Item #5431 You Have A Lot To Live / Jesus Has A Lot To Give. Jesus People.

You Have A Lot To Live / Jesus Has A Lot To Give

Hollywood: Jesus People, ca. early-1970s. Silkscreen. 17 1/2 x 23 in. Very good with slight wear at corners. Item #5431

San Francisco in the 1960s is most frequently associated with the hippie movement and the so-called "Summer of Love." A lesser known spiritual movement sprouted alongside it: a loose network of Evangelical groups eventually referred to as Jesus people or Jesus freaks (a term which, at the time, was not seen as pejorative). Although the movement first gained traction in San Francisco, particularly Haight-Ashbury, its nucleus quickly became Los Angeles. Leaders such as Arthur Blessitt and Tony and Susan Alamo set up shop on Sunset Strip, preaching on the street and opening coffee shops where converts congregated. As the posters in this list evidence, the movement embraced the prevailing countercultural aesthetics of the time. Music festivals, underground newspapers, and merchandise such as pins, posters, and t-shirts were all used to recruit, cohere, and build the movement. The movement spread to northern Europe, where it remains active in Germany.

This poster is a play on Pepsi’s slogan from the early 1970s: “You’ve Got a Lot to Live, and Pepsi’s Got a Lot to Give.” Jesus’s name sits in the middle of the immediately recognizable Pepsi Globe. Just as the soda company had garnered their market by appealing to young people, so too did the Jesus People Movement.

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