Les « Jesus Freaks » et le retour à la respectabilité

Abstract

This paper postulates that (1) the Jesus movement, as a movement, is in the process of routinization ; and that (2) the main function of the movement for the individual members has been that of providing a " waystation to respectability" for a cohort of stigmatized youth, who are more recently in the process of being reabsorbed back into the system, partly through membership in established pentecostal churches. The data come from structured and unstructured interviews ad ministered in the state of Washington in 1971, 1972, and 1973; from content analysis of movement publications ; from lengthy observations; and from relevant secondary sources. The data bear out the postulates and suggest that an interesting "latent function of this movement has been that of informal "youth outreach " program for the pentecostal branch of Protestantism.

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