Jesus Freaks

I grew up in the zenith of the Jesus movement. In the blink of an eye, getting “saved” or “born again” became as cool as sex, drugs and rock n roll; at least in my neck of the woods–and we had Jimmy Carter and Chuck Colson to thank as well for that. Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, Keith Green and the Second Chapter of Acts were crooning once die-hard rockers and hippies into becoming Jesus freaks, and the world put down their peace pipe and protests for a millisecond and stood up and paid us some serious attention. And then we got Bob Dylan. Whoa! We just knew everyone would take up ranks with us after that. Billy Graham was of course hotter than ever, and a plethora of parachurch organizations such as Campus Crusade for Christ were swooning young people from everywhere. As a result, new denominations such as Calvary Chapel and Vineyard became the new instrumental leaders in helping all the tie-dyed, bellbottom hip-huggers grow up in Christ.

 

The church I grew up in was influenced very much by this movement, with less of the Pentecostal slant. My own father was a lay preacher of sorts, and had his hand and heart in just about everything that was going on both inside and outside the church. I can remember tagging along on many such meetings, as we would pick up strange hitchhikers on the way. And though it was scary at times, there was a draw that was almost magnet-like from that movement that has kept me feebly following the Lord Jesus ever since. For the first time, they made me want to put my lot in with them and give it all away no matter what, and go to the “foreign” field. However, at the time, I was a day late and a dollar short, because well…I started to like sex, drugs and rock n roll too–and my weaning would take much longer than I desired or expected.

 

Our church had its problems like any church, but it was vibrant. Pastor Bob brought the word like a “big dog “every Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday; and you can bet your bottom dollar my parents had me there at all such occasion’s front and center, even when many times force was absolutely necessary. And when our Pastor wasn’t preaching, Sunday nights were filled with prophecy conferences and Hal Lindsay and The Late Great Planet Earth came second only to the Bible itself. And one was sure to have both in hand and ready, as Jesus would for sure return at any given moment. And of course to court the young people, we went to the Jesus concerts and went through our own list of sexy youth pastors with designer jeans who would woo the girls, who would then of course woo the guys, and so on. Let’s just say I was at least caught up in the lot of Jesus freaks, back when to be a Jesus freak was indeed very cool, and to get high on Jesus and follow Him with reckless abandon was for the first time since Constantine vogue once again!

 

Now back to the future. Many have chimed in on some flaws of the Jesus movement, such as a flawed eschatology and a new form of Pentecostal fundamentalism that had it’s extremes to be sure; though it’s revivalist contribution that drew people to the Savior has perhaps still been left unexplained fully both here in America, and across the world.   In many ways I would go back to those days, and in many others, I would avoid it like a root canal. But one thing that I feel confident we could use again is a comfort in being strangers and aliens again in a world we have become now far too much in love with. Perhaps longhaired Jesus people aren’t the rave anymore, but I feel confident that the willingness to be comfortable letting our Christian freak flag fly should be. And though it would go well beyond the purpose and time constraint for this blog to even make a feeble attempt to explain just how we have devolved since then, several things come to mind which have caused my own share of tears and lament as of late.

 

First of all, the sell out to the god of materialism isn’t even arguable, even to many of those submissively caught up in its web. Christians who once took the commission to sell everything they had and follow the Lord on the narrow path have now watered it’s difficult message down with admonition to give mere tips to church (should they decide to go or become), a blind-eye to rampant poverty now on our doorsteps in any given town (we keep our pocket change and a few George Washington’s in case they get to close with their sign), and the mission of the church to take the gospel to every tribe, tongue and nation is sitting on the backburner and the back row with the Baptists. Perhaps we’ll get to it one day once we get enough programs for those of us who have been sitting on the pews for eons and should know better. 90% of the tips that come in the mega church doors go to ensure we have a motivational speaker, a kicking worship band and plenty of goodies for the kiddos in order to ensure we have the best Jesus gig in town on any given Sunday. As a result, very little is left for the things that matter such as the plight of the poor and the sending out of feet who bring good news. And to be sure, the culture is going “to Hell in a hand basket”, but perhaps we have bought their ticket trying to be relevant while all along they were looking for us to be distinct and even strange in a world that no longer has any truth to sink their teeth into. As a result, they are still asking in Pilate-like fashion, “What is truth”, while we supposedly have dibs with the Master himself. We’ve woken up to realize we’ve been asleep at the wheel all along.

 

Secondly, self-fulfillment rules the day among those of us who grew up and out of being Jesus freaks, and like the rest of the world, our week is filled with longing for the freakin weekend full of concerts, dinner and a movie, and a cold beer in the sand wasting away again in our own secluded Margaritaville, while the casualties of this spiritual war in the heavenlies lie all around us as we’re just too busy being comfortably numb. I too have been caught up in it’s subtle grasp, yet my memory of once being a Jesus freak myself causes me to fight my way out from time to time, only to later slip back into a post Jesus freak coma of regretful forgetfulness.

 

And it seems that now we want a good life that keeps being qualified and quantified above our last debt ceiling, and we now need to throw in the same for our pets as well. Somehow, I woke up from the Jesus movement and dogs now really do have their day. The bible indeed encourages us to give care to our animals, but by the looks of things, they have become more important than our children and people in general. And if we looked at our checkbooks with keen analysis, for sure we’d come away with a surety of where our treasures really lie. The Jesus freaks apparently took the call of Jesus rather seriously. Today, methinks not so much. Following Jesus has never become so easy and equally tried and left wanting.

 

And Thirdly and lastly, I think this bleeds into what Ted Dekker has called The Slumber of Christianity, whereby the quest to live forever has become the Holy grail rather than the longing for our eternal home that causes us to instead always live like we are leaving at any moment. What amazes me the most is that this call from Jesus and the apostles own lips has become almost foreign to our ears. Perhaps since the natural man cannot receive spiritual things because they are folly to him, we have answered our own question as to why this no longer causes us to grapple with the difficult commands of Jesus on what he called a “narrow” path that few would find. I guess broad paths are indeed sexier.

 

And in the end, one would think that we would have gotten more fulfilled by now, with all the time and money we spend on the pursuit to achieve our happiness. Yet if the evening news is not always “fake news”, perhaps the answer is plain as the nose on our face, but our mirrors have gotten awfully foggy or the chemicals from our meds have finally kicked in. As a result, we are more restless now than ever as those who claim to have the truth right along side our lost neighbors and friends, and so we have no abundant life to offer them, so they no longer pay attention; and so we scratch our heads in church planning meetings and wonder why lost people are still…lost.

 

Perhaps the answer to our problem is found here:

 

What will people think

When they hear that I’m a Jesus freak

What will people do when they find that it’s true

I don’t really care if they label me a Jesus freak

There ain’t no disguising the truth

 

–DC Talk

 

My prayer is that we would stop caring a whole lot more. In fact, I think it’s time to get our Jesus freak back on again!

 

Selah