Hippy Jesus Shake

Where have all the Jesus hippies gone?

Lately, two things have been trending in my life: Jesus and the Hippie Movement.

It's Lent, so I've been thinking about Jesus more than usual.

Also, giving up sugar and alcohol (okay, I slipped up with the latter a couple of times — once for my birthday and once during spring cleaning when I really needed a beer to power through) has made me more aware and observant of spiritual things.

And then there are The Chosen ads popping up on my Facebook.

For those who don't know, The Chosen is a crowd-funded television series about the life of Jesus that has become wildly popular — even with critics, which is rare for Christian media.

Christian movies can be pretty cringey, but this one isn’t.

This spring, The Chosen has hit theatres with three films covering the finale of Jesus’ life on Earth — a story I consider the greatest ever told, even though I’m not sure if it’s literally true. But that doesn’t diminish its majestic symbolic power. What can be bigger than God sacrificing themselves for their creation and then coming back from death so that no one needs to die, ever? To win death with death, as the Orthodox Christians chant in their Easter hymns.

I don’t understand any of it, but it still blows my mind.

The Chosen is a remarkable project despite a few quirks — like the weird broken English some of the (native English-speaking) actors speak for some reason, or the slightly saccharine, picture-perfect sheen Christian films often carry. But there’s something in the show that disarms you, softening your heart to a point where you consider leaving everything and following Jesus wherever He goes.

The best part in The Chosen is Jonathan Roumie. He plays Jesus in a way that makes you fall in love with him, both spiritually (as the nuns do) and carnally (women are apparently leaving Jonathan their phone numbers). No one knows what Jesus really looked like, but something in Jonathan makes you believe he might have looked a bit like Him, in a spiritual kind of way.

Outside the Jesus box

In a world obsessed with labels and boxes, it's hard to just be who you are. I’ve struggled with Christianity most of my adult life — not because I don’t love Jesus (I do), but because of the people who claim to represent Him.

Jesus has been hijacked by all sorts of groups that say they follow His teachings, yet seem to miss the most basic point:

Love.

Jesus is, clearly, the most misunderstood character in human history.

The actor Andrew Garfield played a Portuguese Jesuit priest, Father Rodrigues, in the heartbreakingly beautiful — and also just heartbreaking — Scorsese movie Silence. The film is set in 17th-century Japan, where the Jesuits go on a missionary assignment to find their mentor, who has disappeared.

Garfield was raised Jewish, and Jesus remained a distant figure to him — until he prepared for the role by going through the 16th-century Jesuit Ignatius Loyola's Spiritual Exercises, guided by 20th-century Jesuit Father James Martin.

And then something unexpected happened: Garfield fell in love with Jesus.

And then he got mad. This is what he said in an interview:

"I felt so bad for [Jesus] and angry on his behalf when I finally did meet him, because everyone has given him such a bad name. So many people have given him such a s--- f---ing name. And he has been used for so many dark things."

I’m mad too.

Bring back the Hippies 🌸

The other night, I watched the movie The Jesus Revolution, where Jonathan Roumie again takes the lead — this time as real-life hippie preacher Lonnie Frisbee. The film is based on true events from Southern California in 1968. Lonnie, a barefoot hitchhiker in floral caftans and sandals, was going around preaching Jesus — not the institutionalized Jesus or the preacher of prosperity gospel, but a loving, mystical, radical one. The real deal.

Lonnie’s message resonated with young people, especially those who identified as hippies — rejecting their parents' materialism, the Vietnam War, and societal constraints. The hippie movement wasn’t just a social movement; it was also a spiritual one. It was about expanding consciousness, often through drugs and Eastern philosophies like yoga, Buddhism, and Hinduism.

And then came Lonnie, saying: you can find all of that in Jesus too.

He reframed Jesus as a relevant — and hippy — spiritual teacher whose teachings were as liberating and empowering as any exotic guru or sage. What’s more, according to Lonnie, enlightenment could be achieved with no drugs, totally sober.

For such is the power of love.

The movie was a bit of a bore. Strangely, it left out one of the most fascinating aspects of Lonnie’s story: he was gay (though not publicly open about it), and he died of AIDS. The director said they excluded that part out of “respect for his legacy,” wanting to focus on what he brought to the world, and not so much on his private life — which was a bit messy.

But I still find Lonnie’s Jesus movement fascinating and inspiring.

And: I think a Jesus movement is needed today!

Lonnie’s ministry faded for many of the same reasons the hippie movement did — idealism clashing with power, institutions absorbing the energy, life moving on.

But I think both could (and should) be revived.

We need a new Jesus movement.
We need love and flowers instead of greed and violence.
We need Jesus more than we need billionaires, celebrities, and influencers flaunting empty luxury.

More than ever, we need Jesus, the true, hippie kind.

Right?

(The image: Flower Power demonstrator in 1967. Wikimedia Commons)