JESUS MOVEMENT refers to a communally oriented fundamentalist Christian movement that developed in the 1960s and 1970s among relatively affluent young people in the United States. Early Jesus Movement groups attracted considerable media attention and became the focus of some Christian religious leaders who were concerned about whether or not such groups were "truly Christian." Well-publicized lifestyle practices that included long hair and casual dress contributed to the controversy, as did overt efforts to proselytize other young people.

The movement gained much attention for about three decades and spread to other countries, becoming worldwide in scope. One controversial Jesus Movement group, the Children of God, at one time had outposts in nearly two hundred countries. The movement lost momentum in the 1990s, and by the early 2000s only a few Jesus Movement groups, such as Jesus People USA, centered in Chicago, and the Family (formerly known...