April 15, 2023 3:00 am
The 1960s counterculture movement, marked by the hippie dream, was a search for meaning and connection that ultimately led to a spiritual awakening, as exemplified by the Jesus revolution, a pivotal moment in American history.
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We are the tale of two cities.
It is the best of times and the worst of times. But we also have, I hope, the beginning of what some people would call the third great awakening in America. And you've been through the last Jesus revolution. We called it the Jesus movement, and we called ourselves Jesus people, which I kind of like, you know. That's what it was about.
We were people that met Jesus quite literally. As a kid, I thought, what does it mean of life? Because I looked at this adult world I was exposed to, and I didn't know a single adult that I was impressed by or admire.
It's mid-60s now, and we're hearing messages like, you know, turn on, tune in, drop out, right? And I was believing that. It made sense to me.
They said, don't trust anyone over 30. That resonated with me. Even before I was a Christian, I knew this is not the answer for life. How did you know that?
Because I saw what it did to me. A lot of times we don't know what something is until some time passes. And now we look back in retrospect and we say that was a revival. So it was Time magazine that dubbed it the Jesus revolution. And I think that was very insightful of them because we didn't think of it as a revolution, but in many ways it was.
What's interesting is the Jesus revolution comes at the end of this movement for a revolution. What made that go from drug, sex, and rock and roll to connecting to Jesus? I think it was almost like a whole generation was experiencing what I was experiencing personally. They saw the emptiness of it. You know, our leaders were cut down before our eyes and then all of our rock icons dying in short order.
Ironically, all at the age of 27. So all these people are dying and we're seeing how empty it is. It's like we went to psychedelic Dave Glo colors to black and white. So it was like everyone was seeing the hippie dream was dead because the hippie dream was not a dream. It was an illusion. It was never real. But it was pointing to something that was real.
