A friend invited me to go with a group to see the Jesus Revolution movie. I told him sorry, I was busy translating, and then I had to go out of town.

To be honest, I was glad to avoid it. I’m not against the movie, I wish it well and am delighted that an actor of Kelsey Grammar’s stature is involved. But for me, the whole Jesus Movement is a sensitive subject.

Not long ago, one of my old friends posted a picture of our musical group from back around 1975. One of the iterations of the group, that is to say, as our personnel changed a little through the years, anchored by a fairly stable core of four or five guys.

I looked at our young faces in black and white. Long hair. Bell-bottomed jeans. Some (like me) trying to look cool, others being pretty cool in actuality. It was, all things considered, probably the happiest time of my life. These guys were my spiritual brothers, closer to me than anyone has ever been – or is likely to be again – in my life.

Which makes it all the more painful to remember.

Because 90% of that group – I won’t detail how I break that down – and indeed of all the Christian friends I made back in those days – walked away from the faith we shared. Walked away from believing in the inerrancy of Scripture. Walked away from “One Way.” Followed their church body (or bodies) in sliding toward total cultural assimilation.

It makes it more poignant that – at least as I remember it – the more impressive I found any person as a believer, the more likely they were to apostatize. The ones who seemed really spiritual, the ones who seemed to know their Bibles best, the boldest witnesses, the ones with the most impressive testimonies – the day came almost inevitably when they told me (or more likely I heard second-hand) that they “weren’t into that stuff anymore.”

Which colors my perception of the whole Jesus Movement phenomenon. I haven’t observed that it really left much of a positive impact on our society. America became less Christian in the wake of the movement. My perception (or judgment, perhaps a Pharisaical one) is that people who became Jesus Freaks tended to grow more emotion-based, more subjective in their religion. They slid on into liberalism, and transcendental meditation, and New Age, and whatever else pleased them emotionally. They were converted to “my Jesus,” not the Jesus of Scripture.

I hope other people’s experience was better. I hope the Jesus Revolution movie brings many people to faith. I hope the Asbury Revival proves the spark for a new and better Great Awakening.

How lovely it would be to be wrong in the end.