The main thing that inspired me to start this blog was a desire to post this. 'This' is a paper I wrote in a first-year anthropology about Jesus People USA, a Christian commune in Chicago that I lived with for almost a year before starting university. (Founded in 1972 and now numbering around 500 people, JPUSA is one of the largest and longest-running communes around). There's nothing particularly scholarly about it, though I passed it off by calling it 'a field notes write-up' — basically, I just told stories about JPUSA and tried to explain how it works and what it's like to live there. In a lot of ways, it was just an excuse to get a lot of my memories and thoughts down on paper, partly so I could look back on it years later.
Ever since I wrote it, I've wanted to get it up on the Internet somehow. There isn't really anything like it out there... most of the stuff on JPUSA on the Internet is either material from their official site, or paranoid 'they're a crazy cult!' kind of stuff. I definitely am pretty sympathetic to them in what I wrote (JPUSA was good to me, on the whole, after all), but I'm also definitely not candy-coating anything. I hope this will be a help to those considering spending at time at JPUSA themselves, as well as anyone else wanting to learn more about them.
It also shouldn't be taken as an exhaustive, or definitive, treatment of JPUSA. I was only there for a year, which in some ways is a long time, and in some ways, no time at all. I'm primarily concerned by how JPUSA was experienced by new young single members, because that was what I and those closest to me experienced. Broader generalizations (about other areas, about structure, long-term trends and how 'things normally are') are at best how they seemed to a relative newcomer.
WARNING: It's really long! If you were to print it out, it would total over a hundred pages. Hopefully it's very thorough, too. I'm also a little embarassed by some parts of it, and by the writing stye in general (it was 4 years ago), but here it is, warts and all!
Click on the links below to get started.
Introduction
Part 1 - JPUSA's History ; Part 1 Endnotes
Part 2 - JPUSA Today - Structure
Part 3 - JPUSA Today - Social
Part 4 - Coming and Going
Part 5 - The Future
Afterword
Thursday, October 9, 2008
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Hi Tim. I read the article about JPUSA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesus_People_USA and I saw a link below to your blog
ReplyDelete...I would also read your articles about Jesus people community, but it will be hard work - to translate it into Czech. I am from the Czech Republic ... it is in middle Europe (for your orientation)..
PS cool pictures above :) I think it is an old Czech Skoda car and dirty sneakers that I wear.
Hi, Daggie. Glad you stumbled across me. Good luck with the Czech/English thing. I'm afraid I can't help you out there. Tried checking out your blog and ran into the same problem, from opposite ends.
ReplyDeleteThe picture was taken by a friend... somewhere in Europe, so you're probably right about it being a Skoda. (I had no idea!) Not sure where she took it... she was living in France at the time, but travelled around Europe a lot. It might be from the Czech Republic itself.
The sneakers are mine, and I'm afraid they're falling apart and on their last legs these days.
Hi James. Of course I remember you -- actually I linked to your blog at one point (bottom of part 3, I think), 'cause you had some photos and observations on JPUSA.
ReplyDeleteIt's very gratifying to hear praise from someone else that lived there -- so good to know you don't think I misrepresented the place -- so thank you very much!
That trailer looks very interesting -- I'll have to see it, when it becomes available. Watching the trailer and clips made me quite sad. Though I generally had a good impression of JPUSA, I remember thinking that it seemed a screwy place to be a teenager in.
It also seems like when they were growing up things were a lot more unbalanced -- my impression was that a lot of the things they were (rightfully) criticizing have changed, or at least I hope so.
I'd be interested in hearing more from you... what led you to leave JPUSA, what you're up to these days. You can always drop me an e-mail via genesiswinter(at)gmail.com
I am really confused. I thought I knew Genesis Winter and didn't think she was a guy but rather a woman who had grown up in JPUSA.
ReplyDeleteIt's an unfortunate confusion. I'm not Genesis Winter, and didn't really know her while I was there. To me, it was just a name I saw on a piece of art while I was there... I assumed it was a pseudonym or something, liked it, and started using it as an avatar/username.
ReplyDeleteHi,to think that when u hear an organisation like jpusa one would have had fun.
ReplyDelete