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Guide to the Pederson, Duane, Jesus People International, and Hollywood Free Paper Collection
CFT00066
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Table of contents
Collection Title: Pederson, Duane, Jesus People International, and Hollywood Free Paper Collection
Dates: 1953-2011
Bulk Dates: 1969-1979
Identification: CFT00066
Creator:
Pederson, Duane
Physical Description: 28.00
Repository:
David Allan Hubbard Library Archives
135 N. Oakland Avenue
Pasadena, CA, 91182-0002
URL: http://library.fuller.edu/archives/
Email: archives@fuller.edu
Phone: (626) 584-5311
Fax: (626) 584-5613
Note:
Other Information:
Additional information may be found at http://www.hollywoodfreepaper.org/
Duane Pederson (1938-), a key figure in the Jesus Movement, was raised in Minnesota and moved to California to pursue a career
as an entertainer. He started the Hollywood Free Paper in 1969 as a Christian response to the countercultural underground
newspapers. Circulation grew rapidly and the HFP became the most widely distributed Jesus paper, spreading news of the Jesus
Movement from California to Europe. In an interview with a reporter, Pederson coined the term “Jesus People.” Through the
Hollywood Free Paper, he became a well-known voice for the Jesus People throughout the 1970s, providing leadership and bringing cohesion to the
Movement from California to Europe and Asia. Additionally, he sponsored many of the concerts at the Hollywood Palladium that
drew together some of the best Christian musicians of the day. From the beginning, his ministry extended to the poor and marginalized.
He worked extensively with Corrie ten Boom in ministry to prisoners, and he served as pastor of a church in Venice with an
active ministry to street children. In the 1980s, Pederson became an evangelist in the Missionary Church and was later ordained
as a priest in the Antiochian Orthodox Church. As of 2010, Pederson continues his ministry to prisoners and the poor.
“From 1969 through roughly 1975, the
Hollywood Free Paper served as a tangible voice, gathering place, communication medium, and billboard for the Jesus Movement... At the peak of
the Movement, the circulation of the HFP surpassed half a million copies. By the time he started the
HFP in October 1969, founding editor Duane Pederson was already involved in street ministry on the gritty boulevards of downtown
Hollywood, a shell of the once bright motion picture colony whose dark streets, then as now, were home to drug dealers, prostitutes
and pimps. Every intersection was lined with newspaper racks offering lurid underground tabloids. ‘Everywhere I looked,’
Duane later recalled, ‘there were underground papers preaching revolution, sex, drugs, everything. I knew something was missing:
there were no underground papers preaching the truth. Not a single one. I said, 'Jesus, if You'll give me the means with which
to do it, I'll put out a newspaper telling people about You.' Three days later, ten thousand copies of the first edition of
the Hollywood Free Paper rolled off the presses at a local printer, and Duane and his friends began handing them out on the
streets of Los Angeles… Within two days, Box 1949 was jammed with mail from street people wanting to know more about Jesus
and this new Movement. Many of the letters were scrawled in pencil and were barely legible, a few were typewritten, but all
expressed the same hunger: ‘If your Jesus is really for real, man, I want to know more. I’d like to rap with you about the
guy. Where can we meet? Are you gonna have another paper?’… Circulation grew rapidly, with much of the added readership coming
from reprinting and distribution outside southern California in Kansas City, Minneapolis, Worcester, Detroit, and Cleveland.
At the Movement's peak the
HFP was distributed in each of the 50 states and in nearly a dozen foreign countries. But ‘As far as we are able to recall,’
Duane would later write, ‘Every desperate cry for help has come from a Free Paper that they found in the gutter, or on the
street, or in some dirty restroom or alley.’”
This Collection is indexed under the following controlled access subject terms.
Jesus People
United Missionary Church
Hollywood (Los Angeles, Calif.) -- Religion.
Hollywood Free Paper
Gift
Scholarly use within parameters of copyright law.
Supervised use only.
Physical Characteristics or Technical Requirements:
For full Finding Aid email the archives.
Reel to reel tapes not available for viewing.
Duane Pederson, Jesus People International, and the Hollywood Free Paper had a significant role in the development of the
Jesus People Movement beginning in the late 1960s. The diversity of materials in the collection attests to Pederson’s range
of ministry involvement and his ongoing commitment to work with the poor and with prisoners. The collection includes a complete
set of all issues of the Hollywood Free Paper, various Jesus People publications, ministry newsletters, correspondence, recordings,
films, posters, artwork, memorabilia, and over 15,000 photos preserved by Duane Pederson. Awards, clippings, and other documentation
are also found in the collection. Additionally, materials relating to the Jesus People Opening at Fuller on May 15-16, 2010
are included as well.