Jesus freak
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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"I am sick and tired of hearing about all the radicals" "Jesus was not a pacifist. He was not a sissy" --Jerry Falwell "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"--Jerry Falwell after the September 11, 2001 attacks |
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Jesus freak is a term arising from the late 1960s and early 1970s counterculture and is used as a pejorative for those involved in the Jesus movement. As Tom Wolfe illustrates in The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, the term "freak" with a preceding qualifier was a strictly neutral term and described any counter-culture member with a specific interest in a given subject; hence "acid freak" "Jesus freak." The term "freak" was in common enough currency that Hunter S. Thompson's failed bid for sheriff of Aspen, Colorado was as a member of the "Freak Power" party. However, many later members of the movement, misunderstanding the counter-cultural roots believed the term to be negative, and co-opted and embraced the term, and its usage 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 of the New Testament written in modern English. In Australia, and other countries, the term Jesus freak, along with Bible basher, is still used in a derogatory manner. In Germany, there is a Christian youth culture, also called Jesus Freaks, that claims to have its roots in the American movement.
See also
- Bible thumper
- Jesus Freaks (youth movement)
- Jesus movement
- Christian fundamentalism
- The Christian Right, Zionism, and the Coming of the Penteholocaust () is a text by Gregory Krupey
