“I have three things I’d like to say today. First, while you were sleeping last night, 30,000 kids died of starvation or diseases related to malnutrition. Second, most of you don’t give a shit. What’s worse is that you’re more upset with the fact that I said shit than the fact that 30,000 kids died last night.”
– Tony Campolo
The problem with social movements is they eventually stop moving. The Jesus Movement was no exception. As time passed and the Movement grew in size and visibility, what had started as a spontaneous grassroots phenomenon became more and more institutionally rigid. In a word, the Jesus Movement was being swallowed up by religion.
When Tony Campolo issued his “you don’t give a shit” proclamation at one of the huge Jesus rallies held at a massive football stadium (memory says it was Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City, but I’m not certain) he was pointing out more than just a disturbing fact about the reality of hunger and malnutrition. Tony was describing the troubling shift taking place in the Movement itself. The people were more concerned about his use of profanity than the tragedy of starvation. Saving the world was losing ground to saving ME. What was once a Spirit-stirred, free-flowing exercise of radical Christian love was morphing into traditional religion with its many rules, doctrines and litmus tests.
The music of the Jesus Movement started changing as pioneers like Larry Norman fell out of grace for embracing rock music which many of the religious fundamentalists considered the music of the devil. Social themes of peace and justice were replaced by “7-11 music” – 7 words sung 11 times over until worshipers with raised hands achieved spiritual orgasm and then went home to live their middle-class lives in the suburbs.
I could see all this happening in my own little sphere of experience too. In my home town of Worcester the Jesus People Movement was mainly centered at the Charisma Coffeehouse located in the basement of a small Pentecostal church on Belmont St. The pastor was a wonderful guy named George DeTellis. His son, George Jr., writes:
The summer of 1972, my father started Charisma Coffeehouse in the basement of our church in Worcester, MA. I went with him to the fish market in Boston, and we bought a real fisherman’s net and hung it from the ceiling. We painted the walls behind the stage bright psychedelic orange and purple. We then went to a barrel company and bought some oak barrels. The electric company gave us some round wooden spool ends that we used to make the tabletops. Every Friday night was a wild crowd of hippies and Jesus people. Soon we bought a three-family and then a two-family house next to the church. The two-family house we called the House of Hope. The three-family we called the Household of Faith. We had started a Christian community in the heart of the inner-city in a very poor neighborhood called Belmont Hill.
Our church was right next to Memorial Hospital, the largest hospital in the city. On the broad side of the church facing the hospital we put up big black letters mounted to the white vinyl siding and the words said “Jesus Loves You.”
Everyone in the hospital rooms would see that message when they looked out their windows. When you drove up Belmont Street, Route 9 entering the city, you would see that message on the side of the church. We became known as the “Jesus Loves You” church on Belmont Street.
(http://www.newmissions.org/index.php/2013/10/01/the-jesus-loves-you-church-2/)
Those were exciting times and George Jr. beautifully describes the essence of the Worcester branch of the Movement: Jesus Loves You! And every Friday night a wildly diverse group of young people – hippies, hookers, dopeheads, and even “normal” kids – piled into Charisma, sitting around those barrel tables listening to music, singing, and drinking in the gospel message. As time went on, however, the message became more and more encumbered by Pentecostal theology, especially the importance of “speaking in tongues” as a sign that one was truly saved. I can remember praying over newly saved kids, desperately trying to get them to “speak in the heavenly language.” Some did. Some didn’t. Either way, division was setting in and the Jesus Movement was becoming less about Jesus and more about who was more spiritual than who.
I didn’t know how to name the inner disillusionment I was experiencing or what to do about it. The thing about being caught up in a religious movement is that when you sour on it you still find it difficult to break away. You’re afraid you’ll go to hell.
And most of us really do “give a shit” about that.
Up next: Hit the Beach
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