Ah, let's go walking in the archives for a few minutes this morning. A blog popped up as part of my morning reading, and the question it posed is one for you, dear reader.
The question? What is a Jesus Freak?
I'm supposing the answer (and the nostalgia it brings with it) is dependent on your age. For me, I was right in the wheelhouse of the time it came about. Originally it was used to demean or insult Christians who were involved with the jesus Movement in the late 1960s and into the 1970s. I was young and in one of my Jesus phases that didn't take because of the emotional component (in other words I was freaking out on Jesus and on "Jesus music" for a while there.
I learned to play bass guitar badly, got a position in a little bad band (we played badly, and I guess in the real definition of bad we were bad), and we played churches around my home town.
The blog defined Jesus Freaks as those who were "Bible thumpers" and were "especially aggressive in their evangelistic efforts. The funny thing was, as I recalled, being called a Jesus Freak was actually accepted as a good thing though it was not meant that way.
Then along came the Christian band DC Talk in 1995, the year I came "back" to Christ after 40 year sin the wilderness (metaphorically speaking), and their song "Jesus Freak" was a big hit.
What it really means is something as simple as an obsession with Jesus.
There's another term you might have heard of that means the same thing and was widely used in a similar derogatory manner.
The term was used originally to point out how wacky these folks who followed Jesus were. All the early talk about how blood was drank, how bodies were eaten, even babies were gorged on (rumors and gossip really are harmful, huh?), led folks to come up with one term that would symbolize how nuts these folks were.
No, it wasn't Jesus Freak, though that certainly would suffice it seems.
No, the terms was, ugh it was right there on the tip of my tongue on the outskirts of my brain. What was it, what was it?
Oh, yeah. I remember.
The term, the name, the idea was, (da, da) ... CHRISTIAN.
Yep. That's what they called those whipper snappers. They called them Christian.
In Acts 11:26 we see the first recorded use of the term. A man named Barnabas brings Paul the Apostle to Antioch where they were to teach disciples for about a year. "...the disciples were called Christians first in Antioch," the text says. Only two more times in scripture is the term used. In Acts 26:28, Herod Agrippa II refers to Paul the Apostle. "Then Agrippa said to Paul, 'You almost persuaded me to be a Christian." In 1 Peter 4:16, we read, "If any man suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed but let him glorify God." Christianoi, the terms used in 1 Peter, which means little Christ, becomes the standard term in the early church, after those who followed Jesus were originally called followers of "the Way."
I much more enjoy, by the way, being called Christian rather than Freak, although both seem to be somewhat appropriate.
I write all that to simply say, you can call me anything as long as you do it because I have an obsession with this man called Jesus. An obsession with his teaching. An obsession with his life. An obsession with his death and resurrection.
It is only when I feel the obsession is overcome that my life runs into the ditch.
DC Talk sang, "What will people think when they hear that I'm a Jesus freak
What will people do when they find that it's true
I don't really care if they label me a Jesus frek
There ain't no disguising the truth
I can just see Paul jamming to that right now.
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