{"id":9982,"date":"2017-09-16T18:40:22","date_gmt":"2017-09-16T18:40:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/?p=9982"},"modified":"2017-09-16T18:43:48","modified_gmt":"2017-09-16T18:43:48","slug":"jesus-people-a-movement-born-from-the-summer-of-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lifeandnews.com\/articles\/jesus-people-a-movement-born-from-the-summer-of-love\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Jesus People’ \u2013 a movement born from the ‘Summer of Love’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Larry Eskridge<\/a>, Wheaton College (Illinois)<\/a><\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

This year marks the 50th anniversary of the \u201cSummer of Love.\u201d<\/a> Popular culture remembers the tens of thousands of joyous young hippies<\/a> that descended upon San Francisco\u2019s Haight-Ashbury district to celebrate personal expression, drug experimentation and easy sexuality. <\/p>\n

What\u2019s less known and what I discovered in my own research<\/a> is that Haight-Ashbury also proved to be fertile ground for a startling new combination of the hippie style with conservative evangelical Christianity \u2013 the \u201cJesus People.\u201d <\/p>\n

How it started<\/h2>\n
\n \"\"
\n The Jesus Movement.<\/span>
\n 2017 The Hollywood Free Paper<\/a>, CC BY-NC-SA<\/a><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The reasons behind the rise of the hippie movement were complex: A rejection of conformity and materialism in American culture and the emergence of a drug culture both played a part<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The 1960s counterculture<\/a> also contained a decidedly spiritual dimension that attracted a great deal of hippie interest. The movement incorporated meditation, the occult, Native American spirituality<\/a> and Eastern forms of religion such as Zen Buddhism and the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (\u201cthe Hare Krishnas<\/a>\u201d). <\/p>\n

However, as writer and observer Charles Perry pointed out in his book \u201cThe Haight-Ashbury: A History,\u201d<\/a> the Summer of Love brought with it a number of problems including overcrowding, crime, sexually transmitted diseases and bad drug trips. Every night thousands of penniless young people would \u201ccrash\u201d in whatever space they could find or simply sleep on the streets. <\/p>\n

The problems became so bad that the leading hippie paper, \u201cThe Oracle,\u201d advised anyone interested in coming to San Francisco to forget (in the words of a hit record from that year) the \u201cflowers in their hair\u201d <\/a> in favor of bringing along a sleeping bag, warm clothes and money<\/a>. <\/p>\n

As many became disillusioned with life in Haight-Ashbury, a new set of hippie \u201cJesus freak\u201d evangelists appeared in the Bay Area, urging people to follow Jesus Christ and forsake drugs and promiscuous sex. Key to this new presence on the streets was Ted Wise, a drug-using sailmaker, who in late 1965 was \u201csaved\u201d after one of his numerous LSD trips<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Along with his wife Elizabeth and several other hip couples, Wise began attending a local Baptist church. <\/p>\n

The unconventional ways of these new believers antagonized many in the church. Wise and his group kept long hair, followed eccentric fashion and showed dissatisfaction with middle-class Christianity<\/a>. One time Wise made a presentation on the music of Bob Dylan<\/a> during a Wednesday night prayer meeting. But, as I found in my research, somehow, the hippies and the church people from the \u201cestablishment\u201d managed to ride out their differences<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The \u2018Street Christians\u2019<\/h2>\n

Drawn by nationwide publicity, somewhere between 75,000 and 100,000 youth<\/a> came to Haight-Ashbury during the spring and early summer of 1967. Many became homeless, hungry and sick<\/a>, and Wise urged Pastor John MacDonald to do something<\/a> to help.<\/p>\n

As MacDonald relates in his 1970 book \u201cHouse of Acts,\u201d he decided to tour San Francisco with Wise. He saw the packed streets and found that Wise \u201cby dress and appearance\u201d belonged and had \u201cremarkable rapport\u201d with the young people who had come to San Francisco that he \u201cclearly did not.<\/a>\u201d MacDonald agreed that the need was great and that something had to be done<\/a>. <\/p>\n

With the assistance of several fellow pastors in the Bay Area, MacDonald helped Wise and his friends establish a coffeehouse called \u201cThe Living Room,\u201d a block north of the intersection of Haight and Ashbury<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Over the next year and a half, thousands of runaway youth and hippie characters (including a man named Charles Manson<\/a> later convicted for mass murders) came into the mission to talk with what MacDonald referred to as the \u201cStreet Christians.<\/a>\u201d Many others came simply to sip soup and coffee and eat donated doughnuts. <\/p>\n

Spread of the movement<\/h2>\n

Meanwhile, others in the Bay Area such as Kent Philpott, a Baptist seminary student, and his hippie friend David Hoyt also began to preach on the streets. <\/p>\n

By late 1968 they had opened a shelter called \u201cThe Soul Inn\u201d<\/a> in the basement of a small Baptist church in the city\u2019s adjacent Richmond district. <\/p>\n

Wise and his friends established a Christian commune in Novato, while Philpott and Hoyt (with the help of the pastors who had assisted The Living Room) put together a string of communes<\/a> in San Rafael, Walnut Creek and other Bay Area communities.<\/p>\n

\n \"\"
\n The Milwaukee Jesus People.<\/span>
\n AP Photo.<\/span><\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By early 1969 this new-style interaction between hippie Christians and evangelical religion (particularly its Pentecostal branch) was happening elsewhere in the country in cities like Seattle, Detroit and Ft. Lauderdale. Hippies interacted with clergy and laypeople from the churches and committed themselves to following Jesus<\/a>. <\/p>\n

One particularly successful commune outside Eugene, Oregon, \u201cShiloh,\u201d<\/a> quickly grew to well over a hundred members. It acquired farms, and sent evangelistic teams across the United States in the 1970s to open new Shiloh communal houses<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But undoubtedly the hotbed of the movement was farther to the south near Los Angeles<\/a>. There the Jesus People began to attract not only hardcore hippies from the drug culture and the streets but swarms of teenagers from youth groups<\/a> belonging to the region\u2019s churches. <\/p>\n

Hundreds of independent communal homes, coffeehouses and Christian \u201cfellowships\u201d sprang up from San Diego in the south to Santa Barbara in the north between 1969 and the early 1970s<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Eventually, the presence of the Jesus People attracted national publicity. Coffeehouses<\/a> with names like \u201cThe Belly of the Whale\u201d and \u201cThe Upper Room\u201d appeared from coast to coast. Underground<\/a> \u201cJesus papers,\u201d like Los Angeles\u2019 \u201cHollywood Free Paper\u201d<\/a> and Chicago\u2019s \u201cCornerstone,\u201d helped carry the message onto the streets. <\/p>\n

Photos of ocean baptisms involving hundreds of enthusiastic teenagers being plunged beneath the waves as a sign of their dedication to \u201cfollow the Lord\u201d became a familiar sight. <\/p>\n

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