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The Jesus People: Old-Time Religion in the Age of Aquarius

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Based on the thorough research and extensive contact with representative members of the movement, and written from the perspective of evangelical Christianity, The Jesus People is the first comprehensive attempt to answer the questions raise by the Jesus Revolution. It begins by examining in detail the origin and growth of each of the significant branches of this new religious revival -- those who have fled the world and those who involve themselves in it; those who curse the church and those who work within churches. The spectrum of those included in the term "Jesus People" is wide, the authors point out; the realization of that fact is essential to an understanding of the movement.

For all the diversity found in it, however, the Jesus Movement is characterized by certain basic tenets held by most or all of its members: insistence on the simplicity of the gospel, a sense of the impending end of the world, espousal of charismatic gifts, and efforts to achieve a sense of community. In the second half of The Jesus People the authors discuss these fundamental beliefs in the light of insights from sociology, theology and psychology -- arriving at conclusions that may prove as unsettling to their critics as to the Jesus People themselves.

At the time of the writing of this book Ronald M. Enroth was Associate Professor of Sociology at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, California, Edward E. Ericson was Chairman of the Department of English and Modern Language at Westmont College and C. Breckinridge Peters, a graduate of Westmont College, was a graduate student in Sociology at the University of Kentucky.