1990.
Kaiser, Glenn. Announcements during church service, Chicago, 14 Jan. 1990.
Lowery, Bill. Telephone interview. 18 July. 1990.
Meints, Angel. Personal interview. 12 Jan. 1990.
Pement, Eric. Personal interview. 12 Jan. 1990.
---. Personal interview. 15 Jan. 1990.
Rowe, Suzette. Personal interview. 13 Jan. 1990.
Sullivan, Sarah. Personal interview. 12 Jan. 1990.
Tabor, Mike. Personal interview. 14 Jan. 1990.
Taylor, Neil. Telephone interview. 20 July 1990.
---. Personal interview. 22 March 1990.
Trott, Jon. Personal interview. 16 March 1990.
Tucker, Tammy. Personal interview. 12 Jan. 1990.
---. Personal interview. 18 March 1990.
West, Becky. Personal interview. 12 Jan. 1990.
Williams, Katherine. Personal interview. 22 March 1990.
Williams, Regan. Personal interview. 20 March 1990.
1. While ostensibly living in isolation, we find in the writings of the Desert Fathers an intense awareness of the social interactions between themselves and others. Peter Brown [The Making of Late Antiquity (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 1978) 82.] states, "The overwhelming impression given by the literature of the early Egyptian ascetics, is that we are dealing with men who found themselves driven into the desert by a crisis of human relations. They came to analyze the tensions among their fellow men with anxious attention. They spoke about these with an authority and an insight that make The Sayings of the Desert Fathers the last and one of the greatest products of the Wisdom literature of the ancient Near East."
2. Ernst Troeltsch, The Social Teachings of the Christian Churches (1911; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981) 523-92.
3. Troeltsch 602-632.
4. John Winthrop, "A Model of Christian Charity," Winthrop Papers, vol. 2 (Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society, 1931), qtd. in Cited by George C. Bedell, Leo Sandon, Jr., and Charles T. Wellborn, Religion in America, 2nd. ed. (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1982) 38-9.
5. Richard L Rubenstein, The Age of Triage (Boston: Beacon Press, 1983) 10.
6. Erich Fromm, Escape from Freedom (1941; New York: Avon Books, 1970) 297.
7. Paul Goodman, Growing Up Absurd (1956; New York: Vintage Books, 1960) 217.
8. Charles A. Reich, The Greening of America (1970; New York: Bantam, 1971) 4-8.
9. Reich 241-61.
10. Reich, 234. Richard F. Hamilton and James D. Wright (The State of the Masses [Hamilton, New York: Aldine Publishing Company, 1986] 54) attack this work as well as Theodore Roszak's Making of a Counterculture (Garden City: Doubleday, 1969) on the grounds of "unwarranted generalization" and poor (or lacking) survey techniques. They support this position with National Opinion Research Center (NORC) survey results, repeatedly citing Richard M. Scammon and Ben J. Wattenburg (The Real Majority [New York: Coward-McCann, 1970]). Hamilton and Wright (p. 378), arguing from the vantage point of 1986, thus conclude that Reich and Rozak were reporting fads rather than fundamental changes; the significance of fads was amplified by the unusually large numbers of students in school at the time as a result of the "baby boom."
While a thorough evaluation of these conflicting claims is beyond the scope of this paper, it is worthwhile noting that Andrew Greeley (also of the NORC) had noted similar cohort effects in religious switching patterns (Andrew M. Greeley and Michael Hout, "Musical Chairs: Patterns of Denominational Change,"Social Science Research 72 [1988]: 75-86); when age is normalized, time period fluctuations are greatly diminished. In spite of this, however, it would appear that real changes are taking place in the culture; witness, for example, the continued growth of non-Western and new religious movements in America, as in the case of the Mormons.
11. Robert N. Bellah, Richard Madsen, William M. Sullivan, Ann Swidler, and Steven Tipton, Habits of the Heart (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985) 28-34.
12. Bellah et al. 40.
13. Bellah et al. 43-4.
14. Bellah et al. 44-7.
15. Bellah et al. 250-1.
16. Bellah et al. 285.
17. Bellah et al. 284.
18. Bellah et al. 286.
19. Bellah et al. 288.
20. Bellah et al. 188-9.
21. Bellah et al. 290-1.
22. Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness 2nd. ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1976) 8.
23. Slater (1976) 8-9.
24. Slater (1976) 10.
25. Slater (1976) 10.
26. Philip Slater, The Pursuit of Loneliness (Boston: Beacon Press, 1970) 13.
27. Slater (1970) 14.
28. Slater (1970) 21.
29. Slater (1970) 24.
30. Slater (1970) 15.
31. Slater (1970) 14.
32. David F. Gordon, "A Comparison of the Effects of Urban and Suburban Location on Structure and Identity in Two Jesus People Groups," diss., University of Chicago, 1978.
33. The present study also focuses more heavily upon the life of the Jesus People USA community for its own sake; Gordon's primary goal was the sociological comparison of an urban and a suburban religious group.
34. Bruce Grindal, "Comparitive Questions for the Interpretation of Religious Lives and Religious Groups" (Tallahassee: Florida State University Department of Anthropology, n. d.) 1-5.
35. Steven Tipton, Getting Saved from the Sixties (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982) 27.
36. Charles Perry, The Haight-Ashbury (New York: Random House, 1984) 245.
37. Paul Johnson, Modern Times (New York: Harper and Row, Publishers, 1983) 613.
38. Perry 246.
39. Perry 246.
40. Tipton 27.
41. Tipton 27. While the general public approved of U.S. participation in Vietnam, at least until 1968, many of the students did not. It was contended by some (Perry 273) that the Vietnam War was "sold" to the American public in that the war was financed through borrowing money and devaluation of currency, rather than through overt taxation. The extensive use of air power and technology likewise had a similar effect, both on the U.S. public and on the soldiers (Slater [1976] 47-54).
42. Perry 249.
43. Kenneth Keniston, "The Sources of Student Dissent," Journal of Social Issues 23.3 (1967): 132.
44. Keniston 134. It is important to realize that the student activists and Hippies actually represented a fairly small portion of the population and was disproportionately represented among superior students and at prestigious universities (Keniston 109, 125). However, feelings of frustration and thwarted expectations were occurring in the nation's youth for other reasons, as well. One common reason given for this phenomenon was the popularity of books by Dr. Benjamin Spock which allegedly advocated "permissive child rearing techniques." A more tenable and complete explanation is that child-raising techniques of that time period emphasized the importance of allowing creativity and self-expression (Frederick N. Wagner, "A Theological and Historical Assessment of the Jesus Phenomenon," diss., Fuller Theological Seminary, 1971, 9); this lead to the experience of frustration when persons raised in this environment were expected to enter a work place demanding conformity and compromise (Susan Littwin, The Postponed Generation [New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1986] 22-25). See also Synesio Lyra, Jr., "The Rise and Development of the Jesus Movement," Calvin Theological Journal 8 (1974) 41.
45. James T. Richardson, Mary White Stewart, and Robert B. Simmonds, Organized Miracles (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1979) xxvi.
46. Perry 249.
47. Keniston 112.
48. This area is treated here in some detail because events happening here had significant impacts on both Hippie culture and the Jesus Movement.
49. Perry 271.
50. Perry 272.
51. Perry 273.
52. Perry 274.
53. Perry 276.
54. Perry 283.
55. Perry 285. The neighborhood reached its nadir in 1969, becoming a high-crime area with a high proportion of heroin addicts. Most of the hippies had dispersed by this time, however, to return to home, college, jobs, or communes; many of the mentally ill fringe element ended up on "hard" drugs and living as vagrants (Perry 293).
56. Ronald M. Enroth, Edward E. Ericson, Jr., and C. Breckinridge Peters, The Jesus People (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972) 69.
57. Glenn D. Kittler, The Jesus Kids and Their Leaders (New York: Warner, 1972) 41.
58. Other harassment took place as well; when the original lease on the building lapsed, the owner refused to renew it. Similarly, no other property owner would rent to Blessitt. This culminated in a forty-day long fast by Blessitt, in which he was chained to a cross in front of the coffee shop (Kittler 44).
59. Enroth, Ericson, and Peters 71.
60. Kittler 44.
61. Continued use of drugs by Jesus People after conversion is extremely rare.
62. Enroth, Ericson, and Peters 13.
63. The coffee house lasted for two years and is estimated to have made contact with between 30,000 and 50,000 young persons (Enroth, Ericson, and Peters 13).
64. Among these persons was Lonnie Frisbee, who later became a noted youth evangelist. The rest of the members went on to work as pastors and youth counselors, as well as in drug rehabilitation programs.
65. Enroth, Ericson, and Peters 14.
66. Kittler 140. Wilkerson, with his interest in helping drug users and his Pentecostal spirituality, might be considered to be the forefather of the Jesus Moment much in the same way that the Beats were the forerunners of the hippies.
67. Enroth, Ericson, and Peters 118-9.
68. Kittler 141.
69. Meissner and Griggs will appear again in relation to Jesus People USA. Groups were also formed in Spokane, Yakima, and Walla Walla, Washington and in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, with the leadership of Carl Parks. While Parks and his groups were independent of Meissner, there was a considerable amount of overlap in clientele. Park's Spokane group also published Truth, considered by Enroth, Ericson, and Peters (p. 125) to be one of the best of the Jesus newspapers.
70. This group has since reorganized and is now called The Berkeley Christian Coalition.
71. Enroth, Ericson, and Peters 111.
72. Donald Heinz, "The Christian World Liberation Front," The New Religious Consciousness, ed. Charles E. Glock and Robert N. Bellah (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1976) 149.
73. Lyra 53.
74. W. Douglas Pritchett, The Children of God/Family of Love (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1985) ix-xxxii.
75. Hiley H. Ward, The Far-Out Saints of the Jesus Communes (New York: Association Press, 1972) 185.
76. Tipton 30.
77. Enroth, Ericson, and Peters 164.
78. Jack Balswick, "The Jesus People Movement: a Generational Interpretation," Journal of Social Issues 30.1 (1974) 34.
79. Robert Lynn Adams and Robert Jon Fox, "Mainlining Jesus: The New Trip," Society 9 (Feb. 1972) 53.
80. Balswick 28.
81. Adams and Fox 53-4.
82. Cardell K. Jacobson and Thomas J. Pilarzyk, "Faith, Freaks, and Fanaticism: Notes on the Growth and Development of the Milwaukee Jesus People," ms. of paper read at the annual meetings of the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, Boston, Oct. 1972, 16.
83. Adams and Fox 54.
84. Richardson, Stewart, and Simmonds xxi.
85. Adams and Fox 56.
86. Note Acts 2:44-45, for example: "And all who believed were together and had all things in common; and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need [RSV]."
87. David F. Gordon, "Dying to Self: Self-Control Through Self-Abandonment," Sociological Analysis 45.1 (1984) 41-56.
88. Lyra 61.
89. Adams and Fox 55.
90. Lyra 61; Enroth, Ericson, and Peters 161-78.
91. Adams and Fox 55.
92. Kittler 141.
93. Kittler 143; Ward 54.
94. These include the equating of love and sex, evangelism through prostitution, and the founder's claiming authority to teach new truths at variance with the Bible. Berg also claimed to make contact with various spiritual entities (J. Gordon Melton, Encyclopedic Handbook of Cults in America (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1986) 154-8).
95. Edward E. Plowman, "Whatever Happened to the Jesus Movement?" Christianity Today 24 October 1975: 46-8.
96. "The Jesus Evolution," Time, 24 September 1973: 80-1.
97. Plowman 47.
98. "Harvest House," The Encyclopedia of American Religions, 1989 ed.; Harvest House (San Francisco: Harvest House, n. d.) 1-2.
99. Harold A. Snyder and Quincy Smith-Newcomb, "Servant Band: Prophets to the Rock Generation," Christianity Today 22 October 1982: 76-7.
100. Randy Frame, "Oregon Retreat Center Battles the IRS," Christianity Today 3 October 1986: 28-30.
101. Ronald Enroth, personal communication. An exception to this is Christ is the Answer, a mobile ministry that now has fourteen groups travelling in the United States, Italy, Romania, Spain, Hungary, India, Pakistan, Mexico, the Philippines, and El Salvador. According to the founder (Bill Lowery, telephone interview, 18 July 1990), the group still lives in buses and tents, but has changed its ministry aim "from hippies to yuppies."
102. This was close to Jim Palosaari's hometown of Oconomowoc, Wisconsin.
103. Henry Wong, personal interview, 21 March 1990.
104. Lida Jackson, personal interview, 16 March 1990.
105. Enroth, Ericson, and Peters 129. The training school was the first of its kind, even though instigated in the seemingly late year of 1971. The school's "year" lasted forty weeks, with alternating seven-week long class sessions and three-week practicums in which trainees were given only enough money to reach a destination. Upon arrival, the person was to witness and recruit, but could not ask for money, trusting the Lord to provide.
106. Cardell K. Jacobson and Thomas J. Pilarzyk, "Croissance, developpement et fin d'une secte conversioniste: les Jesus People de Milwaukee," Social Compass 21 (1974): 256.
107. Henry Wong, interview; Jacobson and Pilarzyki 256.
108. This move served to place the group closer to the downtown area, one of the regions that the organization desired to evangelize (Jacobson and Pilarzyk, "Faith" 4).
109. Dawn Herrin, personal interview, 22 March 1990.
110. John Herrin had apparently led quite a colorful existence up until this point. A reformed alcoholic, he was eventually ordained as a minister in the Advent Christian Church. After a period of time, he suffered from a recurrence of alcoholism and became sexually involved with members of his congregation. Approximately a year before meeting the Jesus People he had made a public confession before his congregation and "accepted Jesus Christ." (John Herrin, "Born Again," Cornerstone [n. d.]: 2)
111. Henry Wong, interview.
112. Henry Wong, interview.
113. Jacobson and Pilarzyk, "Croissance" 262.
114. Henry Wong, interview.
115. Henry Wong, interview.
116. Palosaari, after returning from Europe, spent a brief period of time in Vancouver working with Russ Griggs, the person who had been directly responsible for his original conversion. After this, Palosaari gathered some of his fellow workers from the London community to form the "Highway Missionaries," and the Christian rock group, "Servant" (Henry Wong, interview). This group later moved to Cleveland, Ohio, to form the now-defunct Servant community (Eric Pement, personal interview, 12 Jan. 1990).
117. Jacobson and Pilarzyk, "Croissance" 262.
118. Bill Lowery's group eventually became known as "Christ is the Answer," and settled in El Paso, Texas. This group is still in existence, and has a number of outreaches overseas. A number of other groups have also splintered off from the parent organization. Some of the Jesus People USA, members feel that the main body of this group later became doctrinally questionable. Though Dawn Herrin stated that Lowery "was never in Jesus People" (Dawn Herrin, interview), an issue of Street Level (the magazine of the then-extant Milwaukee Jesus People) apparently from the summer of 1972 contains a copy of an article from the Davenport Times-Democrat) stating that he was a member (Street Level, [n. d.] n. p.).
119. Henry Wong, interview.
120. Jacobson and Pilarzyk, "Croissance" 262.
121. Jacobson and Pilarzyk, "Croissance" 264. The authors go on to point out that , "A personal crisis in the life of the individual makes conversion or a transformation of his subjective reality appealing, even necessary. Such an experience is likely to be used to redefine his life in general, and is commonly manifested in greater commitment to the movement." Other characteristics the authors note are a disdain felt by members for their former lives and drastic shifts toward orthodox beliefs and away from the "libertine atmosphere of the counter-culture." Later converts were found to be "less engaged in living and spreading the Gospel," and "more conscious of material questions."
A shift in doctrinal attitudes was found as well; older members tended to emphasize Jesus as the Messiah, while newer members tended more to view Him as a teacher.
122. Henry Wong, interview.
123. Jacobson and Pilarzyk, "Croissance" 263.
124. Dawn Herrin, interview.
125. "We're looking for a place to set up a discipleship school in the South . . . We hope to be in the Florida region for the rest of the summer and then head for Brazil this fall." ("Jesus People-USA," Cornerstone [n. d.]: 5)
126. Dawn Herrin, interview.
127. From this point on, "Jesus People" and "Jesus People USA" will be used interchangably.
128. Dawn Herrin, interview.
129. Dawn Herrin, interview.
130. Gordon, "Comparison" 70.
131. Dawn Herrin, interview.
132. Gordon, "Comparison" 70.
133. Tom Cameron, personal interview, 20 March 1990.
134. Dawn Herrin, interview.
135. Gordon, "Comparison" 70; Dawn Herrin, interview.
136. Surrender of all earthly goods to the group was not an absolute requirement, however. The group would also work to help repay outstanding debts of members who joined while in debt (Gordon, "Comparison" 54), as in the case of student loans (Sarah Sullivan, personal interview, 13 Jan. 1990). This is practiced in a modified form today, in that a member needing extra money may, with council approval, be permitted to work at a second job within the community and then be paid in cash.
137. The situation was somewhat ironic in that the church, about to close when the Jesus People arrived, was now itself growing rapidly (Gordon, "Comparison" 101).
138. Tom Cameron, interview.
139. Almost all of the community members that I spoke with regarded moving as the first business venture (as opposed to printing), perhaps because it arose from the life of the community.
140. Ned Griffin, personal interview, 18 March 1990.
141. Tom Cameron, interview.
142. Tom Cameron, interview.
143. Gordon, "Comparison" 71.
144. Gordon, "Comparison" 71.
145. Gordon, "Comparison" 95.
146. Gordon, "Comparison" 71.
147. Gordon, "Comparison" 71.
148. Gordon, "Comparison" 72.
149. Dennis Bragg, personal interview, 18 March 1990.
150. Dennis Bragg, interview.
151. Dennis Bragg, interview. This was confirmed by another former Southside member, Ned Griffin (interview), who added, "Not everyone that fellowshipped with us came to Jesus people, and not everyone at Jesus People was part of New Life Fellowship, either."
152. Dawn Herrin, interview.
153. The lodge, also known as "the farm," includes a huge two-story log cabin, several smaller private cabins, and a sauna. At present it is used primarily for vacation purposes, though other suggestions of additional possible uses have been put forth as well, including use as a drug rehabilitation center ("Down on the Farm," Cornerstone 8.47 [1979] 35) and the development of a rural-based arm of the commune. Occasionally it is used as a place to begin integrating people into the Jesus People community that have very strong anti-social tendencies.
154. Tom Cameron, interview. This affiliation continued until 1989. It was dropped when Jesus People USA became affiliated with the Evangelical Covenant Church in that year. See below.
155. Tom Cameron, interview.
156. One member recalled that during the second night of residence in the new building, a gang had rolled one of the commune's cars over and set it on fire.
157. "JPUSA Summer," Cornerstone 8:47 (1979) 34.
158. Tammy Tucker, personal interview, 18 March 1990.
159. Much of this need for space came not so much as a result of a deluge of new members as the result of marriages and the birth of children within the commune.
160. The purchase of the Leland building was also intended to deprive the neighborhood gangs of a much-frequented gathering place.
161. The community actually owns several more buildings that house community-owned businesses. However, these are considered to be more peripheral to the life and mission of the community.
162. Tom Cameron, interview.
163. While this studio has mainly been contracted to produce advertising jingles for local businesses, the studio has recently begun to do work for nationally recognized secular musicians.
164. This was the "Cornerstone '87" festival; see below.
165. Efforts are made to import items from developing nations, such as Guatemala.
166. After the community closed its thrift store, it opened the "Free Store." The Free Store is in charge of circulating clothes within the community; i.e., a person with an unused item of clothing gives it to the Free Store. It is then made available to other members of the community who need clothes and to the residents of the shelter.
167. The Discipleship Training School consisted largely of living in the community without the intention of joining, and participating in the various activities of the community and ministry.
168. While the group had lived at the Paulina house this publication had grown from being a small, somewhat crudely produced black and white newspaper used primarily to introduce the Jesus People and their band when traveling, to being a nationally distributed tabloid. Improvements included the gradual introduction of color, the use of typeset text, an increase in the number of pages, and the printing of a wide variety of articles varying from the simple to the sophisticated.
169. Suzette Rowe, personal interiew, 13 Jan. 1990.
170. Dennis Bragg, interview.
171. Suzette Rowe, interview.
172. Suzette Rowe, interview.
173. Neil Taylor, personal interview, 22 March 1990.
174. Neil Taylor, interview.
175. Neil Taylor, interview. This translates to approximately 200 to 250 persons per day. After helping to serve several of these meals, the author noted that the food served was not infrequently superior in quality to that eaten by the community members themselves.
176. Ned Griffin, interview.
177. Mission activity in the jail is still carried on by the community. However, one receives the impression that the program is not pursued quite as actively at the present time.
178. Tammy Tucker, personal interview, 12 Jan 1990. The visitation program continues to the present time.
179. Tammy Tucker, interview, 12 Jan. These convictions led the community to participate extensively in "Operation Rescue," a Christian movement in which large numbers of persons would converge on abortion clinics and attempt to dissuade entering women from terminating their pregnancies.
180. Tammy Tucker, interview, 12 Jan.
181. An example cited of the effects of this development was a building next to the Malden building. Rent before renovation was $300 to $500; current rent is $600 to $900 per month, plus utilities. Apartments in the Jesus People-owned Greystone building, on the other hand, are rented for $125 to $215 per month, including utilities (Bragg, interview).
182. Jon Trott, personal interview, 16 March 1990.
183. The support of the Jesus People elicited a strong emotional response from the refugees and immigrants, who from past experience had suffered extensive persecutions at the hands of their former governments and were afraid of a similar response in Chicago (Jon Trott, interview).
184. Jon Trott, interview.
185. This program is becoming increasingly popular, with the community now attracting visitors from foreign countries.
186. Normally in the community people are assigned to a position based on the needs of the community and aptitudes and wishes of the individual. In the case of single males, this almost invariably begins with eight hours a day of kitchen duty.
187. These ministries do not appear to hold the same position of relative importance that they once did with the community; large numbers of people do not seem to routinely pass out tracts and witness for four to six hours a day.
188. This troupe, originally called the Holy Ghost Players, now goes by the name of Street Light Theater. At present it is mainly active during the summer months. It occupies a less central role in the ministry than in earlier years of the community as the original members have become more involved in the community, and as the Rez Band has become more professional in its productions. Originally the group performed before the band's show.
189. "Who Moved the Stone?" Cornerstone issue 10 (n. d.): 3-4.
190. "The Virgin Birth-Conceivable?" Cornerstone issue 12 (n. d.): 9.
191. "Who is Guru Maharaj Ji? False Prophet or the Exploited Adolescent," Cornerstone issue 12 (n. d.): 4. This was but the first of many articles on the subject of alternative religious movements and "cults." While these pieces are written as polemical works, they usually go into considerable depth and include a substantial amount of historical detail about the movements in question.
192. "Situation Ethics," Cornerstone issue 18 (n. d.): 3.
193. "Torture . . . Anyone?" Cornerstone 5.32 (1975): 5.
194. This size was chosen out of a desire to increase the artistic impact of the publication.
195. Katherine Williams, "One Crime--Two Victims," Cornerstone 10.55 (1981): 12; Sarah Sullivan, "When Justice Is Blind," Cornerstone 18.90 (1989): 8-11.
196. Chris Ramsey, "An American Tragedy," Cornerstone 16.85 (1987): 21.
197. Chris Ramsey, "Incest, a Family Portrait," Cornerstone 13.70 (1984): 12-13.
198. "Cornerstone's Near Miss Interviews with John Todd and Madalyn Murray O'Hair," Cornerstone 8.48 (1979): 40-41; Chris Ramsey, "Iggy Popped," Cornerstone 10.57 (1981): 42; Chris Ramsey, "Todd Rundgren," Cornerstone 15.80 (1986): 37. Other people interviewed included Wendy O. Williams, Bette Midler, Rachel Welch, Jane Fonda, and Midnight Oil. These interviews are frequently unusual in that the interviewer usually concentrates on asking questions about spiritual topics, occasionally in an overtly Christian context.
199. Bob and Gretchen Passantino, "From Catacomb to Vatican," Cornerstone 13.71 (1984): 18-20.
200. James and Roseann Trott, "Images of Salvation in the Works of Flannery O'Connor," Cornerstone 14.75 (1985): 21-2.
201. Jim Denton and Jon Trott, "The Existential Christian Kierkegaard," Cornerstone 17.88 (1989): 23-24.
202. Henry Wong, interview.
203. Henry Wong, interview.
204. The first year the community lost $80,000 producing the festival.
205. Ned Griffin, interview.
206. Ned Griffin, interview.
207. Glenn Kaiser, announcements during church service, Chicago, 14 Jan. 1990.
208. Eric Pement, personal interview, 15 Jan. 1990.
209. For tax purposes, each member has an average income of about $5200 per year.
210. John Herrin, personal interview, 20 March 1990. This is the son of the group's founder, also named John Herrin.
211. The group has had several charters at different points in its existence; however, one receives a distinct impression when talking to both elders and general members that these were created primarily for legal purposes. The tract Meet Our Family (Chicago: Jesus People, USA, n. d.) has been used by the community for a number of years, and it is frequently referred to by members when questioned about issues of doctrine that are not directly addressed by the Bible.
212. This was a product of the Chicago Conference on Biblical Inerrancy. Two articles appeared on this topic in the group's magazine ("Truth or Consequences," Cornerstone 7.45 (1979): 12-14; "Chicago Statement," Cornerstone 7.45 (1979): 12).
One consequence of this stand is that the community supports creation science as opposed to the theory of evolution ("Evolution vs. Creation," Cornerstone 6.38 (1977): 38). This stance is still maintained.
213. Gordon, "Comparison" 17.
214. Gordon, "Comparison" 17.
215. Gordon, "Comparison" 17.
216. This is made possible through the indwelling, regenerative power of the Holy Spirit. See above.
217. Gordon, "Comparison" 18.
218. Mike Tabor, personal interview, 14 Jan. 1990.
219. Mike Tabor, interview.
220. Mike Tabor, interview. This interview was carried out in the presence of a number of the community members, who made occasional comments.
221. Gordon, "Comparison" 40.
222. Gordon, "Comparison" 42.
223. Given the group's premillennialist, apocalyptic expectations and the Jesus People's convictions of the existence of Heaven, Hell, and the at-times dramatic acts of the Holy Spirit, one might pose the question of how the group can justify moderation in its activities when questions such as eternal salvation or perdition are at stake. The answer to this question appears to be three-fold: 1) the Jesus People realize that high-pressure witnessing and excessive ecstatic displays impede the spreading of the Gospel, rather than enhancing it; 2) members of the group believe that faith is a matter of free will and thus cannot and should not be coerced; and 3) most importantly, members believe strongly in the power of God and that He alone can make a person's heart and mind receptive to the Gospel message.
While a possible logical conflict could occur between the second and third points, it is not really viewed as such by the Jesus People.
224. Several members of the commune stressed that the Jesus People are "100 percent pro-life," referring to the group's long term opposition to the war in Vietnam, to Apartheid, to capital punishment and its questioning of the efficacy of the nuclear arms race. The basis for this is the belief that only God has the right to either give life or to take it away. The group is also staunchly against euthanasia, on the same grounds.
225. Dawn Herrin, interview.
226. This was at least partially a result of a study carried out by one of the members, who is a registered nurse, at the request of the council. The results of these findings were presented to the commune as a whole, resulting in the clarification and strengthening of the Jesus People's position on the issue.
Another consequence of the study was the discontinuation of usage of certain forms of birth control within the community. Only barrier methods and birth control pills that halt ovulation are permitted; IUD's, "morning after" pills, and pills that merely prevent implantation of the fertilized egg are not allowed.
227. The model of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in his opposition to Hitler, was cited by the head of the Crisis Pregnancy Center (Tammy Tucker, interview, 12 Jan).
228. Dawn Herrin, interview.
229. Names have been omitted from the following stories and testimonials to protect the individuals' privacy.
230. The following three stories were printed in an early, unnumbered or dated issue Cornerstone published while the group was located in Gainesville, Florida. I am here assuming that these are representative of the group as a whole at that time, with no particular correlation between band membership and any other personality trait, such as religiosity. At this time, almost all of the members appear to have been engaged in evangelistic activities of some kind.
231. Cornerstone (n.d.): 8. This issue appears to have been published while the group was in Florida.
232. One reason for this is that commitment to religious life, or more to the point, religious life in community, is encouraged by a personal crisis that renders the individual's earlier, precommunal life undesirable. People who have not had a personal crisis immediately before joining tend to have not repudiated their former lives to such a great extent and, as a result, are less committed and thus more likely to have left. Evidence for this was found by Jacobson and Pilarzyk ("Croissance" 264) in their study of the Jesus People, Milwaukee group. A second reason that may have contributed is a simple demographic change, with new members no longer as likely to have come from a background of extreme drug abuse, though alcoholism appears frequently. This point will be amplified upon later.
233. Tom Cameron, interview.
234. Cornerstone (n.d.): 3. This issue was probably produced while the group was in Florida.
235. One likely reason for this situation is that when the group originally formed Christian communes were quite common, while at present groups like the Jesus People, USA are more of a rarity.
236. A well known counter-culture commune located in a rural area near Summertown, Tennessee. Though the commune was reorganized into a land co-op in the late 1980's, many aspects of the hippie lifestyle are still present in the community today.
237. Becky West, personal interview, 12 Jan. 1990.
238. That is, communalism was common when the older members were young, but now it is a rarity.
239. Harvey Cox (Turning East [New York: Simon and Schuster, 1977] 95) notes that the search for friendship and a supportive community is frequently mentioned by persons joining Eastern religious movements in America.
240. This was printed in the early issue of Cornerstone printed in Gainesville.
241. Cox considers this "I tried everything . . . , then I met [name] and what he said finally made sense" answer as "the quest for authority" in a confusing world of moral relativism and multiple choices (Cox, p. 98). While this search for authoritative answers is very real, I believe that this analysis does not do justice to those persons' convictions of the absolute superiority of their object of allegiance.
242. A very recent addition to the commune's list of musical groups is "Crash Dog," a Christian punk band.
243. Part of this is due to the community's general policy of avoidance of mass media for entertainment purposes. See below.
244. Joe Bently [pseud.], "Am I Worth Being Loved?" interview by Chris Ramsey Cornerstone 17.87 (1987): 6.
245. This is the Community for Creative Nonviolence, a group unofficially headed by housing activist Mitch Snyder, now deceased.
246. This procedure is highly variable. A person may fill out an application form and meet with the elder in charge of this area and express a desire to move in, or the person may extend a previously short visit into one of long duration, or a person may simply arrive. Visitation procedures themselves seem to range between the relaxed and the disorganized.
247. Most jobs in the community are done in the presence of others, either because of their labor-intensive nature or because of the crowded conditions.
248. Occasionally this period may vary greatly, depending upon individual circumstances. One person, who arrived with several years of professional experience in the graphic arts and who displayed good personal qualities, went to work for the magazine after only a week; he still holds this position after several years. Another person with an anger problem remained an available brother, washing pots and dishes for seven hours a day, for over three years.
249. This was possible because the community runs its own school, which the city of Chicago recognizes as a "mission school." Thus, all of the teachers are not required to be certified by the state. See below.
250. Gordon ("Comparison" 62) noted this in a more extreme form when he studied the group in the mid-1970's, noting that "Rather than wait for individuals to emerge with particular talents [Jesus People USA] fills positions with individuals and then lets them learn the necessary skills. One member told him, "That's what the Lord can do for you. He turns carpenters into plumbers and plumbers into carpenters." Presumably the group has now reached a size such that there is a sufficient amount of talent to lessen the necessity of such changes; however, radical career changes still happen with some frequency within the commune.
251. Almost all of the people in the community are involved in multiple projects; for example, members of a musical group or mission group may be travelling elsewhere.
252. A "family" is normally headed by a couple that has been in the community for a long period of time. An incoming, normally single, person in the community then becomes a part of their extended family; family life consists of prayer times, recreational activities, and counseling. Over time the extended family members themselves marry and thus become "subfamilies," which in turn adopt new members as they enter. Families vary in size from a single couple, their children, and a few single members, to upwards of sixty people, including the head couple, their subfamilies, and the younger single persons.
253. In case of persistent personality conflicts between the new member and his or her family, it is possible for the person to switch families. This is, however, a rare occurrence and requires the permission of the council.
254. See below for a description of the hierarchy of authority.
255. Mike Tabor, personal communication.
256. This is somewhat similar policy to that which was reported by Gordon around 1975; at that time Gordon reported that a person joining was "expected to turn over all of his worldly goods to the group." It was noted that this was not a "strict consideration of membership" and that occasionally a person would join without having to do so (Gordon, "Comparison" 54). At present, persons moving into the group are still expected to donate their assets to the community, though again this is not a rule per se; rather, the donation is considered to be a part of making the community one's true home and a manifestion of the Biblical maxim, "Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." One elder, Neil Taylor (telephone interview, 20 July 1990), also pointed out the difficulty of living among the needy while possessing substantial amounts of property.
257. Presently, the gifts are $35 for Christmas, $75 for birthdays ($50 as a gift and $25 for a party), $55 for anniverseries ($25 for dinner and $15 to each person for gifts), and $75 per person (and use of one of the commune's cars) for vacation. The commune's perpetual cash shortage may prevent the immediate disbursment of birthday and anniversery money, however; for example, in August of 1990 gifts were being distributed from the previous March.
258. This is in the case of single persons of the same sex. In the case of persons of the opposite sex, a chaperon is usually present as well.
259. Accountability is another essential characteristic of the group; see below.
260. In the commune jargon, "to lift one up."
261. The word "nominal" is used here because the various roles of men and women generally do not overlap.
262. As a result of this, the new available brothers are sometimes called "deac-bait."
263. The exact position and duties of a "Deacon" and "Deaconess" appears to be somewhat nebulous; the assignment of a person to this position appears to be a mixture of appointment by the council and community recognition. This is further complicated by the existence of two subvarieties of deacon--"acting" and "nonacting." A person in the former postion is responsible for a particular church duty or service; the latter appears to be a somewhat honorific title for a person who has been a deacon at one time, is no longer, but still plays a prominent role in the religious life of the community.
264. This person may have missed the meeting due to duties elsewhere in the community.
265. Favorite films among the adults of the community are "The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai," "Raising Arizona," and "True Stories" (Bruce Bitmead, telephone interview, 8 Aug. 1990).
266. This desk is staffed at all times, and serves as a combination telephone switchboard and crisis hot line, as well as being the official entry point into the commune.
267. The Tuesday through Saturday workweek was chosen to allow persons to carry out personal business on Monday with groups or agencies open only during regular weekday business hours.
268. Formation of the smaller groups is extemporaneous and is one of the few instances where males and females seriously discuss spiritual and personal matters.
269. It is difficult to convey accurately the street witnessing activity of Jesus People USA. Nominally, groups go out into the surrounding neighborhood to give religious tracts out to passers-by while sharing the Gospel message. This does not seem to adequately describe an activity in which skin-heads, punks, and seeming hoodlums go and tell their stories of personal salvation to the residents of urban Chicago. The tracts used are similarly difficult to describe, with titles like "Die Happy" and "Crawling from the Shadows."
270. This diagnosis may be offered by a neighbor or by the individual himself. In the case cited, the most likely reason for being "in the flesh" would be pride. This is really another catch-all term; a person is also in the flesh if he or she falls victim to any substantial sin such as greed, lust, envy, and so on. The remedy, depending on the circumstances, may include a personal confession followed by personal and group prayer. Bible study may also be needed.
Groups within the community may also be in the flesh, as in the case of the pornography incident mentioned earlier. The main difference is that group as well as individual penitence is required. For example, meetings have been held pertaining to issues such as modesty of dress for both males and females, problems with cliques, and the influence of secular music in the commune.
271. Angel Meints, personal interview, 12 Jan. 1990.
272. Sarah Sullivan, personal interview, 12 Jan. 1990.
273. Even in this case, if the person shows a sufficient desire to change, some accommodation may be reached by sending the person to work on the Jesus People's farm in Missouri.
274. Early in the history of the commune such conversations between sexes were limited severely, to the point of purely practical matters and statements required out of politeness.
275. Exceptions do exist, as in the case of the magazine staff and kitchen workers.
276. The interviews presented here are drawn from conversations with males. This is due to the fact that the community largely discourages long conversations about more intimate matters from taking place between unmarried women and unmarried men--including visiting male interviewers. However, numerous short conversations with women in the community indicates that the opinions of the males and females are largely the same.
277. The offending acts may have been perpetrated either by the former spouse or by the commune member prior to religious conversion and entrance into the commune.
278. The community and elders may intervene in cases of spouse abuse; however, such cases appear to be very unusual.
279. Ned Griffin, interview.
280. Sarah Sullivan, interview, 12 Jan. The community does accept couples desiring to stay for "a year or two;" frequently these couples are trying to work through some sort of problem, such as a marital crisis of some sort. The Jesus People consider this to be part of their ministry.
281. The few divorces that have occurred often happen under extenuating circumstances, as in the case of the original elder. Another divorce took place when one person, who had joined the commune when her parents had joined, "decided she didn't want to be a Christian anymore" and left.
282. Sarah Sullivan, inverview, 12 Jan.
283. One should note, however, that this action is not usually taken. One member stated, "Even if a person does the same sin over and over again, if they are truly repentant, they are usually allowed to stay."
284. These numbers are rough estimates only. Members of the commune tend not to be interested in such numbers, except in the most general sense. Nobody seems to know exactly how many infants are in the community, and numbers fluctuate with the ebb and flow of members.
285. A monitor may also be used.
286. The hallways are virtually playgrounds for the children of the community, normally being littered with toys. There are also basketball hoops and four-square courts at the hallway ends.
One resident of the commune described another common form of entertainment:
VCR's are used a lot . . . . We show movies to our kids because we don't let them watch T.V. We pick what we want them to watch. We put on a video, old classics, Christian videos, or whatever. My kids love watching Ann of Green Gables . . . . They watch it repeatedly.
287. Spyder Harrar, personal interview, 20 March 1990.
288. Spyder Harrar, interview.
289. i.e., fall into sin of some sort.
290. Dawn Herrin, interview.
291. This is confirmed by Gordon ("Comparison" 55). While in Milwaukee, the Jesus People did utilize the public school system.
292. This is located on one floor that is rented from a Muslim university in the area. Prior to this, the building housed a Catholic school for girls.
293. Regan Williams, personal interview, 20 March 1990.
294. The persons who left followed different paths. The only woman in this group is now in the Marine Corps, where she appears to be quite successful. Of the rest, one joined the Army, one left to attend college and to live with his father, who is not a community member, and one came as a "street kid" and returned to this way of life after graduation; the last was sent to the commune by his mother. A former classmate of the two ex-members in the military felt that they joined the military at least partially out of a desire to attend college.
295. At the time of data collection, this class had not yet graduated; thus, the careers chosen by the members were not available.
296. In the 1989-1990 year, the school had about 107 students enrolled in kindergarten to twelfth grade.
297. Katherine Williams, personal interview, 22 March 1990.
298. Katherine Williams, interview.
299. Presumably, the daughters assist the parents as well.
300. This is partly out of a pragmatic need to keep the youth of the community occupied while the parents are at work.
301. Sarah Sullivan, interview, 12 Jan.
302. Sarah Sullivan, interview, 12 Jan.
303. Sarah Sullivan, interview, 12 Jan.
304. Benjamin Zablocki (Alienation and Charisma, [New York: The Free Press, 1980] 10) defines a charismatic leader as "a person whose authority is based on a widely shared belief that he or she is an embodiment of the collective self."
305. One elder was good-naturedly described as knowing five phrases: "I don't know," "uh . . .," "You need to talk to Neil [another elder] about that," "See me in the morning," and "Ah, don't worry about it!" However, the elder was described by the same group of persons as being "very patient. When you're asked to leave by [this elder], you know that you're totally out of bounds."
306. Individuals often noted that the founder and first elder of the group was ejected for not abiding by the rules of the community. As a result of this precedent, members felt that repeated moral deviations by a member of the council would not be tolerated either by the other council members or by the commune in general.
307. Spyder Harrar, interview.
308. Dawn Herrin, interview.
309. Dawn Herrin, interview.
310. This average age appears to exclude the numerous children in the community.
311. The latter case appears to be real possibility; young persons do continue to arrive at the commune to join. A complicating factor may be the age of the persons joining; this appears to be rising as well.
312. Tom Cameron, interview.
313. Dawn Herrin, interview.
314. Neil Taylor, interview.
315. Dawn Herrin, interview.
316. Neil Taylor, interview.
317. Eric Pement, interview, 15 Jan.
318. Eric Pement, interview, 15 Jan.
319. Eric Pement, interview, 12 Jan.
320. During the early years of the ministry, there was some controversy as to whether or not some members were be being forcibly detained. These allegations were disproven (Neil Taylor, telephone interview) and appear to have wholly ceased by the time the group moved in 1979.
321. Eric Pement, interview, 12 Jan. Other long-term members made references to life in the community being "more intense" in the past.
322. The author received the impression that the loss of the tape library was not excessively mourned.
323. Eric Pement, interview, 12 Jan.
324. Eric Pement, interview, 12 Jan.
325. One reason for this is that many of the Jesus People carry the conviction that God personally helped them to overcome certain obstacles in their lives, such as drug addictions.
326. A number of the Jesus People, USA members are members of "twelve-step" or similar programs of one type or another. These include Alcoholics Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous.
327. Darren Davick, personal interview, 14 Jan. 1990.
328. Jacobson and Pilarzyk, "Croissance" 264.
329. Another force that continues to drive the community is a conviction of a need to serve those in need. This desire may become more conspicuous as the group moves into a recently acquired hotel building, mentioned earlier. This building contains a number of elderly tenants requiring assistance that the Jesus People appear to be willing to provide.
330. Kanter notes that "service" communes, or communes with a mission of some sort, tend to last longer than "retreat" communes. She uses the example of Reba Place Fellowship (an Anabaptist commune) and Clarence Jordan's Koinonia (Rosebeth Moss Kanter, Commitment and Community: Communes and Utopias in Sociological Perspective [Cambridge, Massachussetts: Harvard University Press, 1972] 192-3).
331. This is illustrated by a humerous skit performed by the members of the commune called, "Many Are Called, but Few Can Stand It."
332. Kanter 128.
333. Kanter 245.
334. "Communal Family," The Encyclopedia of American Religions (Detroit: Gale Research, 1989) 102-103.
335. Kittler 199.
336. "Communal Family," Encyclopedia 103.
337. "Communal Family," Encyclopedia 102.
338. One member stated that the gangs of the area had declared the Jesus People's main residence to be "neutral territory."
339. "Communal Family," Encyclopedia, 102.
340. "Communal Family," Encyclopedia, 102.
341. Yaacov Oved, Two Hundred Years of American Communes (New Brunswick: Transaction Books, 1988) 75.
342. Oved 188.
343. "Harvest House," The Encyclopedia of American Religions, 1989 ed.