Jesus movement

English

Proper noun

Jesus movement

1. (history) Christianity in its earliest form, the original religious movement of Jesus of Nazareth.
   • 1999, Gerd Theissen, translated by John Bowden, A Theory of Primitive Christian Religion‎, page 165:

     But at a very early stage in the Jesus movement the tendency towards an opening up of Judaism became evident – in all three forms of religious expression.

   • 1999, Carey C. Newman, “From (Wright's) Jesus to (the Church's) Christ: Can We Get There from Here?”, in Jesus and the Restoration of Israel, pages 281–82:

     But the divinity of Jesus is as historically vexing as it is theologically crucial. Any assertion about this doctrine's theological centrality has a provocative, historical correlate: the early Jesus movement (first?) became Christianity when regular, public and sanctioned devotion was offered to Jesus alongside of, and as, the monos theos of Judaism.

   • 2009, Allen Brent, A Political History of Early Christianity‎, page 130:

     The battle of the Jesus movement to evolve from a small cult to a universal faith that redefined and thus transformed Roman society so that it could achieve political power within it was not fought upon the lines with which we are familiar in post-Enlightenment Europe.

2. An American evangelical Christian movement of the 1960s and 1970s.

Usage notes

(original Christianity): The term “Jesus movement” is typically used in history of religion to distinguish the original movement that followed Jesus in the 1st century C.E., especially when considered as a sect of Judaism, from doctrines and practices believed to have been adopted by the Christian church at a later date.