The Propaganda Behind 'Jesus Revolution'

The movie Jesus Revolution ignores the damage that the church has done to the LGBTQ community by ignoring that one of the characters was gay

A lot of people cried at the showing of Jesus Revolution that I attended. I was one of them, though I don’t think my tears were the same as those of the other attendees. 

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I grew up in the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod. People who grew up LCMS always make sure to mention that, because this was the more conservative branch of Lutheranism and no one wanted to be mistaken for the more progressive denomination. 

It wasn’t a hardcore fundamentalist situation where women have to keep their heads covered and can only wear skirts and no one can read anything but the King James Bible, but women had no voice in our church. They weren’t allowed to be ordained, but they also couldn’t vote in any church business. We sang hymns from the red hymnal, not the more liberal green or blue hymnal. I attended the parochial school that was a part of the church, so in addition to church services, I had chapel services and confirmation classes and various other religious teachings. 

My family was always religious, but in 1985, we attended the Creation Festival at a farm in Shirleysburg, PA. Born of the Jesus Movement, Creation was a multi-day event featuring music and preaching. Coming from our fairly straight-laced church, this was something entirely new. Rock music, but with Christian lyrics. Pastors who gave not 15 or 20 minute sermons, but who spoke for at least an hour. People giving and responding to altar calls. People raising their hands while singing. It was something we had never experienced, and it changed my family. 

One of the speakers we heard at Creation was a man named Greg Laurie. I’ll be honest - I don’t remember what he spoke about, but I must have listened to some of it, because of all of the speakers I heard there in the decade  that we attended, his is one of the few names I remember.

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Jesus Revolution, adapted from Greg Laurie’s book of the same name, follows the story of three men in the Jesus movement: Greg Laurie, Chuck Smith, and Lonnie Frisbee. The Jesus Movement started on the west coast in the late 1960’s when young people were finding themselves at odds with the religion of their parents. They felt like they weren’t fully welcome at church the way they were, and many were leaving Christianity in search of something with deeper meaning. The words of the day were, turn on, tune in, drop out. Many in Christianity wanted nothing to do with hippies.

Chuck Smith was one of those who was skeptical of the hippie movement. Lonnie Frisbee had a more charismatic background, but when he and Chuck Smith began working together, they began to see more young people coming to church. Greg Laurie was one of those young people, and he joined the leadership of Smith’s church, Calvary Chapel. Through the work of these men, crowds grew, and more people became Christians. Their message of acceptance impacted a generation. In one powerful scene, Chuck Smith, played by Kelsey Grammer, says, “This place - it is yours if you feel like an outcast, misunderstood or judged, ashamed or trapped. You will find forgiveness and freedom right here. This is your home. There is a place for you.”

Smith led a church of nearly 35,000 people, with more than 1000 additional congregations across the world. 

Laurie pastors at Harvest Christian Fellowship that has a weekly attendance of around 14,560 people.

Lonnie Frisbee died of AIDS in 1993, excommunicated for being gay from the very churches that he helped found. 

That last part wasn’t included in the movie. Because if you’re making propaganda, you don’t include the part where you’re the opposite of what you’re trying to convince people you are.

Some may balk at me calling “Jesus Revolution” propaganda, but I don’t make that claim lightly. In an interview with PluggedIn, director Jon Erwin said, “There’s a reason ‘Jesus Revolution’ came after ‘American Underdog,’ ‘I Still Believe,’ and ‘I Can Only Imagine.’ The more our audience has unified their voice and supported our work, the more opportunities we have to make something really authentic…Five years ago you couldn't have gotten ‘Jesus Revolution’ made at a studio…Your movie ticket really is your vote and there have been enough votes where we were able to get ‘Jesus Revolution’ made.”

They made this movie for a very particular group of people, and that group of people is not interested in hearing about how integral a gay man was to a lot of modern evangelicalism. It’s much better to cast Frisbee as a narcissist who was making their “come as you are, we accept everybody” movement about himself than to show that his “as he was” resulted in excommunication.

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I spent my 20’s pretty deep in the evangelical mindset. The foundation I had at Creation Fest pushed me toward more charismatic churches, which pushed me further into fundamentalism. But following my best friend coming out, the 2000 election of George W. Bush, and the war following 9/11, I began to see some holes in the theology I was following. My best friend was sinful for wanting to marry a woman, but it wasn’t sinful to torture enemies? Whoever won the election would be “God’s man” according to the Bible, but also, we were supposed to pray that Bush would win because he was really God’s man? At every turn, I felt like what I was being told by the powers that be was something that benefited the people in power more than being what Jesus said.

Eventually I left most of this behind me. It didn’t fit, so I quit trying to wear it. But it doesn’t change the fact that much of it is still woven into my history and that all of it has made me who I am today, at least in some ways. But it also means that it has the power to hurt me like nothing else.

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The movie Jesus Revolution is a well-made film. The performances are all well done and it is a compelling bit of media. It did remarkably well both critically and financially. From strictly a filmmaking point of view, this is a successful, entertaining, moving film. I still can’t recommend it because I think it’s just too damaging.

Or rather, I think where it leads is too damaging. 

There’s a scene in the movie where Greg Laurie attends a service at Calvary Chapel with his girlfriend. He leaves when he starts to feel an emotional pull toward the church. He thought he found something authentic with drugs and hippies, but they left him feeling like he was missing something. Crying, he tells Cathe why he left. “I just can’t be let down again. It’s good for a minute, then it’s gone.”

My path to becoming an affirming Christian took longer than I wish it had, largely because of that background I had. It felt wrong to condemn people because of natural attractions or gender expressions, but that’s what I was taught, and for a long time, that’s what I believed. But well before any of my kids came out, I was loudly affirming. 

So it was a little bit of a shock when a pastor told me and my husband that if we continued to vocally support our trans kids, we were not welcome in their congregation. We were creating relationships with the people in the church. We were involved in the music. We were supposed to be family. But making sure that there wasn’t a hint of support for queer people was of greater concern.

I imagine as a queer individual, it was even harder for Lonnie Frisbee.

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Last week, a video from April went viral. In it, a pastor says that parents of trans children should be shot in the head. As prominent Christian commentators speak about eradicating transgenderism and call trans affirming healthcare “molestation and rape,” one may look for safe places in the church. 

The movie Jesus Revolution wants us to believe that if we go to one of these churches, we will be loved and received as family, no strings attached. But it’s not true. There are lots of strings attached. I cried watching the movie because I know it. Thousands of queer people know it. Lonnie knew it.

And the makers of this film know it, too. That's why it’s effective propaganda. Because you have to know what you’re glossing over to make the gloss look good.