Time magazine called it “history’s biggest happening.” One day the New York Timesreferred to it as “so colossal a mess”; the next day that same newspaper likened it to the Tulipmania or the Children’s Crusade and designated it “a phenomenon of innocence.” The fact is that the Woodstock Music and Art Fair, held at Bethel, New York, last month, defies description. Perhaps the most striking aspect of the festival was not so much the constant beat offered up by a number of outstanding rock artists, or the casual display of nudity, or even the free-wheeling use of illegal drugs. Rather it was the overwhelming sense of community experienced by the more than 400,000 young people jammed on the 600-acre farm for the weekend. They came in search of peace, of love, of oneness, of community, of a sense of belonging. And, in some measure at least, many claim to have found what they were looking for.
It is at this point that the Woodstock Art Fair—and others like it that on a following weekend drew additional hundreds of thousands of young people both in the United States and in England—levels an indictment at and issues a challenge to the Church of Jesus Christ. We claim to have in Jesus Christ the peace, love, oneness, community, and acceptance these youth are seeking. But many of them have looked in vain to find what they seek in the Church. They have heard a great deal about these virtues, but they have not seen them practiced in the lives of professing Christians. As a result, they are seeking elsewhere. It would be too easy to say that this is the only reason why the young so often turn away from the Church (the problem is more complex than that), but insofar as we in the Church may be a stumblingblock to the young we must answer for our failure.
We can express our dismay and disapproval at the tremendous traffic in drugs allowed to flourish at Woodstock. We can register our displeasure at the almost amoral attitude evidenced in the nonchalant indulgence in nudity and sex. We can remind the Woodstock gathering that almost any group with a certain amount of common interest, freed from the hard realities and responsibilities of day-to-day living, can exist peacefully in community for a short while. But the most effective ministry to the youth of our world will be a demonstration that in Jesus Christ they can find that which they seek.
There are hundreds of thousands of young people who have found the meaning of peace, of love, of oneness, of purpose, not in a weekend happening, but in a day-by-day life of submission to Jesus Christ. They have learned to be “real people” not through the delusion of a dangerous drug but through the reality of a living Christ. They have found real freedom not by “doing their own thing” but by becoming servants of Christ to do his will. They have discovered genuine openness with others not by a superficial shedding of clothes or a childish playing with sex but through that love and respect for others that Christ brings into life. Whatever the kids found at Woodstock falls far short of what they can find in Jesus Christ.
