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God is a concept
by which we measure our pain.

—John Lennon, "God"

The flower children of the sixties identified the church as a tradition of the "old way," and the church, in turn, responded by criticizing or ignoring the "new way." The church, which should have been a community of hurting and healed people (a model that, had it been preached, would have attracted more social dropouts than it eventually did at the time), polarized around sociopolitical issues and became a closed community instead.

Ironically, the wall separating "them" from "us" was eventually breached by an uncritical "do your own thing" ethic. Its legacy within the church, then and now, is the temptation to water down doctrine in an effort to be all things to all people.

But those who withstand that temptation today hold an unusually strong attraction to sixties survivors: the epithet, "Don't trust anyone over 30," has been replaced by an intensified search for something or someone-with a vision that can be trusted. The generation that is still struggling with a decade of bad drugs and bad dreams may finally be willing to heed the call to true servanthood as revealed by the God of the Bible rather than to sacrifice to the shortsighted gods of a particular age.

"I can't handle the uppers, downers, and all-aroundtowners which have skewed my life since the Sixties," said a former society dropout quoted recently in Mother Jones. "The means (drugs) gradually superseded the ends (decency, community, peace, love)," this Great Plains rancher wrote in his Christmas letter. "The party was over, but we didn't leave. It's time for me to take it the way the Lord made it. Turns out that isn't half bad."

The potential for spiritual renewal among the survivors of the sixties is abetted by the presence of their own children-a new generation destined, like the preceding one, to wander from acid to ashram to whatever is next in search of truth. For the generation once committed to the folly of "endless youth," the future is now. Living in the moment is no longer possible, as former flower children grow older, and their children need something to believe in that will help them avoid the mistakes of their parents.

The halcyon days of the sixties were short-lived and shortsighted. And a nation that mourns their passing is itself short-sighted, or frustrated that its "best" efforts lead to the same meaninglessness and alienation that its "flower power" was to have resolved once and for all. Burned by sensuality, hedonism, and materialism, the sixties generation is now primed to give true peace a chance. And the church is in a position to provide a Way that will finally lead us out of the past, and into a brighter day.

Copyright © 2006 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

The Gospel According to the Beatles is available from ChristianBook.com and other retailers.

Alistair Begg talks about the Fab Four's cry for "Help" and why no one answered it in a Dick Staub interview.

"Amazing Myths, How Strange the Sound," is a Christianity Today interview with Steve Turner.

Steve Turner also wrote 'Watered-Down Love' on Bob Dylan for Christianity Today.

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January (Web-only) 2007, Vol. 51