Friday, May 5,1972
University Daily Kansan
5
Jesus Movement Gains Support
By GINNIE MICKE Kansan Staff Writer
For those looking on from the outside, there is something called a Jesus Movement, a fad, a new way of thinking that is gathering followers at KU.
But, by talking to some professed Christians, you find commitment to Jesus part of a movement. Some will tell you there's been a Jesus Movement that acknowledges a revival, but won't identify with the widespread view that usually accompanies any movement on college campuses. The commercialism said kidnapping causes a band-wag effect. This accounts for the movement's success.
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"PEOPLE ARE ATTRACTED to Christianity, not to Christianity, or person bases his Christianity on Christianity and no Jesus Christ."
days and postage vertised pressed
It is easier to see the fad element of the movement in the bumper stickers, T-shirts, posters and buttons. Some find it hard to adjust to having brought down to a human level.
Yet, there are still implications that there is a lasting quality in the commitment of some Christians. For example, Bible-hymns have increased in number and membership in the past three years.
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THERE IS no "typical"
Christian. The movement
represents all social classes.
It recruits from the drug culture,
who's been busted by gang
goers and from those who've
had no religious affiliation at all.
There's evidence that the movement will continue to grow. Nationwide, Christian organizations are trying their efforts to plan conferences and strategies for evangelizing the world. An example of this will be the annual summer in Dallas, Expo 72. The Lutheran ministry has also been planning a spiritual thrust to continue throughout the year.
could be, in part, a result of disillusionment with trying to solve man's needs in a scientific, circumscribed era.
But some say the movement is dying out. People find that they are being suppressed, anymore and move on to something else. For some of those who see the possibility and enthusiasm that come with the initial acceptance of Christ as a personal savior and the way of life continues.
The implication is that Americans, especially the youth, realized that intellectualism and the importance of characteristic of the '50s and '60s were making it harder for men to reach out to other men humanely.
The same idea was expressed by several Christians on campus.
THE OVERT EMOTIONALISM is one of the major manifestations of the movement
The Rev. Norman Steffen, pastor of the University Lutheran Church, said the emotionalism
THE REVIVAL, said one girl,
was a counter-reaction to "a
materialistic, technological
society that was not satisfied."
"What has always been held to be the panacea of problems is not anymore," she said.
Lori Phillips, Salina sophomore, said that the emotional aspect was a negative reaction to intellectualism
"The flower children set it up beautifully." she said.
The early hippies were among the first to recognize the need to balance the trend toward motherhood and love, with brotherhood and love.
PICKING UP on this theme
Chris Coberly, Gove junior and member of the Baptist Student Society for a last hope for a dying society.
At a Christian rally, one non-student evangelist, Chris Leason, perhaps summed up the reasons for his fervent fertile ground for Christianity.
"Students are searching for answers, for peace," he said. "And today there are no answers."
Entomologist To Lecture On Honeybees
Charles D. Michener, professor of entomology at the University of Georgia, will speak at the meeting of the Central States Entomological Society's Saturday in the Bank Union. He will speak about the problems resulting from the bee hiveeve into South America.
Michener had done extensive research on the biology and behavior of tapeworms and titated on a board which investigated the significance of the introduction of the agressive tapeworm in the Western Hemisphere.
Papers, contributed by 16 graduates and professors of entomology and the biological sciences to meeting. Registration will begin at 8 a.m. Saturday. The opening lecture will be given at 8 a.m. The meeting will be hosted by the KU department of entomology.
YOUNG PEOPLE "wanted peace and love, and Jesus was preaching it," she said.
Deborah Dawson, Overland Park sophomore, seemed to agree with Leason.
It is this idea of the college art and a meaningful existence that causes many of the unmoved by the Christian spirit to criticize it.
"It's another youth movement, said Peggy Kirby, Overland Park senior. "It centers on finding an identity."
Dave Chase, Kansas City, Mo. senior, said, "It's a social crutch for awhile."
But convincing others of their personal commitment doesn't seem to be the main concern of the Jesus People Ruther, they have given up convincing the 'non-believer' to make his own commitment.
**WITNESING** He is Gail Penfield, a Wisita junior and a member of a Bible-study group, the Way. "You want to do it, you're not
The idea of witnessing, or evangelizing, comes from the early apostles. The term simply means teaching a person to do one's person and teachings of Jesus.
The witnessing is another of the more obvious manifestations of the movement on campus. It is, perhaps, what has caused the loss of interest in campus, may also be the hardest element for non-Catholics to accept.
A WITNESS will stop you on your way to class, sit next to you at a rock concert or quote the Bible to you in a bar.
"They're like traveling
and people with their
religion to you, said one girl,
who considered herself Christian,
but did not identify with the
religion."
Christians explain that different people will use different approaches in witnessing, and they will share a different degree of emphasis on it. Not every Christian, then, finds witnessing a major part of their experience, but so several campus organizations hold Bible-study classes to train people to do this and to acquaint them with the Bible.
"WITNESSING DOES Cause barriers," said Linda Wright, a researcher on an organization that stresses witnessing. "As people become more aware of the threats there is resistance, more polarization."
The essence of the revival is the fundamentalist idea that Christianity is accepting Christian values, savior, rather than a philosophy.
Three Christian girls who room together said that if there was a real commitment to Jesus, the girls would actions could do more than verbal witnessing. The girls said that it was the example set by
another Christian that led them to Christ.
You can take the leaders out of the other religions, and you've still got them the teachings, said one Christian at the recent rally.
"But, if you take Jesus from Christianity," he said, "You take away history. You deny your own existence."
THE IDEA is that unless one accepts Christ as his personal savior, he will not be saved.
You can't take Jesus on a mediocre level, Christians say. You have to decide if He is insane, if He's a liar or if He is what He said He is. You can say that He is a good man or a prophet.
But isn't this what ministers have always been teaching?
Many Christians testify that they were brought up in a church, but had no services at a particular church or had some affiliation with organized religion when they were young. But, they say, the church taught them to resist. Rather, they stressed Christian philosophy and social movement. Many who profess Christianity do so outside an organized church.
THE NEW CHRISTIANS make the distinction between religion and Christianity. Religion, they say, is a system of ritual. It man's aims to reach God. God's aims to reach man.
Although some remain disenchanted with the institutionalized church, others will to attend religious services.
"We don't consider religion a lost cause," said Van Birrer, a recent graduate of KU, "but we don't see it as an embassiah."
Christianity is "integrally tied to the church," said Paul Uttley, a staff member of Campus Crusade.
THE REV. Donald Redmond,
kid of Donald S. Lawrence
Cawrence, passed away
those who condemned the
organized church for failing them
have refused to accept
them and to harm them.
He said that there had been an
over-emphasis on the role of the
male, in reality, the female.
He said that there had been an over-emphasis on the role of the minister, when, in reality, community itself was the church.
Redmond thought the movement was "some small help" to a realization of Christ. Through personal experience, however, Redmond has found that the worst hurt is an awful lot of people."
"HAVING GONE through the emotional stage," he said,
"many saw that they were used
Redmond said he thought the movement was not a revival in solid practice because "it lacked a permanence of commitment."
and have tossed over Christianity entirely."
The Rev. Ronald Sundbye,
pastor of the First United
Museum, said the movement didn't have enough depth to be long-reaching.
the church has been criticized, Sunday she said, because those who live in the church people with deep emotional problems, for example, drug problems. These people, he said, are also at risk of the church as a scapegoat.
The University of Kansas
alumni will sponsor a Social
Work Day Monday in the in-
room Room of the Kansas
Ulma Union. The program will be "Crisis in
the Implications for Social Work
The featured speaker at the meeting will be David B. Fogel, PhD, in the Indiana Division of Corrections. Fogel is one of the few state corrections faculty in his field and professional social worker and also has a Ph.D in sociology.
Following Fogel's speech, there will be a reaction panel discussion consisting of Michael
KU to Hold Welfare Day
KU Med Student Wins Fulbright Graduate Award
"I'm going to be doing research and study on people's varying experiences of illness and health and how these varying cultural preceptions of illness are presented given culture." Henderson said.
A University of Kansas student, Connie Henderson, Wichita graduate student, has been selected to receive a fellowship to study at the Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand.
Henderson will complete a five-year nursing program at the end of the current semester at the University Center. She plans to leave for New Zealand next February for the beginning of the university year.
"Henderson's grant is the first Fulbright award in the graduate study program at the University of Kansas has been established of the program.
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