God's Forever Family

God's Forever Family: The Jesus People Movement in America by Larry Eskridge, 284 pages

It was inevitable, in hindsight, that the rising tide of Evangelical Christianity, which surged in the '50s and '60s, should encounter the counterculture explosion of the late '60s.  It was equally inevitable that some of the spiritual seekers of the counterculture would find their search leading to Christianity, particularly in some of its more enthusiastic, experiential forms.  At the time, however, to the long-hairs on the streets of Haight-Ashbury and the Sunday-best faithful listening to Billy Graham on the radio equally, it seemed unthinkable.  How it happened, how drug culture casualties seeking a fresh start and square missionaries seeking to connect with disaffected youth came together to become the "Jesus Freaks" or "Jesus People", is the subject of God's Forever Family.

The Jesus People are generally understood as either a footnote of evangelical history or a footnote of countercultural history, one of the many ephemeral phenomena of the '60s and '70s.  In addition to chronicling the movement's brief peak in the early '70s and its rapid disappearance from American cultural consciousness in the late '70s, Eskridge emphasizes its lasting aftereffects, on individuals as much as on the wider society, especially in the creation of a vibrant evangelical subculture and the rise of the seeker-oriented megachurch.