Hippies & Judeo-Chistianity
In 1967 the first ever hippie-style coffee house was opened in San Fransico called The Living Room. It had colorful Jefferson's Airplane-style posters on the wall with Bible Scriptures on them. In the mid-1960's, a Pastor named Chuck Smith started a church in Santa Ana that he named Calvary Chapel.
Chuck was inspired by his wife's idea to opened his church to the hippies and to let them bring their musical folk rock sound. They took this folk rock sound and added Christian lyrics to it invented Christian Rock. Pastor Chuck also was one of the first to make Christian commune houses.
In order to proclaim the message of the gospel, hippie Christians simply adopted existing forms of communication. Mirroring the development of underground newspapers such as the Berkeley Barb, in 1969 evangelist Duane Pederson began publishing the Hollywood Free Paper as an evangelistic tool.
Jesus papers with names like Right On!, The Fish, Street Level, and Cornerstone became a component of each street Christian community. Another development was Jesus Music, the controversial combination of rock music and the gospel as one of the most effective (and subsequently lasting) institutions of the revival. Artists and groups such as Ron Moore, Love Song, John Fischer, Larry Norman, Randy Matthews, and Agape are just a few of the performers that felt the need to communicate their spiritual message through a popular medium.
Christian coffeehouses and Jesus rock festivals emerged as the music gained momentum as a popular alternative to the mainstream industry. Contemporary Christian radio shows sprang up as did magazines devoted solely to monitoring the fledgling Jesus Music scene. While many conservative church-goers lamented that Jesus Music was a spiritual compromise, these pioneers maintained that they were combating the negative influence of mainstream rock music.
In an attempt to develop an apologetic for their evangelistic efforts they echoed the sentiments of reformer Martin Luther when he asked "why should the devil have all the best tunes." Also, a ministry was created at the same time called The Jesus People USA which is still thriving today. There idea was to take the basic Gospel of Jesus and season it in a way that would draw the hippies to Christ.
They helped fed the hungry and clothed them and they helped get kids off drugs and study the Bible. The influence of these pioneer Christian Hippies can be seen in many current Christian Hippie outreach programs such as The Rainbow Family Chaplins, The Bread of Life, Jesus Kids, and Haight-Ashbury's Prodigal Project.
