Jesus People USA
920 W Wilson
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| Formation | 1972 |
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| Type | Christian |
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Official language
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English |
| Website | jpusa |
Jesus People USA (JPUSA) pronounced: ǰ-pu-sa is a Christian intentional community of 400 people in Uptown, on the North Side of Chicago, Illinois. Founded in 1972, coming out of Jesus People Milwaukee during the Jesus Movement, it is one of the largest continuing communities. In 1989, JPUSA joined the Evangelical Covenant Church as a member congregation, and currently has eight pastors credentialed with the ECC. The community organized the annual Cornerstone Festival from 1984 until 2012.
Cornerstone magazine and the Christian rock band the Resurrection Band are part of the JPUSA community. In recent years, Resurrection Band disbanded, but Glenn Kaiser continues touring and playing, both solo and with the blues-based GKB (Glenn Kaiser Band). JPUSA also has its own recording company, Grrr Records. JPUSA was once the home of film producer/art promoter Anthony Cox (who was formerly the husband of Yoko Ono) and their daughter Kyoko, singer/songwriter Daniel Smith as well as bass player/vocalist Christian Wargo.
Today Jesus People USA is "one of the largest single-site communes in the United States" and is certainly one of the few communes with such an eclectic cultural mix of hippies, punks, "crusties" and others from various subcultures.
In 1993 JPUSA elders learned that Dr. Ronald Enroth was researching a sequel to his book Churches That Abuse, which was said to mention issues of abuse within JPUSA. Despite efforts of elders to convince Enroth to edit JPUSA out of the book, it was published in 1994 and included a full chapter of accounts of alleged abuse within the group. The release of the book set off a "firestorm of debate among religious scholars." JPUSA elders referred to the book as "poison in the well." Ruth Tucker, a professor at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, defended the movement, saying Enroth was "sadly misdirected and his research methods seriously flawed." Paul R. Martin, the director of Wellspring Retreat and Resource Center, one of the few residential treatment centers in the world for former members of "abusive groups," supported Enroth's findings, saying that his facility had seen a flood of requests for help from former members and that JPUSA "displays virtually every sign that I watch for in overly authoritarian and totalistic groups." Ronald Enroth himself responded to JPUSA in the book, in part, with:
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