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Jesus freak, while initially a pejorative term for those involved in the Jesus movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, was quickly embraced by them and soon broadened to describe a Christian subculture throughout the hippie and back-to-the-land movements that focused on universal love and pacifism, and relished the radical nature of Jesus' message. Jesus freaks often carried and distributed copies of the "Good News for Modern Man", a 1966 translation that fit the bill by including only the New Testament, and by being in modern English. Bottom line: it was not their parents' Bible. The term Jesus freak, having lost ties to its roots, is used today variously as a pejorative epithet against Christians in general, and by some Christian youth as a positive term to let others know that they are not ashamed of their beliefs. Perhaps its most well-known usage was in the lyrics of Elton John's song "Tiny Dancer" ("Jesus freaks, out in the street, handing tickets out for God," referring to gospel tracts), but it has also appeared in Felt's 1986 single "Ballad of the Band." The term has recently been used frequently by Ted Turner and Howard Stern, referring mainly to fundamentalists. Another use of the phrase was in Kevin Michael's song "We All Want The Same Thing": "DJs in the club, Jesus Freaks and thugs, we all want the same thing". Black Sabbath (Ozzy Osbourne) in "Under the Sun"... "I don't need no Jesus Freak to tell me what it's all about". Jesus Freak also appeared as the title of the 1995 album by dc Talk, and that album helped turn the term into more of a compliment. The song says, "What will people think when they hear that I'm a Jesus Freak? What will people do when they find that it's true? I don't really care if they label me a Jesus Freak. There ain't no disguising the truth." The song itself was written by Larry Norman who is considered the forefather of Christian rock music. TobyMac of dc Talk still uses the term "Jesus Freak" in many of songs today, including the line "Where my freaks at? Where my Jesus freaks?" in the song "Wonderin' Why".
Bibliography
- Di Sabatino, David. The Jesus People Movement: An Annotated Bibliography and General Resource (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1999). [1]
- White, L. Michael. The First Christians:the Jesus Movement. [2].
- Shires, Preston David, Ph.D. (2002). Hippies of the religious Right: The counterculture and American evangelicalism in the 1960s and 1970s. University of Nebraska, Lincoln.
- Bookman, Sally Dobson Ph.D. (1974). Jesus People: a religious movement in a mid-western city. University of California, Berkeley.
- Wagner, Frederick Norman, Ph.D. (1971). A theological and historical assessment of the Jesus people phenomenon. Fuller Theological Seminary.
- Smalridge, Scott, M.A. (1999). Early American Pentecostalism and the issues of race, gender, war, and poverty: A history of the belief system and social witness of early twentieth century Pentacostalism and its nineteenth century holiness roots. McGill University.
