What ever happened to those "Jesus loves you, man!" hippie-types?

In My Humble Opinion
1

When I was a kid in the late 60s throughout the 70s, I used to see these guys and gals everywhere; they dressed in beat-up and/or odd clothing (lots o’ tie-dye, fringe jackets and battered Army fatigues), had beards and long hair, some even smoked weed. They were a ubiquitous segment of American culture for a while.

Like other hippy-dippy types, they’d go on and on about the environment, peace, love, flowers, the purity of kids and animals, the evil of “The Man” (aka: government, industry and squares); but these folks were also heavily into…JESUS. Lots of witnessing for the Lord, stoned testifyin’, handing out “Peace, Love & Christ” pamphlets and tiny 'lil New Testaments. They’d always wrap up a conversation with, “Jesus loves you, man!”

So, what the hell ever happened to these folks? Like other branches of the “hippie” tree, did they all cut their hair, shave and get jobs? Are they all living in some big Jesus-loving commune in Oregon? Did they get absorbed by the more mainstream elements of the Christian faith? Honestly, I kinda’ miss them.

Compared to the frothing, fuming, angry, judgemental, political face of the Christian faith that we see so often nowadays (Baptist minister who wants President Obama dead, I’m looking in your direction, pal…), these guys seemed as dangerous as a fart in a windstorm. I’m not a Christian by any means —actually organized religion makes me more than a little nervous— but I didn’t ever mind these sincere, well-meaning, sweet, weird longhairs who couldn’t wait to tell you about a God who loves you (rather than the current view of the God who wants you to suffer).

2

Ah, the “Jesus Freaks.” My older brothers were in with them in the early 70’s. Refurbished storefront church in the wino district. They weren’t “Hellfire & Damnation” on sex, but they’d seen how hippy girls had pased out at parties and the hippy guys had lined up to gang-bang them; and they weren’t “H & D” on drugs, but they’d personally seen kids get strung out on them; so their “anti’s” were more empirical than dogmatic.

The salient point was that you didn’t start out as a square who wanted to be hip and so went into the Jesus Freak movement as a tentative toe in the water. Rather, you gravitated from Hippidom’s underside to it.

The anti-Vietnam War and Civil Rights movments also added crossover appeal to it. My brothers often encountered people my parents had worked with a few years ealier when they had been active in the Civil Rights movment (by then it had evolved into the Black Power movement, and its white participants were purged - but that’s another story).

Where did it go, you ask? Somebody’s probably writen a book about that. Without doing the required reseach for that, I’ll offer the generic opinion of what happend to the 1960’s in the 1970’s: the search for Self-Discovery turned into the search for Self-Gratification. Religion still had an appeal after this shift, but it was better suited to driving the SUV to the Megachurch to be told how to vote according to the Lord’s Will.

3

I think the same type of people of latter generations are more inclined to realize that Jesus was kind of a dick, and proffer a more universal message of peace and love.

4

You’d probably find a lot of them are still there without the hippy appearance in traditional liberal churches that don’t get a lot of notice. They’re probably supporting homosexual priests and priestesses in the Roman church. Some of them were probably nuts and went on to cults like the Moonies. And some have been replaced by born again.

5

My aunt and uncle were what I would call “Jesus hippies” in the 70’s. They moved from Akron to Oklahoma for some reason and I think it was to join a commune of some sort. They had two kids and moved back here in the early 80’s (lived with us in our 1000sqft house for a year - that sucked), put their kids through Christian school and bounced around to many different non-demoninal churches.

They’ve always been super poor but they are also super Conservative. My aunt does a lot of anti-Obama ranting, which drive me nuts because if anyone has benefited from “socialist” programs in the US it’s her and her family.

Anyway, in my experience, Jesus Hippies turned into super right-wing freaks as adults, just without the guns.

6

IMHO Jesus did work through the hippie movement and spoke very clearly through music, Woodstock being a prime example. The Love of God is about connecting to others in love (not lust), which was displayed greatly during that time. Over the years the message of the Lord Jesus was distorted to make it look like a period of sex and drugs - this is the work of the devil.

IMHO Jesus has no problem with a social gathering with a little weed, actually I believe He desires it (just to add I maybe smoked weed 7 times or so in my life so drugs are not a motivation, and I found the effect very mild). It is the social interaction He desires, and weed opens people up to talk and explore life.

Also (I am claiming enlightenment of the Holy Spirit this is NOT IMHO) Jesus speaks very strongly through music, reaching people way beyond church walls. For example the song ‘Another Brick in the Wall’ was/is divinely inspired by God, it is the story of the Israelites forces to make bricks (fired clay, clay is what man is made from) out of their children in the land of slavery - this is exactly what is happening today in public school systems and NOT the way of God.

7

The drugs eventually wore off.

8

Just once, I’d like to find a demonial church.

9

Really? Because it sure sounds like a condemnation of restrictive dogmatic schooling and thought to me, with no religious content whatsoever. Do you have any evidence at all that this is what Roger Waters was thinking of?

10

Does anyone remember the “Explo”–a sort of Jesus Freak World’s Fair they put on, about a year after the Montreal Expo? Well probably not; who remembers the Expo itself anymore? Still, at the time, the name “Expo” had a certain cachet on which they were obviously trying to capitalize.

11

My vote would be that at least one of them ended up as a poster on the SDMB.

12

I know some of them who, like many other ex-hippies, finally did make their “Mother Earth News” dreams come true, and settled down on a little farm out in the boonies.

They only have dial up internet, but they still send me plenty of glurge. :smiley:

13

Well, my dad is a social worker in Tacoma, so there’s one of them. He went to seminary in Berkeley, and while I’m not sure he did much handing out bibles and whatnot, he was involved with some church-based protest groups and the like, so definitely Jesus + hippie. He spent a while as a campus minister, helping people dodge the draft, then got a counseling degree and has worked primarily in homeless shelters/soup kitchens/counseling programs since then.

14

Aw. that’s what I was going to say. But I was also going to point out that I’ve seen canuckbird around here before, so s/he did not get here via a Google search or anything like that.