Customer Reviews

The Jesus People Movement: An Annotated Bibliography and General Resource (Bibliographies & Indexes in Religious Studies)

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I leafed thorugh this work and really started to weep because it really brought some great feelings back. This was such a great time to be a Christian. I grew up at Calvary Chapel, and really appreciated the faith that began way back when... so, anything that tells about that time, I am all for it. God bless those who perservered from 30 years ago and are still walking with the Lord.

As a current member of one ministry which came from the Jesus movement era, and as someone who observed the author's careful attempts at documenting that time, I can heartily recommend this book as an invaluable resource for both historians and those who merely "want to know how it was." The revival was messy, painful, glorious, and ultimately transforming for the American Church and beyond. "The Jesus Movement" captures both the sadness and the joy, following God's move through very frail and human vessels. Most highly recommended.

Wow!!

This thing really has a lot of citations in it, stuff I didn't even know was going on during that time... and I was there for it! Well, for some of it, anyway. Great discography section. Love those tunes from Larry Norman and the Love Song band. This brought back some great memories. Can't wait until he actually puts together a written work. I emailed him a couple of times and he says he is taking his time working on it. Can't wait!

I have read David's work on the web and find it very detailed and now look forward to a hard copy. He provides great coverage in an exhaustive way on a movement from which I found the real Jesus in 1973, a Jesus of the Bible who has been with me and transforming me daily over these 27 years! I wish I still had my jean jacket with "Jesus Saves" embroidered on the back that I wore as an 11th grader in my high school. PTL!

"David Di Sabatino's bibliographic guide to the Jesus People Movement pulls off something exceedingly rare in the musty world of academic reference works--it manages to be an exhaustive, 'must-have' for anyone looking to research the movement, even as it provides a thought-provoking, and--this is the really hard part-- entertaining sense of retrospection for those readers who were a part of the 'Jesus Revolution' in their youth. This is an indispensable guide to a phenomenon of recent North American religious history which is only now beginning to be recognized for its widespread and lasting impact upon evangelical Christianity"--Larry Eskridge

What this book will give depends on what you're hoping for from it. If you're wanting a single book that will give you explanation, historical context and insight from the key participants in the late 60s-mid 1970s religious phenomenon that's come to be known as the "Jesus People movement" or simply the "Jesus movement", this probably isn't the one. There are only fairly cursory explanations of exactly what the movement was (essentially, hippies and "outsiders" to the established Church experiencing a Christian rebirth created their own religious structures, often communes, because of distrust of the traditional Church) and no real interviews with key participants like Larry Norman, Lonnie Frisbee, or Duane Pedersen for example. But that's because this book is not INTENDED to do that: it's a guide for further research.

As such, it's excellent with hundreds of notations about articles and books about the movement from the easily locatable (articles from LOOK! magazine) to things that might require more digging from local newspapers.

Also, those whose primary interest in the movement is the music from it that birthed what's today known as Contemporary Christian Music (like me) will find a chapter toward the end invaluable in guiding you toward albums outside of the easily found Love Song, Randy Stonehill,Larry Norman, and Resurrection Band(later known simply as Rez Band or Rez).

BOTTOM LINE:
If you don't know WHAT the Jesus movement was, don't start here. Get Paul Baker's Contemporary Christian Music: Where It Came From, What It Is, and Where It's Going which is a better overview in general.

If you've already read that and want to know what to read next, this is the ideal place to look. If you're passionately interested in the Jesus People, this tome is indispensable.

From someone who was there, I found this to be right on and meticulously done. The author captured the essence of the Sixties Jesus Movement. I heartily recommend this book to any library, historian, or collector. The bibliography is a researchers' dream. Thanks to the author.

The author certainly tracked down anything and everything that had to do with the Jesus freaks. Quite amazing, really. If you were ever going to do research on this subject, this volume is indespensable. Well worth the money.

The author of this book is somebody you should not pay attention to at all. You should be very careful before reading this book. I highly doubt that the author was even there at all.