If you lived during the late 1960s and early 1970s, you experienced a time in our nation’s history that is very similar to today. That became very evident to me while watching the film Jesus Revolution.

This column is usually about sports, and sometimes travel, however, there are other sports stories on this page to satisfy that requirement. And, since this column is titled My View from Here, I feel I have a bit of latitude to give my opinion on a variety of topics, so this week, it’s my view regarding this movie.

I was a young boy during those years, but I remember it well. You were either a hippie or a square, and I was the latter. I went to church every Sunday morning and evening, and on Wednesday evenings. One Friday or Saturday a month we’d have a youth rally, somewhere within a two-state area of our denomination, and I attended those.

Hippies were the folks that lived next door to my aunt and uncle. They appeared to have parties that ran all night, with drinking, loud music, and we assumed drugs. We weren’t supposed to act like them. But to me, they were cool, and friendly and their kids went to school with us.

Maybe they were just searching for an answer, like in the movie. My cousins even tried to witness to them and invite them to church, but they never came.

Jesus Revolution is about a national spiritual renewal that swept across the country, but focuses specifically on the movement in Southern California, led by Lonnie Frisbee (played by Jonathan Roumie) and Pastor Chuck Smith (Kelsey Grammer). A part of the story includes a teenager who comes to faith after trying drugs to forget his past and his broken home, but finds no relief from that burden until he meets Frisbee and Smith. That person is Greg Laurie, who now pastors a megachurch in Southern California. I was introduced to Laurie’s ministry just a year ago, and have been majorly impressed by the work he is doing, and that was long before knowing anything about his past or his role in the Jesus movement.

At the time, our country was divided by the free-willing peace and love crowd, whose mantra became, “Make love, not war.” While the rest of the country was trying to figure out how to support our military members, but upset with the administration that got us involved in a war in Vietnam. Everyone was looking for answers.

Today, our country is still divided over politics and social norms, or abnormalities, whichever way you look at it. We’re not bickering over a foreign war, at the moment, but rather a war on authority, which includes whether to support or defund police forces. We are a nation terribly divided, as we were in the early 1970s, and there is only one answer.

Churches at the time were filled with self-pious parishioners and ministers who preached “safe sermons.” Rocking the boat or doing anything our of the norm would have meant losing congregants, which in turn could get a pastor booted out of a job. Churches weren’t a place that “social outcasts” would have felt welcome in those days, and few pastors were willing to risk their jobs to welcome them.

Pastor Smith took that risk when he invited Frisbee and a group of hippies to begin worshiping in his church. The regular attenders were not as welcoming, and many left his church, but his church exploded in ministry to young people who were searching for a meaning in their life; an answer they weren’t finding in drugs.

In the days since the Jesus movement, the church has gone away from that welcoming spirit, and as Phil Cooke, a recent guest on the Tulsa Beacon Weekend radio show, pointed out, “the church has not done a good job of P.R. in the past 40 years. We have not presented a very loving or welcoming message to those who are looking for answers.”

Shame on us.

We have a generation of teens and young adults disenfranchised with our federal government, fighting authority, police who have gone rogue and become violent, corporations more concerned about making stock holders happy rather than keeping employees happy. This young generation wants to do what they want, as they please, with whomever they choose, and they don’t want the government to stand in their way. At the same time, they are cheering for socialism, which in itself is a complete contradiction to a government being hands off.

Well, doesn’t that sound like the 1970s all over again?

I don’t think that it’s any fluke that there is a revival going on right now on a college campus in Kentucky. These young people are looking for answers they are not finding in our society today.

Oh, and by the way, Christians who are criticizing the Asbury College revival or the Jesus Revolution movie better be careful. It is not for us to judge, and if you haven’t been there or experienced it for yourself, then it’s best to be silent and let God take care of the authenticity part.

What I do know is this, Jesus Revolution moved me like no movie has done since Chariots of Fire. If you see this movie and it doesn’t cause you to want to be bold in your belief and to share your faith with others, then we need to talk.

If you see this movie and it moves you the way it has me, then God bless you, and I’m proud of you.

TULSA BEACON WEEKEND

My guests this week on the “Tulsa Beacon Weekend” radio show will include Dr. Marc Durham, a research scientist, author and all-around interesting person, and David Puckovsky, organizer of a group of European Colorado Avalanche fans. The show airs on Saturday at 12:00 p.m. CST on 970am KCFO.