Close-up of the Jesus People

Who is the latest hero of the youth culture? Jesus Christ, it seems. The trappings of the “Jesus movement” are by now familiar: bell bottoms, beads, and long hair, gospel-rock music, underground papers, marches in the streets, confrontation evangelism, coffeehouses and communes. “So Jesus has become ‘hip’ this year,” quips the cynic. “ ‘Jesus people,’ ‘Jesus freaks’—it’s all a fad.” Is it really?

To be sure, the broad evangelical awakening going on today bears the marks of the so-called youth culture. To write it off for this reason, however, would be shallow for the critic and disastrous for the church. The Jesus movement must be given more than a cheap sociological and psychological explanation.

Where did it all begin? Out of the ashes of Haight-Ashbury? As an aftermath to the Sunset Strip riots? Among the disillusioned of the drug culture? Yes, and much more. The movement began spontaneously over a wide front. In the last three years, the West Coast, the supposed center of sensual pleasure, has ironically reached a flash point of despair over this world and spiritual longing for another.

The igniting took many forms: the political spark of the Christian World Liberation Front in Berkeley, offering an alternative to dominant Marxism; the Pentecostal spark of Calvary Chapel, a church context for wide revival; the youth-culture spark of “The Salt Company Coffee House” in Hollywood, communicating to this generation in gospel-folk rock music; the communal spark of “The Mesa” in Palo Alto, and “Jesus parties” attended by hundreds of teen-agers; the militant spark of the “Jesus Army” in Seattle; the student-ministry spark of “The Light and Power House” near UCLA; the hippie spark of several hundred youth forming “The Church in the Park” in Covina; the denominational spark of “Lutheran Youth Alive”; the underground-paper spark of the Hollywood Free Paper and many others.

What are distinguishing features of the Jesus movement? First of all, this spiritual outburst is student led. The initiative has passed from the professional Christian worker, be he pastor, youth leader, or campus-ministry staff member. Up until now, youth evangelism has been inaugurated by adults. Now it comes by youth. The same hip teen-ager who last year turned his friends on to drugs may now be turning them on to Jesus. In an era when students have led the protest against war and racism, we should not be surprised that they have taken the Gospel of Christ and moved it into their world. Tens of thousands evangelize today rather than just a few paid professionals.

Furthermore, this student leadership is emerging out of the youth culture with integrity. We are not being subjected to the embarrassing spectacle of adults who look like flower-children with pot bellies. We would expect composer Larry Norman to release an album of gospel-rock music because this music is Larry. His conversion has not suddenly given him a taste for Christian tunes in waltz and fox-trot tempo. Lonnie Frisbee, of Calvary Chapel, wears long hair and a beard as he preaches to thousands, because Lonnie was a long-haired “freak” before his conversion. Becoming a Christian has not meant a crew cut because that’s not Lonnie.

The Gospel of the incarnation is being acted out again in the youth culture, as the Word becomes flesh in these particular lives and their particular style. The institutional church that has no contact with the culture of this generation is being confronted by a new breed of Christians who call this culture home. Whether the churches can embrace these authentic Christians in their own culture is an open question, and with the answer rests much of the future.

A Methodist pastor in Houston asked me recently whether the Jesus movement was not just a resurgence of old “fundamentalism.” By this he apparently meant a rigid orthodoxy, a hardened legalism, a cultural negativism. Sadly, he had missed the heart of the movement, which is both personal and spiritual. Youth who have been saturated with rock music, sex, and drugs are not reverting to a sterile, authoritarian religion. The new birth, the death to ego that they were promised through LSD but never found, are now theirs in Christ. Some areas of the movement are caught up in speaking in tongues, again finding a profound spiritual experience filling the hole drugs had left. While the churches have often been little more than social clubs, youth today are finding spiritual power and life back on the streets, where it was in the first century.

Another important element of today’s awakening is its communal nature. Love is not a thesis or a slogan; it’s an experience and a life. The false dichotomy of evangelical and social gospel does not exist on the personal level for these new Christians. While perhaps naïve about the social implications of the love ethic, they love one another and show it with an outstretched hand or a meal. Again and again reporters are staggered by the shining faces and the embraces of these young believers. That there are hundreds of Christian communes on the West Coast is more than a hangover from the hippie world; it is the fulfillment of the quest for community by alienated youth.

Jesus said that the mark of discipleship is love “one to another.” In countless living situations that love is now demonstrated. At the Virgil House, a Christian commune on Virgil Street in Hollywood, scores of drug addicts, street people, and “crashers” have found their lives transformed by the love of Christ displayed in the residents’ warm fellowship. New forms of discipleship are emerging, and the materialism and individualism of nominal church members are being “put down.” Worship has turned heavily toward experience. Jesus is not an idea but a presence to be realized in feeling as well as thinking. Youth who have hallucinated on LSD will not be satisfied by cold, impersonal liturgies where all the action is in the pulpit or at the altar.

At the same time, this awakening is bringing a return to the Bible. The issue of truth is again before us, not just the pragmatism and functionalism of modern America. Most of these new Christians “take the Bible literally.” What does this mean? It means, first of all, that they reject modern philosophy and theology that they feel are merely mental games, “head trips.” If it is true that this is an irrational age, this is not all bad for evangelical Christianity. The doctrine of the Trinity and the two natures of Christ are not rational. Rationalism created an anti-supernatural bias and a destructive biblical criticism that have undermined the Christianity of several generations. Through the acceptance of the Bible as the Word of God on faith, biblical Christianity with its absolute ethics is again being taught and believed in the land.

In looking at the Jesus movement, thoughtful Christians raise some questions. A speaker can get a crowd to roar simply by pointing heavenward and shouting, “Jesus is coming soon!” This apocalyptic attitude is as much cultural as theological. Despair over the population spiral, hydrogen stockpiles, and pollution is easily met by Christian hope, especially for youth who have dropped out. The danger of this in excess is the loss of a sense of history and the abandonment of social responsibility by the “now” Christian. The New Testament holds the tension; it must not be broken.

Unfortunately, the rejection of this world’s system often becomes a rejection of this world, especially by those who are in adolescent rebellion anyway. It is discouraging to walk along Hollywood Boulevard and be greeted by “Repent or perish” rather than “Jesus loves you.” Social alienation finds its extreme beyond the commune in modern monastic orders such as the “Children of God,” who renounce employment and private property for a continual indoctrination and an imposed discipline.

In a sensate culture the stress on experience is to be expected. The New Testament is filled with feeling words. Once again, however, this must be held in tension. There is truth for the mind as well as love for the heart. A super-subjectivism holds many new Christians, and they describe Jesus in drug language as the “ultimate trip” or the “greatest high.” This often leads to false expectations in dealing with personal problems and living in this world. One seldom hears the hard words of Jesus on discipleship and suffering. Any psychological insight is too often rejected out of hand as “worldly.” The danger of over-subjectivity must be balanced by serious Bible study and mature reflection. If the organized church rejects these unconventional believers, where will they get the teaching they need?

As a counter to the permissive society and to the extreme subjectivism just described, other new believers fall into legalism. This is a natural danger for any new Christian. For most of these problems the answer is simple: association with mature members of Christ’s body who are secure in their freedom. This is the real challenge of the Jesus movement: Can the organized church welcome these new Christians with love and patience?

Adult Christianity in America is too often up tight and performance-oriented. We preach justification by faith and live justification by works. Our worship tends to be cold and impersonal. We are guilty of judging by appearance, as did the Pharisees. Now a new stream of the Spirit is moving across the land. Tens of thousands of youth are “turning on” to Jesus. They need to find the full body of Christ. They need to know of Christ’s Lordship over all of life. They need grounding in the Word of God. Their gifts to us are zeal, and love in true community. Can we receive from them and give to them? This decade of church history will be determined not by the success or failure of the NCC and COCU but by our response to the Jesus movement.

Donald M. Williams is minister to college students at Hollywood Presbyterian Church in California. He has the Ph.D. from Union Seminary and Columbia University and held a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship. He is a founder of several projects in Hollywood: a drug rehabilitation program, Virgil House Christian Communal, the Salt Company Coffeehouse, Art Company, and Art and Book Store.

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