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Inventory of the Christian World Liberation Front Collection
GTU 94-9-03
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Table of contents
Title: Christian World Liberation Front collection
Dates: 1970-1988
Collection number: GTU 94-9-03
Collector:
Black, Edith
Collection Size:
2.5 linear feet (3 archives boxes)
17 documents
Repository: The Graduate Theological Union. Library.
Berkeley, CA 94709
Abstract: The collection contains records about evangelical Christians and the Jesus movement in Berkeley from 1970 through the eighties.
Materials primarily represent the Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF) and the Spiritual Counterfeits Project (SCP), but
also include materials on the Bay Area Evangelical Women's Caucus and other organizations.
Physical location: 4/C/6
Languages:
Languages represented in the collection:
English
Collection is open for research.
Copyright has not been assigned to The Graduate Theological Union. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts
must be submitted in writing to the Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Graduate Theological Union
as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must
also be obtained by the reader.
Christian World Liberation Front collection, GTU 94-9-03. Graduate Theological Union Archives, Berkeley, CA.
Edith Black donated these materials in 1994.
Biography / Administrative History
The Christian World Liberation Front (CWLF) was founded in 1969 in Berkeley, California, by Jack Sparks and others from the
Campus Crusade for Christ. Disagreeing with the need for headquarters approval of any published material, they became an
independent entity.
Sparks, a former teacher at Penn State in statistics and research design, led the organization to become one of the most recognizable
Christian groups in Berkeley. Along with individual approaches and distribution of their literature, the group led impromtu
gatherings and performed street theater around the University of California campus and Telegraph Avenue. Their mission was
to evangelize and convert students and street people.
In 1975, the CWLF disbanded over questions of authority. Neither group continued under the CWLF name. Some members followed
Jack Sparks, who formed the New Apostolic Order, which later became the Evangelical Orthodox Church. Other members formed
the Berkeley Christian Coalition, which became the Spiritual Counterfeits Project. This organization, despite a defamation
lawsuit filed by Witness Lee that forced them into bankruptcy, still collects and interprets information on new religious
organizations.
The CWLF published
Right On!, one of the first underground papers of the Jesus movement. After the split, the Berkeley Christian Coalition published
Radix. More intellectual than many similar publications, the papers featured interviews with local figures ( such as Loni Hancock)
and nationally known people (Theodore Roszak, for instance) and used the language of the radical and revolutionary culture
with their particular Christian orientation.
Sources
Edward E. Plowman, "Whatever Happened to the Jesus Movement,"
Christianity Today, October 24, 1975, 46-48.
"Spiritual Counterfeits Project,"
Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_Counterfeits_Project (accessed February 28, 2008).
Scope and Content of Collection
The collection records activities of the Christian World Liberation Front and its official newsletters. Other materials record
the Bay Area Evangelical Women's Caucus, of which Edith Black was a member, and similar local organizations. The collection
consists of two series: 1. Organizational and Information files (materials collected directly from the CWLF organization
and materials about the organization); and 2. Newsletters. The newspapers
Right On! and
Radix are in pristine condition. File folder headings are listed as they were in the donated collection, with headings added if
the file was not labeled.
The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in
the library's online public access catalog.
Sparks, Jack N.
Brooks, Alexander.
Wallerstedt, Alan.
Spiritual Counterfeits Project.
Berkeley Christian Coalition.
Christian World Liberation Front.
Bay Area Evangelical Women's Caucus.
Jesus People--California--Berkeley.
Evangelicalism--California--Berkeley.
Hippies--California--Berkeley.
Hippies--Religious life.
Sparks, Jack N.
Brooks, Alexander
Wallestedt, Alan
GTU 89-5-016, Berkeley Free Church Collection, 1959-1976, operated its street ministry in Berkeley at the same time.
GTU 92-3-1, Center for Women and Religion collection, 1969-88, contains related material on the local evangelical women's
movement.
The 1969 issues of
Right On can be found in the periodical collection of the Graduate Theological Union, Flora Lamson Hewlett Library.
Donald Heinz,
Jesus in Berkeley. PhD diss., Graduate Theological Union, 1976. Heinz spent from 1972 to 1974 as a participant-observer of CWLF. He also wrote
an article on the Christian World Liberation Front in
The New Religious Consciousness, edited by Charles Y. Glock and Robert N. Bellah.
Steven Jude Sofranko,
Where the Jesus People Went: A Study of Santa Rosa Christian Church and An Intersection of Religious Movements. MA thesis, Graduate Theological Union, 2000.
Roger C. Palms,
The Jesus Kids.Valley Forge, Pa.: Judson Press, 1971.
The God-Men : Witness Lee and the Local Church, Spiritual Counterfeit Project.Berkeley, CA.: Spiritual Counterfeits Project Inc., 1977.