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I saw Jesus Revolution, a movie about the beginning of the Jesus Movement in 1970s Southern California and having grown up in Southern California in the 1970s and self identified back then as a Jesus Freak I thought, this should be interesting.  If you haven’t seen the movie and want my spoiler-free take on the movie click this link to go to my review. If you have seen the movie and/or just want to interact with my observations based on my own experiences and the movie’s portrayal of the Jesus Movement, here we go into episode 44 of JBB’s Final Thoughts: Jesus Revolution: Truth Seekers Part 2.

Also please check-out my blog that talks about “Faith Issues”: In Bad Faith

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Credits/images:

• music: Social Blindness – 22K by Smart Sound Music





• All images and screen grabs by Joe Bustillos ©2023 except where noted





• Jesus Revolution, Image Stills, https://jesusrevolution.movie/  





• Welcome to Jonestown, By Jonestown Institute, Attribution, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=12374156





• Richard Roberts and Kathryn Kuhlman, By OREA2000 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=39902560





• Medill News21 (untitled), Medill News21 Pentacostal church cc 4841427516_6bfa346523_k, https://flic.kr/p/8nPzJd





• Frisbee: The Life and Death of a Hippie Preacher, https://youtu.be/Jv3O8SseOio

Episode Notes/Script/Post:

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Joe Bustillos here. 

As I mentioned in part 1, I commended the makers for not setting up any straw-men villains and for not adding something overtly supernatural as a pivotal element to the story. Maybe it’s with these bio-pix where Christian filmmakers have learned to keep the story grounded in their main characters’ journeys and not resort to the unrealistic characters/plot twists that plague movies like the the “God Is Not Dead” series. In this case, they focused on two main relationships, between Pastor Chuck Smith and Evangelist/Hippie Lonnie Frisbee and the beginning of the relationship between high school students Greg and Cathe. 

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">jesus revolution: Chuck Smith & Lonnie Frisbee</figcaption></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Jesus Revolution: Greg & Cathe</figcaption></figure>

One thing that came up when discussing the movie with my friend, Debra, who was also raised in Southern California in the 1960s & 70s, was that she felt like they made the Jesus Movement to be way bigger than what she remembered. She remembered seeing a smattering of Jesus Freaks on the streets in L.A., but there were also just as many Hari Krishnas doing their proselytizing. But it wasn’t like all of the hippies eventually became Jesus Freaks or born-agains. That was an interesting observation that I might not have noticed. I mean, the movie makers began with a scene showing hippies going to a huge open-air concert with Janis Joplin singing and Timothy Leary speaking and then later in the movie showed a mass baptism at Pirate’s Cove, which could imply that these movements were of the same size. She was more familiar with the hippies and concerts and experienced nothing that would suggest that the Jesus Movement was comparable in size.

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">Jesus Revolution: Hippies</figcaption></figure>



<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">jesus revolution – pirates cove baptisms</figcaption></figure>

My experience was different in that I saw Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa in the early 80s, when they’d gone from the circus-tent featured in the movie to a big auditorium and I remember the Billy Graham rallies at Angel Stadium in Anaheim somewhat later. But obviously it was possible to be around Southern California in those days and not be aware that any of this was happening. In fact, even though I was there, somewhat after the fact, I never knew anything about the Chuck Smith/Lonnie Frisbee story until around 2005. 

I was attending a tiny Calvary Chapel in Long Beach and playing guitar in the church band when the music leader mentioned Lonnie as this crazy guy “blessed by the Holy Spirit” who did miracles but was also very controversial. Then I later heard that Lonnie had played a role in the founding the Vineyard Community church movement. Sadly when it came time for the main founder of the Vineyard, John Wilber, to write his book, Lonnie was written out of the story and only referred to in one passage as “the young man.”  So, as I watched the movie I wondered how much of this part of the story the filmmakers would go into. 

<figure class="wp-block-image size-large"><figcaption class="wp-element-caption">jesus revolution – lonnie</figcaption></figure>

I was impressed that the filmmakers made Lonnie’s insights about how to reach out to hippies through music and acts of compassion, central to the movie. But as the movement grew, there’s a scene where Lonnie cries to God in prayer to keep using him, to not “leave him.” The thing about these kinds of movements is that people do respond in these huge gatherings, but what are they responding to, and more importantly, how do you keep that happening week after week? There were scenes where it was clear that Lonnie felt the pressure and looked like he was “crafting” his image as the hippie preacher. Whereas, at the beginning of the movie