Jesus politics

The Jesus Movement had an ­enormous influence on the nation’s evangelical subculture in areas such as music, worship styles, and the Church’s relationship to youth culture. But although it arose amid the harrowing cultural and social upheaval of the 1960s and ’70s, Jesus People were not political animals. As a movement, they are best understood as having been stunningly apolitical. And yet, as the years went by and they assimilated into the nation’s conservative Christian churches, they became part of a powerful new evangelical political presence.

The October 1971 cover of Dust, an underground newspaper published by New Life in Christ, a Jesus People group in Buffalo, N.Y., captured the typical “Jesus freak” analysis of the contemporary political moment. Amid a graphic featuring a bomb-hurling radical and a gas mask–­wearing National Guardsman, the Jesus People issued their challenge to America’s youth: “Stop marching for peace … and start marching for Jesus … and peace will take care of itself.”

Other Jesus Movement literature contained similar dismissals of politics, a mantra frequently overheard at local “Jesus rallies” and in sidewalk witnessing encounters across the nation. Most believed that accepting Jesus was the ultimate solution to all political and societal ills. A long-term study of the Eugene, Ore.–based Shiloh Youth Revival Centers network—the ­single largest Jesus People communal group—found that 82% of Shilohites believed “the acceptance of Jesus and God would provide the ­solution for … major world problems.” The overwhelming priority among the Jesus People was the salvation of souls. This focus was supercharged by their intense conviction—­energized by books like Hal Lindsey’s massive 1970 bestseller The Late Great Planet Earth—that they were living in the Last Days. If time was indeed short, what was the big fuss about Nixon and McGovern?

This apolitical mindset dovetailed with that of many of the countercultural youth being converted into Jesus Movement ranks. For the most part, converts came from the hedonistic “sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll” side of the late ’60s and early ’70s counterculture. Steven Tipton’s 1982 book Getting Saved From the Sixties noted that in the Word of Life Fellowship in Redwood City, Calif., many more converts had been immersed in drug use and rock music than had any pre-conversion connections to radical politics. As one convert told Tipton: “I went to marches, but mostly just to hear the bands and get stoned. My motto was ‘[Joints] first, then the Revolution.’”

Even so, the Jesus Movement’s success gladdened the hearts of those within the conservative American mainstream. Religious leaders running the gamut from charismatic television evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman to Protestant positive-­thinking guru Norman Vincent Peale spoke in glowing terms about the “Jesus Kids.” Most prominently, evangelist Billy Graham gave a ringing endorsement to the movement. “Every American should thank God for this new breath of fresh air that is sweeping the country among its youth,” he told the audience at a Crusade rally in Oakland, Calif. “Spiritual renewal is coming among the young.” Evangelical leaders—and others—believed the Jesus Movement could halt the generation’s moral slide. But there was hope that maybe it could also move the political needle.

Johnny Cash performs at EXPLO ’72 Paul Slade / Paris Match via Getty Images

THE JESUS PEOPLE as political football became a major feature of the effort to pull together Campus Crusade for Christ’s giant EXPLO ’72, a “youth congress” held in Dallas in June 1972. Campus Crusade’s leader, Bill Bright, originally planned to target his organization’s college-age demographic. But as the Jesus Movement became a big national story, Campus Crusade (today known as Cru) incorporated its language and themes into the event’s publicity and program. In the end, Jesus People joined in with church youth as part of the 75,000 to 80,000 “J-E-S-U-S”-cheering and “One Way”-signing youth that crammed into the Cotton Bowl every night. Side by side, they listened to the rock- and pop-influenced strains of “Jesus Music” in between exhortations by speakers, including Graham. On the closing Saturday—June 17, the day of the Watergate break-in—a crowd estimated to be as big as 200,000 attended a Jesus Music festival headlined by Johnny Cash.

“Godstock,” as it was dubbed in the press, captured extensive and overwhelmingly favorable national coverage. But behind the scenes, a political struggle played out over an effort to use the event and the larger visibility of the Jesus Movement to help reelect President Richard Nixon. The president very much wanted to speak at EXPLO, and Graham lobbied extensively on behalf of his erstwhile Quaker friend. Bright was sympathetic to the idea, but his staffers, remembering the firestorm of criticism accompanying Nixon’s appearance at a 1970 Graham Crusade in Knoxville, wanted nothing to do with what would amount to a blatant political endorsement. In the end, they won Bright over to their side, and Nixon’s participation was reduced to a telegram greeting attendees.

Undeterred, Graham walked away from EXPLO positively bubbling about the possibility of seeing “thousands of Christian students, Street Christians, and Jesus People” turning up in Miami to “join other young demonstrators” at the upcoming Democratic convention. But the Jesus People—true to form—showed little interest in such a political happening. A few hundred, mostly from local South Florida groups, did turn up to hold signs, witness, and pass out literature. The one consistent Jesus People presence at both the Democratic convention and the later Republican convention (also held in Miami) was Berkeley’s Christian World Liberation Front, a group founded by former Campus Crusade staffers in 1968. Its members spent time on evangelism but also fed the radicals, handed out “bust cards” (information on rights, bail, and lawyers), and bathed the eyes of tear-gassed and pepper-­sprayed ­demonstrators. On the final night of the Democratic convention, four of them climbed onto a balcony and unfurled a banner that read: “SERVE THE LORD, SERVE THE PEOPLE.”

Crowd at EXPLO ’72 Paul Slade / Paris Match via Getty Images

In the end, Jesus People involvement in the 1972 political cycle was a nonevent. This paralleled the movement’s near-­complete disappearance in the media. It continued to make gains into the mid-’70s, particularly expanding its presence in the Midwest and the Rust Belt. But by then it was old news. As the decade moved on and the Jesus People grew older, finished schooling, married, and began families, the media vanishing act reflected a larger reality. By the late ’70s, the movement had pretty much disappeared.

However, most of the former Jesus freaks stuck around. “As the Lord tarried” and time marched on, they were mostly absorbed into the warp and woof of the nation’s evangelical churches, part of the baby boomer rank and file inhabiting the pews and moving into positions as pastors, parachurch workers, and missionaries. And like the rest of the evangelical subculture, they eventually took a lot more interest in politics.

AS PART OF MY RESEARCH on the movement, I compiled the results of a web-based survey of former Jesus People on a broad range of questions. The (admittedly nonscientific) survey put together the responses of 812 former movement participants. Before entering the Jesus Movement ranks, 42% considered themselves politically “Liberal,” 27% thought of themselves as “Moderate,” and just over 22% described themselves as “Conservative.” But by the time they took the survey some 25 years later, just a little over 10% claimed to be “Liberal,” slightly more than 25% pegged themselves as “Moderate,” and a majority—57%—declared themselves “Conservative.”

These numbers provide a fascinating glimpse into a largely unrecognized effect of the Jesus Revolution—its eventual political influence. Many have suspected the movement’s rise helped tie a large slice of the baby boomer generation to the nation’s conservative Christian churches. But many quickly became part of the swelling evangelical support for the pro-life movement that began in the mid- to late 1970s. Increasingly influenced beyond their Bible-reading by evangelical writers and speakers ranging from Francis Schaeffer and John Whitehead to Ron Sider, they adopted a more thoroughgoing cultural and political worldview that skewed largely conservative. Many former members of the Jesus Revolution backed initiatives by the Moral Majority, Focus on the Family, and the Christian Coalition, while some aligned with groups such as Evangelicals for Social Action. On the ground, members of the Jesus People USA commune supported progressive aldermen’s social initiatives in the impoverished Uptown neighborhood of Chicago in the 1990s and early 2000s, while Southern California evangelist Greg Laurie would eventually serve on President Donald Trump’s evangelical advisory board.

Most former Jesus People in 2025 would still agree with their early 1970s selves that accepting Jesus as Savior would go a long way toward curing America’s ills. But it’s clear that as the years passed, many of them began to believe a turn toward politics just might move the process along.

—Larry Eskridge was with Wheaton College’s Institute for the Study of American Evangelicals for 26 years and is the author of God’s Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America

Notable Jesus Movement churches, leaders, ministries, and music

Churches, groups, and outgrowths with roots that trace back to the Jesus Movement

Calvary Chapel 1,800 churches worldwide in Calvary Chapel Association; 1,000 churches globally in Calvary Global Network

Vineyard Movement 2,500 churches worldwide

Harvest Ministries Founded by hippie convert Greg Laurie; 15,000 church attendees at Harvest Christian Fellowship; Harvest Crusades

Hope Chapel 2,400 churches globally

Victory Outreach 700 churches worldwide

Sovereign Grace Churches 95 churches worldwide

Jews for Jesus 280 full-time staff in 15 cities worldwide

Maranatha! Music Christian music record label, founded by Calvary Chapel

Contemporary Christian Music Among the fastest-growing music genres in 2024

Jesus People USA Commune in Chicago, Ill.

Willow Creek Community Church South Barrington, Ill.; 7,740 attendees

Key players

Chuck Smith Founder of Calvary Chapel

Arthur Blessitt Founder of His Place storefront mission in Hollywood, Calif.; carried a cross through every nation in the world

Jack Sparks Co-founded the Christian World Liberation Front, Berkeley, Calif.

Don Williams Former youth minister at Hollywood Presbyterian Church

Duane Pederson Published the Hollywood Free Paper, a prominent example of the “Jesus paper” literary genre

David Berg Founder of Teens for Christ in Los Angeles, later renamed Children of God

Scott Ross Former syndicated radio disc jockey and head of the Love Inn, Freeville, N.Y.

John Higgins Founded Shiloh Youth Revival Centers, the largest Jesus People communal movement

David Wilkerson Founder of the addiction recovery program Teen Challenge

Cults and quasi-cults

Children of God, The Way International, The Alamo Foundation

Influential musicians and groups

Love Song, Larry Norman, 2nd Chapter of Acts, Keith Green, Barry McGuire, Phil Keaggy, Petra, Randy Matthews