....... have a taste of what it was like to live in a very free time of searching?
This is a small part of a book that will give you a glimpse into the church as much of it has become today.
*********
THE JESUS MOVEMENT
During the late 1960s, when the Charismatic movement was at its height, the Holy Spirit moved in an incredible way on a new generation of young people. Many of the expressions of this move were Charismatic in their orientation; others were not. It didn't really matter by which net they were caught, thousands upon thousands of young people were saved from drugs, sex and rock 'n roll between 1967 and the mid 1970s. The fish began biting everywhere; many of them were caught in tried-and-true organizations such a Youth for Christ and Campus Crusade for Christ, but many more were caught with brand new nets.
THE SOCIAL MILIEU OF THE 1960s
A new generation had come to young adulthood. They were called the "baby-boomers," a generation named after the boom in births following the Second World War. They were "the pig in the python," a description of the population graph that showed a giant bulge in the number of babies born between 1946 and 1964--as if a python had just eaten a pig. They were the first generation to be raised on television, the generation that birthed rock' n roll. They were affluent, having been raised in the post-war surge in the economy when the American dream was more real than it had ever been, at least for middle-class white folks.
Francis Schaeffer, an American living with his family in Switzerland, was a major influence during this period. He and his wife, Edith, ministered to a whole parade of baby-boomers traveling through Europe to find truth, noted that this generation had been cheated. Their parents had been raised in church by godly grandparents who got their values from a true relationship with Christ. Those parents, however, had gotten the values but not the relationship that gave the values meaning. They taught those values to their baby-boomer children but without any substance. When the boomers asked "Why?" their parents, without true relationship with Christ, could only say, "Because I said so." To a generation watching itself return from Southeast Asia in body bags, "because I said so" didn't cut it. From the kids' perspective, their parents' values were the reason the world was in such a mess.
A "generation gap" developed between the boomers and the "establishment." Occasionally, during social crisis, a generation is born that moves a quantum leap forward socially to an altogether different place. A gap develops. the cultural forms and values of the parents' generation are obsolete for the children who must carve out a new life, new values, new forms, new heroes, new gods, new art and new music. The two generations are like ships passing in the night, not hearing, not understanding, eventually becoming "people speaking without listening" (Simon and Garfunkel).
As the decade of the 1960s passed, one generation was living the American Dream while their children were living in a world that seemed out of control!
• The Cuban missile crisis left us frightened about a ubiquitous Communist takeover.
• China sucessfully field-tested its first nuclear bomb.
• John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Bobby Kennedy were shot.
• Vietnam touched our lives nightly with Walter Cronkite's body count.
• The six-day Arab-Israeli war seemed to some, the beginning of Armageddon.
• The religion of the older generation was declared irrelevant.
On April 8, 1966, the cover of Time magazine asked ~"ls God Dead?"
• Young people were confronted in secular terms with two alternatives, either escape the pain or work to overthrow the system. The youth culture escaped the pain through the big three: sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Men like Martin Luther King Jr. went after the system.
• The hippie movement had its genesis in the Haight Ashbury district in San Francisco. Beatniks and Bohemians of North Beach were pressured by the sex merchants to move to a low rent district called "Haight Ashbury." Word soon began to get out about experiences the new Haight residents were having with mind-altering drugs. In 1967-68, young people began to flock there from all over the world to crash the party and experiment with sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.
• Other centers soon cropped up — like Greenwich Village in w York, Old Town in Chicago, Griffith Park in Los Angeles, Mission Beach in San Diego, Yorkville in Toronto, and many college campuses, especially U.C. at Berkeley in San Francisco. The steps and plaza of Sproul Hall became the Aereopagus of the modern age where anyone could speak openly on their views about anything.
THE SEARCH FOR SPIRITUAL ANSWERS
When the Beatles' search for meaning led them via the emptiness of drugs to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Eastern religion caught the world by storm. One could continue to "do one's own thing" while trying to find inner peace. One could chant one's way to peace by saying a mantra to the Indian god Krishna. It was a lie, but many got hooked, to their own destruction. Some young people intuitively knew that the way of love was the true path, but "flower power" didn't seem to lead them there. People were just as hateful "with flowers in their hair" (a song by Joni Mitchell).
Some sensed the apocalyptic dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sang that it was "time to get back to the garden," but that didn't work either. They eventually broke up, and David Crosby almost destroyed his life with drugs.
Some delved into the occult to find the answers. Astrologers claimed it was the Age of Aquarius. Youth experimented with Ouija boards. Anton LaVey started the First Church of Satan for those enlightened Satanists who did not believe in the supernatural. Other Satanic cults, however, tapped into the real thing and performed weird sexual rites and formed covens for witches and warlocks to practice magic. People began to find the remains of bizarre sacrifices.
In 1966, John Lennon made an off-hand remark that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. He didn't realize that the youth culture was on the edge of a massive revival of love for Jesus Christ and that the Beatles were on the verge of disbanding. While the youth of the 60s were working out the emptiness of their genetic code of rebellion against authority, God was at work to counteract tragedy with glory.
This is a small part of a book that will give you a glimpse into the church as much of it has become today.
*********
THE JESUS MOVEMENT
During the late 1960s, when the Charismatic movement was at its height, the Holy Spirit moved in an incredible way on a new generation of young people. Many of the expressions of this move were Charismatic in their orientation; others were not. It didn't really matter by which net they were caught, thousands upon thousands of young people were saved from drugs, sex and rock 'n roll between 1967 and the mid 1970s. The fish began biting everywhere; many of them were caught in tried-and-true organizations such a Youth for Christ and Campus Crusade for Christ, but many more were caught with brand new nets.
THE SOCIAL MILIEU OF THE 1960s
A new generation had come to young adulthood. They were called the "baby-boomers," a generation named after the boom in births following the Second World War. They were "the pig in the python," a description of the population graph that showed a giant bulge in the number of babies born between 1946 and 1964--as if a python had just eaten a pig. They were the first generation to be raised on television, the generation that birthed rock' n roll. They were affluent, having been raised in the post-war surge in the economy when the American dream was more real than it had ever been, at least for middle-class white folks.
Francis Schaeffer, an American living with his family in Switzerland, was a major influence during this period. He and his wife, Edith, ministered to a whole parade of baby-boomers traveling through Europe to find truth, noted that this generation had been cheated. Their parents had been raised in church by godly grandparents who got their values from a true relationship with Christ. Those parents, however, had gotten the values but not the relationship that gave the values meaning. They taught those values to their baby-boomer children but without any substance. When the boomers asked "Why?" their parents, without true relationship with Christ, could only say, "Because I said so." To a generation watching itself return from Southeast Asia in body bags, "because I said so" didn't cut it. From the kids' perspective, their parents' values were the reason the world was in such a mess.
A "generation gap" developed between the boomers and the "establishment." Occasionally, during social crisis, a generation is born that moves a quantum leap forward socially to an altogether different place. A gap develops. the cultural forms and values of the parents' generation are obsolete for the children who must carve out a new life, new values, new forms, new heroes, new gods, new art and new music. The two generations are like ships passing in the night, not hearing, not understanding, eventually becoming "people speaking without listening" (Simon and Garfunkel).
As the decade of the 1960s passed, one generation was living the American Dream while their children were living in a world that seemed out of control!
• The Cuban missile crisis left us frightened about a ubiquitous Communist takeover.
• China sucessfully field-tested its first nuclear bomb.
• John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King Jr., and Bobby Kennedy were shot.
• Vietnam touched our lives nightly with Walter Cronkite's body count.
• The six-day Arab-Israeli war seemed to some, the beginning of Armageddon.
• The religion of the older generation was declared irrelevant.
On April 8, 1966, the cover of Time magazine asked ~"ls God Dead?"
• Young people were confronted in secular terms with two alternatives, either escape the pain or work to overthrow the system. The youth culture escaped the pain through the big three: sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll. Men like Martin Luther King Jr. went after the system.
• The hippie movement had its genesis in the Haight Ashbury district in San Francisco. Beatniks and Bohemians of North Beach were pressured by the sex merchants to move to a low rent district called "Haight Ashbury." Word soon began to get out about experiences the new Haight residents were having with mind-altering drugs. In 1967-68, young people began to flock there from all over the world to crash the party and experiment with sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.
• Other centers soon cropped up — like Greenwich Village in w York, Old Town in Chicago, Griffith Park in Los Angeles, Mission Beach in San Diego, Yorkville in Toronto, and many college campuses, especially U.C. at Berkeley in San Francisco. The steps and plaza of Sproul Hall became the Aereopagus of the modern age where anyone could speak openly on their views about anything.
THE SEARCH FOR SPIRITUAL ANSWERS
When the Beatles' search for meaning led them via the emptiness of drugs to the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, Eastern religion caught the world by storm. One could continue to "do one's own thing" while trying to find inner peace. One could chant one's way to peace by saying a mantra to the Indian god Krishna. It was a lie, but many got hooked, to their own destruction. Some young people intuitively knew that the way of love was the true path, but "flower power" didn't seem to lead them there. People were just as hateful "with flowers in their hair" (a song by Joni Mitchell).
Some sensed the apocalyptic dawning of the Age of Aquarius.
Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young sang that it was "time to get back to the garden," but that didn't work either. They eventually broke up, and David Crosby almost destroyed his life with drugs.
Some delved into the occult to find the answers. Astrologers claimed it was the Age of Aquarius. Youth experimented with Ouija boards. Anton LaVey started the First Church of Satan for those enlightened Satanists who did not believe in the supernatural. Other Satanic cults, however, tapped into the real thing and performed weird sexual rites and formed covens for witches and warlocks to practice magic. People began to find the remains of bizarre sacrifices.
In 1966, John Lennon made an off-hand remark that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ. He didn't realize that the youth culture was on the edge of a massive revival of love for Jesus Christ and that the Beatles were on the verge of disbanding. While the youth of the 60s were working out the emptiness of their genetic code of rebellion against authority, God was at work to counteract tragedy with glory.
