Jesus Revolution
Before mega-churches the size of sports arenas began preaching prosperity and weight loss, before televangelists and a billion-dollar “He gets us” ad campaign, back in the era of hippies and Woodstock and peace signs, there were Jesus freaks. The generation that rebelled against the military industrial complex, commercialism, their parents everything really included a sub group who became passionate Christians. They didn’t look like people dressed up for church on Sunday mornings, they lived simply and communally, inspired by leaders who were charismatic in both the secular and religious senses.
The TIME Magazine cover story from June 21, 1971 called them “The Jesus Revolution.” “There is an uncommon morning freshness to this movement, a buoyant atmosphere of hope and love along with the usual rebel zeal,” the story said. “Their love seems more sincere than a slogan, deeper than the fast-fading sentiments of the flower children, what startles the outsider is the extraordinary sense of joy that they are able to communicate.”
That’s also the story (and message) of a new film called “Jesus Revolution,” based on a book by one of those Jesus freaks’ leaders, Greg Laurie. Certain details say, one character’s homosexuality or substance abuse history or instability — aren’t part of this movie’s evangelical message. Nor do hard questions get asked about why it all doesn’t lead to wash your feet and never stop living in a perpetually-“buoyant atmosphere of hope and love.” This is gently told story preaching to converts; it assumes evangelical Christianity is unassailably correct without ever thinking this particular form of worship might not be right for everyone.
Kelsey Grammer plays Chuck Smith (who was also played by Smith himself in another biopic), a minister in California who presides over a traditional church called Calvary Chapel. Smith’s daughter talks him into meeting a long-haired, improbably named fellow named Lonnie Frisbee (Jonathan Roumie), and though Smith is initially convinced that Frisbee is just another irresponsible hippie, Smith is impressed with his sincerity, humility and dedication to the radical messages of Jesus about generosity and welcome. He tells Smith there’s an opportunity to reach the hippies because they’re rejecting their parents’ values, all the things that worry Smith about them their experimentation with drugs are really just a search “for all the right things in all the wrong places,” and he believes he can show them that God’s the right place.
Smith brings Frisbee and his followers into his home and church; when some parishioners complain about their dirty bare feet, the pastor does what Jesus did: he washes their feet. Some members of the church leave in disgust; others are touched by the newcomers’ sincerity.
And there are plenty of them. There are joyous mass baptisms in the Pacific Ocean. Smith’s promise is a big one: “It’s not something to explain, it’s something to be experienced. What you’re seeing is a symbol of new life. Every doubt, every regret, all washed away forever.”
Much of this story is seen through the eyes of Laurie (Joel Courtney), whose book inspired the film. He arrives first as an observer, bringing his movie camera. When a reporter asks if he is part of “God’s forever family,” he shrugs, “I don’t really know what a family feels like.” He finds himself drawn to the sense of community, purpose and spirituality Smith and Frisbee are offering. He also finds himself drawn to Cathe (Anna Grace Barlow, engagingly natural), though it takes him a little longer to figure that out. The real life Greg Laurie is married to Cathe.
The “contributing” parishioners say they feel uncomfortable. Smith tells them maybe that should be his mission; he wants to comfort young people seeking God not those who believe they’ve already found Him. Yet this movie does not do that at all.
Smith promises forgiveness, freedom, acceptance “No guilt trips. This is your home.” In other words comfort.
But when Smith and Frisbee have an acrimonious split after Frisbee starts exhibiting signs of instability and grandiosity, all we get is a brief text over the end credits saying they reconciled later nothing about the troubled years covered in the documentary “Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher.”
This film is capably made but surface level, it’s hard to balance acceptance guidance consequences; impossible make everyone feel equally valued all the time.
“Jesus Revolution” wants more followers but doesn’t seem interested figuring out what they’ll need once they’re there. After the ecstasy, the laundry. (To quote Jack Kornfield, from another faith tradition.)
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