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But there is a method to the madness. Cornerstone may come dressed in an anything-goes attitude and pink hair spikes, but it's actually a fine balance of liberal self-expression and conservative, evangelical theology.

"To me, Cornerstone looks like an event run by a bunch of old hippies, modern young people, and musicians rather than church leaders, businessmen, and conservatives," says current festival director John Herrin. "JPUSA itself has always been a funny bunch and probably a dichotomy. We look like the biggest bunch of liberals but live and believe a lot more conservatively than a lot of conservatives. This is how Cornerstone's culture reflects us. We don't care if kids stay up too late, make too much noise, and dress wild. In fact, we enjoy it. But we believe in the Bible literally and want these same kids to be grounded biblically and live in a godly fashion."

Cornerstone began in 1984 with many of the same ideals that drew thousands of countercultural youth into the Jesus movement of the late '60s and early '70s: community, acceptance, musical appreciation, and spiritual intensity. "Cornerstone keeps us connected with those first moments of conversion when we realized Jesus was a way cool hippie, the coolest hippie," says Lafianza, whose Phantom Tollbooth works with the festival in public and press relations. "God didn't keep us like that for long. He gave us the urge to wash our clothes, straighten up, and no longer need the things that defined that lifestyle. Cornerstone is a touchstone for evangelicals who put away childish things."

According to Randall Balmer's Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism, most of the movement's "Jesus people" eventually assimilated into mainstream evangelicalism. There were an estimated 600 Jesus communes in 1971. Few now survive. When the Jesus People of Milwaukee broke up in 1972, their traveling evangelism team was touring the country, distributing Cornerstone magazine and staging concerts by their rock & roll group, Resurrection Band. When their bus broke down in Chicago, they made the Windy City home. To support the expense-sharing community, JPUSA established numerous companies. It also founded several ministries, including a free food pantry, a homeless shelter, and a crisis pregnancy center.

Meanwhile, Rez Band continued playing churches and a dwindling number of Jesus festivals, the movement's answer to Woodstock. By the early '80s, however, JPUSA felt these events had turned shallow and were tainted by commercialization.

"Due to tremendous church resistance to rock music and other cultural forms of expression, [festival] promoters favored 'safe' middle-of-the-road CCM performers over the increasing number of innovative Christian rock bands," writes Jon Trott, editor of Cornerstone, in an article on JPUSA's history. "In addition, festival teachers sometimes seemed to be chosen more for their drawing power than their power to minister."

If they couldn't find the festival they were looking for, JPUSA members reasoned, they would start it. They had little experience in event planning (director Huang helped form Britain's Greenbelt Festival), but set three non-negotiables for their vision. First, bands could play the fest regardless of their marketability as long as their members were believers. Second, seminars would be weeklong classes on in-depth topics, not the one-hour talks of many events. Third, Trott wrote, Cornerstone would be "a bridge between young, culturally radical believers and older, culturally 'straight' believers."

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July 2003, Vol. 47, No. 7