The Jesus Movement and the Echo Boomers: An Exploration in Two Parts
Part One
by Mia Burke
Surfing the Internet, scrolling through Facebook and other social media, I can’t help but feel like my pal Malcolm. Ya know, Fox’s Malcolm in the Middle (2000-2006) - hard done by and an outsider in the showdown between the Millennials and Boomers. I’m a Gen Xer and scarily stereotypical: head down working, all about staying untangled from commitment, pessimistic, disaffected, with a strong desire not to be defined. I am stuck in the middle of my parents and my children whose extremely large generations (in numbers) are at odds, yet are strangely similar to each other: vocal, politically-minded, bold, on the move for change, and did I say vocal? Where my grandparents were the Silent Generation, I’m the Forgotten Generation. Our theme song, according to blogger Lindsay Pollack is “Don’t You Forget About Me” by Simple Minds, in case you didn’t know. Even the mainstream news doesn't feel like we’re worth a mention (click Graphic link in caption below).
Photo by Natalya Letunova on Unsplash. Click here for link to Lindey Pollack’s Generations Guidelines Graphic (2019). Graphic courtesy of CBSN.
An English major by trade, I mostly adhere to the Structuralist method of textual criticism. A pretentious way of saying that I discover connections. My gifting is to observe the zoomed out version of a thing and then stumble upon relationships that others don’t see. As I sit at my desk wondering why I don’t get as worked up as other generations about our cultural implosion, I looked at my parents and my adult children and started noticing their similarities. I began thinking about what sociological commentators list as the cause-effects for these generation’s characteristics- war, corruption in politics, unyielding traditions of previous generations and its social institutions, resulting in rebellion, fear for the future, need for fulfillment, search for truth, etc. More connections showed themselves. So I went to my girls- well, women.
Mia and Martha (2015). Photo courtesy of Leticia Buhr.
I’ve been incredibly blessed to have had a circle of women a life stage ahead, who have selflessly poured into me: Mama Steph, Martha, Fran, and Mary Ann. I observed that they were all Boomers and Jesus Freaks (Boomers who, in one way or another, were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit during the 1960s-1970s). They boldly shared their stories leading up to their salvation and how that era impacted their lives/respective ministries. I started seeing more similarities between the two generations.
“Busses in a Row” (2015). Photo courtesy of Shawn Burke.
The time we live in is eerily similar to those of the mid-1960s- political corruption’s exposure to the public, racial tensions, war, and an inability/unwillingness to communicate- leading to a climax in the 1960s of unbelievable social unrest for every facet of the culture and ultimately a revolution. And I see we’re tumbling headlong into the same place- quickly.
So we have two generations who closely resemble each other. Just yesterday, I found a new term for Millenials that proved I’m not the only one seeing the connection: Echo Boomers- Millenials feel like echoes of a preceding generation. Excuse me, I’m just an Xer in the way, so I’ll move aside- for now. These two generations are in a life or death search for truth. Not that Gen Xers aren’t, but we’re just not as vocal as our generational compadres.
To explore this too broad topic, we’ll need to break it into two parts- the first, exploring the times, and the Jesus Movement. Then we’ll pick back up in the next article with the Echo Boomers and what we may be seeing as the priming for another great move of the Spirit.
The Jungle that Was the 1960s
To traverse this era, I returned to one of my favorite series, AMC’s Mad Men (2007-2015), an accurate and poignant depiction of the culture of the early ‘60s leading up to the turmoil later in the decade. On my journey to better understand, I thought it would be helpful to find a guide familiar with this territory. I called on a few of my Jesus Freaks to learn about the culture.
Cathy and Fran Mardi Gras (1963). Photo courtesy of Fran Bussard.
Out of the six friends I talked with- all diverse in backgrounds, locations, and ages during the ‘60s, all spoke of the unrest that was the zeitgeist of the era- fear, frustration, anger, and a pervasive anxiety over the future. Sound familiar? As tensions over the Vietnam draft, political assassinations, and racial riots raged, they were the youth who rebelled. British journalist and commentator Christopher Booker describes the era as,
A classical Jungian nightmare cycle, where a rigid culture, [was] unable to contain the demands for greater individual freedom.[1]
He denotes the youth of the era broke free of the social constraints of the previous age through extreme deviation from the norm. Again, sound familiar?
Cindy and Al, Jazz Fest (1978). Photo courtesy of Fran Bussard.
A counterculture developed that would later lead to a revolution against the social norms in everything from clothing, music, drugs, sexuality, social formalities, causing the majority of the Boomer generation to denounce established institutions such as government, church, commercialism, and education as untrustworthy. This pervasive unrest resulted in civil disobedience as well as looking for new ways to express what it meant to be human. Tim Leary’s talk at the Human Be-In, a gathering of 30,000 hippies in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, encouraged a generation to,
"Turn on, tune in, drop out.”
The hippies, or purveyors of this counter culture, created communities, listened to psychedelic music, embraced the sexual revolution, and experimented with drugs such as marijuana and LSD for altered states of consciousness. This sounds eerily familiar to today: Youth looking to escape the hopelessness of our time through drugs (prescripted and illegal), sex, and music- creating a god out of self-expression.
Fran and Patricia (1972). Photo courtesy of Fran Bussard.
However, all hope was not lost. God had a plan- per usual. Thank you, Lord. In this plan, the Lord included all people groups: Protestant, Catholic- the Holy Spirit was no respecter of man (Rom. 2:11). Way back in 1895, an Italian nun, Sister Elena Guerra, wrote confidential letters to Pope Leo XIII, asking for him to foster devotion in the Catholic church to the Holy Spirit, and he did. In Evangelical circles, a group of Methodists in 1900, led by Agnes Ozman and Rev. Charles Parham of Topeka, Kansas, experienced an unexpected outpouring of The Holy Spirit after studying Acts, which started the modern-day Pentecostal movement among Protestants. The seeds of a movement were planted more than sixty years earlier by observant, hungry, dedicated women in the lead.
Students marching for anti-war protest, Tallahassee (1970). Photo courtesy of Commons.wikimedia.org.
1967- The Dam Broke
Summer 1967 was the Summer of Love, and the Hippie movement was in full swing. However, the Holy Spirit was at work. In the Body of Christ, a counter-movement to the cultural revolution of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, stirred.
Fran (1967). Photo courtesy of Fran Bussard.
My friend and co-creative Fran Bussard and her lifelong friend Jim Arbon remember 1967 as a pivotal and transitional year. Jim, a senior in high school, recalls 1967 as the summer of Kennedy, Vietnam, and a call to rebellion against values, politics, and other societal norms for freedom of thought. He remembers,
I stopped myself from being fed a dictatorial perspective and the faith of my parents. I went on a search for truth, rejecting the values of the times. Many of us thought we’d die in Vietnam. We thought if we didn’t impact socio-politics by questioning leadership and authority, we’d never get to do anything before dying. Many went to drugs and alcohol, transcendental meditation, and other occultish associations for open-mindedness.
However, he now realizes this was a false sense of security- “…really just rebelliousness. It was a search to find identity and truth.” Though a few years younger than Jim, Fran Bussard, a New Orleans Catholic School junior higher, echoes his sentiments of the era. She notes, “It was a time of rebellion against values, against parents, rejecting the norms of the times.”
While almost an entire generation of youth held sway to the rebellious culture in some way- from dress to musical influences or experimentation with drugs, God planned a counter move: The Jesus Movement was born. A profound wind of change swept across America. A revival that I would argue was the most profound and far-reaching in American history and has yet to be rivaled. Not just in one corner of the country, particular denomination, or specific sex or race- but in all areas of the Body of Christ. Scholar Larry Eskridge estimates the Jesus Movement saw at least 250,000 people become Christians, dubbing it the last great American revival.[2] I beg to differ that its the last, but more on that in the next post.
The movement spread like wildfire as it answered the most fundamental questions and desires of the youth of the time- authentic, pure, transparency, simple, real. It was a move of the Spirit of God in the youth culture to counter the hypocrisy, ignorance, out-dated traditions of the church, society, and culture. Fran Bussard notes that “Leaders, lead by God, preached simply from the Bible, trained artists who had developed in their mediums before their salvation, related artistically and deeply to the youth musically, such as Keith Green.” Other artists such as Don Fransico lead to modern worship from church venues such as Vineyard and Calvary Chapel, a perfect recipe for a counter-revolution that we, the Church, are still benefiting from today.
Catholic Charismatic Movement (1967). Photo courtesy of Spiritwatch.org.
One astute observation of the time, made by another friend and mentor, Dr. Martha Stinton, observed that the church during the Jesus Movement transitioned from a rational approach to spirituality to an experiential and emotional one. She noted that it became an experience to know Jesus, not the traditional way of doing church, which attracted the authentic, “no phony stuff” truth-seeking hippies of the day. And this new non-rational way of doing church spread to all parts of the Body of Christ.
The Catholic Charismatic Renewal
Near and dear to my heart is the Catholic Charismatic Renewal, or simply the Renewal. Raised Catholic in a small town in Mississippi, I am thankful for the move of the Spirit in New Orleans in the late 70s when my grandfather, a devout Catholic, caught the movement of the Spirit and dedicated his life to the Lord, becoming very engaged in the Renewal. Then in 1981, my mother followed suit. From this spiritual experience, my Papa drove his beat-up VW Bus for a sabbatical at a monastery in New Mexico then returned home changed. He would later co-found Loaves and Fishes (a local food charity) and become a committed member of the church’s intercessory prayer team. I remember his nightly 3 am-6 am pilgrimage to the chapel next door for twenty plus years until a debilitating illness put an end to it. He left a legacy of faith that I’m thankful to be a part of.
One of the earliest recorded beginnings to the Jesus Movement began in the Catholic Church in February 1967, when revival broke out during a Duquesne University student retreat at The Ark and the Dove Retreat House outside of Pittsburgh, PA. Student Patti Gallagher-Mansfield felt drawn to pray before the Blessed Sacrament in the retreat center’s chapel. She and other students were found prostrate before the Tabernacle, overwhelmed by the majesty, power, and presence of God. The Catholic Charismatic Renewal was born, spreading rapidly throughout the United States and the world. Estimations surmise that more than 75 million Catholics worldwide have had contact with the renewal, experiencing a personal Pentecost.[3] Ms. Gallagher-Mansfield currently ministers in New Orleans along with her husband Al, the Director of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal of New Orleans Office. Patti continues to impact thousands of young couples just as she did that night in February of 1967.
One couple impacted is Cathy and Ken LaCour. Both grew up in the New Orleans Diocese and left the area shortly after their marriage to pursue careers in education. Both Ken and Cathy experienced the Charismatic Renewal at separate times in their young lives. Cathy was influenced by a high school teacher, Mrs. Calhoun, whose deep love of God opened her heart to be aware of the Holy Spirit. Cathy was invited to a prayer meeting by a friend. After several weeks of attending she was in prayer one night when she experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in her life.
Similarly Ken, a high school science teacher at the time, experienced the Holy Spirit when called to teach at a newly opened Pentecostal high school. Ken's experience through his contact with the Pentecostal community lead him to pursue a deeper experience of God's gifts in the local Catholic community. That exploration opened his heart to accept that “God personally loved me.” That revelation had a profound impact on his life going forward. He continues to “pursue loving others in that same way and continue to grow in Life in the Spirit.”
Together, after they married, the LaCours continued that pursuit of the Holy Spirit by joining a Covenant Community in Mobile, AL, as they raised their young family. Living in deep community with others of similar convictions and thr desire to grow, stemmed from the communal days of hippies, spilling over into the development of many such communities around the country. The LaCours felt called to move their family to a very active Catholic community in Steubenville, OH, where a tremendous outpouring of the Charismatic gifts occurred. They experienced many miracles and grew in both their faith and commitment as followers of Christ. Reminiscing about their time in Steubenville, their “awareness of Him and others” is what they have carried with them most as they moved numerous times around the country.
The time invested in the community gave Ken and Cathy a sensitivity to the Lord moving. Cathy summarized their experience, stating,
I think not just my Steubenville time, but all the time I spent from high school on involved in the renewal, I have kept that deep peace that God is in control of all. I don’t stress about politics, health issues, world problems. I pray and ask the Holy Spirit to intervene. I know the Spirit will be with me until my dying day and then for all eternity! Each day is a beautiful gift, no matter how hard.
The couple now resides on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where they are pursing how God wants them to best serve in this area. Whatever that service might be, Ken and Cathy know that they will bring with them the teachings and experiences of a Life in the Spirit.
East Coast Revival
Asbury College Revival (1970). Photo courtesy of Romans1015.com.
Like The Charismatic Renewal in the Catholic Church, college students in February of 1970 at Asbury College in Wilmore, KY marked the beginning of the Jesus Movement in the Protestant tradition. Similarly, college students attending Tuesday chapel prayed and waited in expectation for a move of the Spirit. The 50-minute service turned into a 185-hour revival for the college. The school, an interdenominational Christian college whose roots are in the Wesleyan tradition of the Methodist church, was led in chapel that morning by Custer Reynolds, Asbury’s academic dean, and a Methodist layman.
Reynolds did not preach, but instead gave his testimony in brief, then invited students to talk about their own. One student responded to his offer. Then another. Then another. “Then they started pouring to the altar,” Reynolds said. “It just broke.”[4]
Gradually, inexplicably, students and faculty members alike found themselves quietly praying, weeping, singing. They sought out others to whom they had done wrong deeds and asked for forgiveness. The chapel service went on and on.[5] News of the revival spread in newspapers and on television. Strangers flocked to Wilmore to worship with the students, and the revival spread.
Fran and Patricia (1978). Photo courtesy of Fran Bussard.
West Coast Revival aka, the Jesus Movement
The Jesus Movement broke out on the West Coast of California and Oregon in the Evangelical church as a result of disillusionment with the hippie lifestyle. For example, the San Francisco Haight-Ashbury scene became fraught with sexually transmitted diseases, bad LSD trips, and overcrowding, which killed the buzz of the time. Larry Eskridge, in his article, “‘Jesus People’ – a movement born from the ‘Summer of Love’” describes the scene:
Haight Ashbury Sign. Photo courtesy of Felix E. Guerrero on Flickr.
A new set of hippie “Jesus Freak” 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 “saved” after one of his numerous LSD trips. Along with his wife Elizabeth and several other hippie couples, Wise began attending a local Baptist church.
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.
One time Wise made a presentation on the music of Bob Dylan during a Wednesday night prayer meeting. But, as I found in my research, somehow, the hippies and the church people from the “establishment” managed to ride out their differences.
The hallmarks of the West Coast movement were rooted in a return to Restoration Theology- living the lifestyle of the Christians from the Book of Acts and restoring the apostate church. The Hippies’ communal, freestyle living influenced a return to a simple life and asceticism. In 1971-72 strong media coverage from grassroots newspapers such as Duane Pederson’s Hollywood Free Paper (1969-75) and national media outlets covered the movement, which only attracted more youth. The country was aflame with a draw to the Holy Spirit.
Marked by miracles, signs, wonders, faith, healing, prayer, simple Bible-based teaching, and a filling of the Holy Spirit, the Jesus Movement burst with impactful ministries such as Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel, Shiloh Youth Revival Ministries, and others springing up the West Coast.
Hank Skade and Stephi Skeie (1973). Photo courtesy of Stephi Skeie Beckett.
A dear friend and mentor, of Stephi (Skeie) Beckett, was a Hippie who left her home in Eugene, OR, to roam the roads in search of the freedom the Hippie movement promised. She found herself hitchhiking in Olowalu, Maui, suddenly knocking on the door of Teen Challenge when she was invited in and encountered Jesus. She quickly gave her life to Him and never looked back. Soon afterward, she returned home to Oregon and joined Eugene Faith Center, pastored by Roy and Kay Hicks, who reached out to a local Hippie commune’s Bible study. The Shiloh Ministry in the Eugene area purchased a large house and held Gospel meetings and baptisms in the bathtubs, a true revival.
Stephi and Kay Hicks recently reconnected to reminisce about the Jesus Movement, noting that it was a time unlike any other they’ve experienced in their 45+ years of ministry. They remembered the church having to adjust to the influx of Hippies and their counter-cultural lifestyle, dress, and manner. The church reached out to the group of non-traditional seekers by hosting picnics by the river, and a time of creative music and simple, straight Bible teaching. Kay notes there was “just a hunger in the kids for truth, authenticity and wanting people to be real- not the phony stuff.”
Liberation House (1974). Photo courtesy of Dan Purkey.
It was a move in those days, beyond the gifting [of an individual or pastor], but an outpouring of the spirit. A lot of single widowed women prayed that revival in. [There were] A lot of miracles, a lot of physical miracles in those days too.
Stephi recalls that time was like “a gigantic flood, one by one, everywhere you turned people were coming to Christ and getting filled with the Spirit and surrendering their lives and being fearless and bold for the King.”
Overwhelmed by the fact that many of the people who served in ministry in the 1970s continuing to serve the Lord today, Kay remains engaged in ministry. A recent spontaneous homecoming event, drew many from that time, flying in from around the world. Kay notes,
we have a bond that we’ll always have together. It doesn’t matter where we go. We are all bonded; we all had that foundation of solid teaching in the Word and experiences.
This sentiment is reminiscent of the many times my Millennial students have expressed their hunger for authentic relationships, community, something real.
Stephi and Billie Sexton at Teen Challenge (1973). Photo courtesy of Stephi Skeie Beckett.
What Does It Mean?
I walked away from the interviews with my Jesus Freaks, more intrigued, and more convicted- and to be honest, even a bit jealous. I, too, desire their intense experience with the Spirit and His movements during the 1960s and 70s. My mind is alive with the connections. Having worked with Millennials in both academia and ministry on and off over the last twenty-six years, I’m surer now than ever that there is indeed a connection yet to spark between the two surprisingly similar generations.
The Breakfast Club (1985). Image courtesy of CommonsWikimedia.org.
As I wrap up this contextual delve into what was the zeitgeist of the 1960s and the Jesus Movement, I feel more compelled than ever to pray into a move of the Spirit- that He would come to do a greater work in our culture than he did during the Jesus Freak’s time. I stand in joyful expectation of what He will do with this generation, whose brains are physiologically different than any other generation, which I suspect means something. This generation, who seems to catch on to deep spiritual concepts in an instant, are passionate and vocal, yet are without a call to action or guidance to a movement worthy of their abilities.
In my next post, we will continue our journey by considering the fallout from the Jesus Movement and today's Echo Boomers. In Part II, we'll explore "Jesus Freaks, Meet the Echo Boomers," diving further into the similarities of the two generations and the correlations between them. We'll investigate the work yet to do, as well as ask the question- are we primed for another great outpouring of the Spirit and revival? And oh yeah, what does that mean for us hard done by, forgotten Gen Xers? Don't worry; I won't "forget about me."
works cited
Christopher Booker: The Neophiliacs: A Study of the Revolution in English Life In The Fifties and Sixties, Gambit Incorporated,
London, 1970.
https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2017/September-2017/The-Jesus-People-Revolution-the-60s-hippies-who-
changed-the-world
http://www.newpentecost.net/catholic-charismatic-renewal.html
https://romans1015.com/1970-asbury-revival/
http://www.forerunner.com/forerunner/X0585_Asbury_Revival_1970.html
Resources
We’ve created a free downloadable PDF to explore the article deeper. It contains discussion questions about the topic in general terms that will give you a jumping-off point for beginning a conversation.
The second page contains a way to see the topic from a biblical perspective.
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