If any of the following subjects interest you – revival; the birth of British Christian pop and rock music; or charismatic renewal – you’ll find much to engage with in this book. Similarly, if you are an evangelical nostalgist who recalls such significant events and subjects as the Festival of Light, the beginnings of Greenbelt, the cross-carrying Arthur Blessitt, Larry Norman, John Wimber’s UK meetings and even the birth of this magazine (when it was called Buzz), read this volume.
Andrew Whitman has put together a fine work which covers a vast amount of ground. Some of it is previously well documented, but other parts less so, such as the pivotal role the Brethren businessman Kenneth Frampton had in supporting evangelistic efforts to young people; the jaw-dropping testimony of Arfon Wyn and his band, who went from amphetamine-addled heavy rockers to full-on musical evangelists performing at the Welsh language National Eisteddfod; or the influence of the Jesus Family from Milwaukee and their band of converted hippies, The Sheep, on Britain when their ground-breaking rock opera, Lonesome Stone, opened at London’s Rainbow Theatre and then toured across Britain.
Sometimes the book’s attempt to tell so many stories of teenage conversion to radical discipleship chronologically leads to a certain repetition of information. But there’s much here that is fascinating and faith-building. Whitman’s painstaking research doesn’t duck the painful truth that genuine Holy Spirit revival sometimes tragically led to the formation of cults. But the closing chapters, where church leaders and prophets reflect on whether there could be a new Jesus People Movement in the UK, are truly thought-provoking.
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