Film review: Jesus Revolution

If you’ve enjoyed The Chosen on Netflix, don’t miss Jonathan Roumie in another role of a religious leader.

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It’s 1968, Southern California. The hippie movement is at its height, together with the anti-war movement, second-wave feminism, and the sexual revolution. The world is in turmoil, and a small, conservative evangelical church community in Costa Mesa feels completely out of touch – low in numbers, stale and socially irrelevant. Led by the ageing pastor Charles Smith, they are pretty much struggling to stay afloat.

Enter a bunch of hippies led by the charismatic, prophet-like “Jesus freak” Lonnie Frisbee, and the congregation suddenly becomes the epicentre of a radically inclusive Jesus Movement . A lot of young people, previously lost in the world of sex, drugs and rock’n’roll, find their way to God and church thanks to Frisbee’s unorthodox preaching and worship style; among them one Greg Laurie (played by Joel Courtney) who will go on to become a pastor himself. The Movement eventually spreads all over the world, leaving a legacy of mega churches, the CCM (contemporary Christian music) genre, and the further rise of non- and post-denominational evangelicalism, among other things.

Telling the story of this cultural shift, Jesus Revolution (released in 2023) is an unapologetically Christian drama that manages to communicate with non-evangelical (and even non-Christian) audiences. Unlike many other contemporary Christian films that leave much to be desired in terms of general quality, this one features a cast of solid actors and feels like a standard mainstream drama. It’s a mainstream feature film in the same sense that The Chosen is a mainstream TV series.

In the case of Jesus Revolution, while the film refers to the counterculture of the 1960s, it does so in a way that is clearly meant to be faith-promoting and counter-countercultural. For instance, Lonnie Frisbee may be the main character, but you’ll never hear of his homosexuality in this film. Too unsavoury for the intended audience? That’s a pity, as it would make for an even more interesting, complex and nuanced story (go and search for his bio online; now that’s the stuff of drama). But Frisbee is here only a secondary character anyway, as it turns out.

There’s a lot of self-promotion for the Smith-Laurie tandem going on; not particularly subtle, either. When you get to the closing credits you’re not in the least surprised to see the advert for the Harvest Christian Fellowship, a present-day Californian mega-church founded by Laurie (plus an offer of a complimentary Bible). Harvest is in turn affiliated with the Calvary Chapel Association – an evangelical network of churches that sprung from pastor Chuck Smith’s original Costa Mesa congregation. The two of them are presented as the true heroes of the Jesus Movement epic, and it is their work that successfully continues to this day. Unlike that of Frisbee, who ends in obscurity.

In the film, we do see glimpses of the internal struggle between Frisbee on the one side, and Smith and Laurie on the other, but the final product looks like a censored version of what could have been a more truthful exposé on the evolution of the Jesus Movement. I’m reminded of the film The Founder (2016), a biographical drama about the original and largely forgotten founder of McDonald’s. It’s a sad and troubling tale – go see it if you haven’t already – and I can’t help but feel that the true story behind the Jesus Revolution might have been something along the same lines.

(Speaking of McDonald’s, there are various other parallels one can draw between contemporary evangelicalism and the corporate culture of McDonald’s. McChurch is definitely a thing, and this film may inadvertently help you understand how that bizarre phenomenon came about.)

To sum up, Jesus Revolution is by no means a bad film. I enjoyed watching it, and it does provide tantalising insights into what a section of Christendom looked and felt like in the late 1960s. It’s also another instance of history being written by the victors.

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LINKS

Harvest – online church resources

Jesus Revolution – the official presentation

Lonnie Frisbee – the official website