Will America Experience Another Jesus People Movement? with Larry Eskridge

Keith Simon 

All right, here we go. Larry Eskridge, welcome to Truth Over Tribe.

Larry Eskridge 

Hey, thanks, Keith. Good to be with you.

Keith Simon 

Now I've really been looking forward to talk with you about your book Gods forever family. I read it a couple times. I really enjoyed it. Let's start with this. Most people are probably somewhat familiar with the fact that in April of 1966, Time Magazine had a cover and which they asked a question, Is God dead? And it was kind of a controversial magazine cover. They were obviously making a point about faith about culture about morality back in 1966. But what a lot of people don't know is that just five years later, so in June of 1971, Time Magazine, same magazine runs a cover this time. Hang on a second. We're hearing Do you have I'm sorry, Larry, but can you hear us bouncing back and forth in our ears? That's going to drive us both crazy. Do you have headphones? No.

Larry Eskridge 

I do. But yeah.

Keith Simon 

Do you hear that though? That's going back and forth. In the background? No, it's, it's you don't hear? Okay. I'm sorry, then we'll just go ahead, I can deal with it. If you're not bothered by it, then I'll be fine. Alright, so I'm just gonna pick up, I know where to pick up. Alright. But what most people don't know is that in 1971, Time Magazine ran a different cover, this time talking about the Jesus revolution. So in five years, we went from is God dead to the Jesus revolution? What happened? I mean, you've read written a great book on it. But how do you explain what happened?

Larry Eskridge 

Well, it was a big surprise for most people. I mean, the the 1966 Is God dead issue stem from, in some ways, kind of an obscure, theological, you know, philosophical discussion has been brought forward by a couple of theologians. So yeah, in terms of the mainstream, not so you know, in touch with what was going on. But still, the 1971 issue with the Jesus people on the cover was quite a surprise, simply because the way the trajectory of the younger generation had been looking for a few years prior to that. The fact that all of a sudden, you have this Jesus movement within the ranks of the young and particularly with coming from the counterculture amongst the hippies and the druggies. That was a shock to a lot of people. And it took a lot of people by surprise. And I made a mention in my book that, you know, when movements, cultural time has come, when it ends up on the cover of Time magazine back in back in the day,

Keith Simon 

it's really true. And it wasn't the only magazine, I believe, look, magazine also had a big article. And so it was a movement that the national news magazines had to kind of pay attention to, is it fair to say that there was a revival that happened then?

Larry Eskridge 

Well, you were you were my historian hat or my Christian hat. Certainly a lot of people interpreted it as a revival. And certainly, at that time, it looked like something unprecedented was occurring. And it certainly had a huge impact on the American church had a big impact on I would argue the trajectory of American youth at the time. And in some ways, I think it even derailed some of the momentum of the counterculture. In terms of this kind of impacts and inroads it was making on the larger youth population.

Keith Simon 

Yeah. Well, I mean, revival is being talked about recently, because of the Asbury revival that happened in early 2023. And I want to get back to that before we finish our conversation. But let's stay right now on what happened. The way your book lays it out is one way of saying it is that it began in the Haight Ashbury district of San Francisco or at least that was the center of where this began. Tell us what what is Haight Ashbury, and why was it important what was going on there? How did all this unfold?

Larry Eskridge 

Okay, well, San Francisco was the kind of Bohemian small be you know, the the beatnik center for kind of an avant garde, mostly youthful population, going back into the 1950s. And it had this reputation as a trendy free spirit, or a type of a city. And as the culture began to evolve into the 60s, beatnik became hippie, eventually. And by late 66, it had become kind of the center for a lot of people who were looking to express themselves freely and just kind of get away from what a lot of people thought of as a straight jacketed, uptight, conservative American middle class mindset. So San Francisco became the place and in early 1967, the residents of the Haight Ashbury community neighborhood in San Francisco, decided that they were ready to launch a Summer of Love, where new things were going to happening. There was going to be new enlightenment for mankind. You know, peace, love all the good stuff. And San Francisco would be kind of the epicenter of that. Now in a lot of ways the whole thing was a bit tongue in cheek. But the local citizenry, the mayor, and the police took them very seriously. And also the news got out to a lot of, you know, restless, dissatisfied youth across the country. And they began looking to San Francisco as the place to be. And so they began flocking to Haight Ashbury, 1000s of kids, many of them whom you would describe as runaways, headed to Haight Ashbury, and this whole scene emerged and, you know, obviously tied to, you know, resentment against kind of the sexual restrictions, you know, the perceived in American culture, the hang ups, you know, just satisfied with the direction of the American government and, and then also with a big player in his whole thing was the idea that pharmaceutical enlightenment was obtainable through the ingestion of various substances, mushrooms, marijuana, and particularly LSD. And at this point, I mean, it was taken seriously by people that this was a route to spiritual enlightenment, to shake free of all the hang ups of American society.

Keith Simon 

It sounds odd to hear that, you know, some sort of spiritual revival would come out of the scene that you're describing Haight Ashbury, if I understand it, right, and I'm only been to San Francisco once I never went to this place. It's just the intersection of two streets. And yet that became kind of the neighborhood that then took on this persona, of kind of drugs, sex music, and I guess a hippie, I'm not even sure what a hippie is how you define it, I just assuming this is kind of a long haired, free spirited type. And so they're all gathering there and a lot of movement started out of Haight Ashbury, right, not just the Jesus people movement, but Weren't there other things that kind of came out of that culture.

Larry Eskridge 

Yeah, there were, you know, all sorts of religious movements that first got their start there, or that really began to take off by dint of their connections in the Haight Ashbury, you think, for instance, of the Hari Krishna movement, you know, Eastern religions were big astrology. And the occult, were a big interest to many of the people there, you know, so basically, there's a general rejection of Western society and Western religion and philosophy, and the sort of idea that they had to get beyond that stuff. So it was the last place that you would expect for, you know, kind of a evangelical Christian revival movement and evangelistic effort to take Route and begin to have success.

Keith Simon 

Okay, so this is where we kind of start getting into people who were significant in this movement. And one of the people that I want to talk about throughout our conversation is a guy named Lonnie Frisbee. He was instrumental used by God in this movement. And he becomes a Christian in the kind of a unique way and is part of the Haight Ashbury community. So can you tell us a little bit about Lonnie frisbee how he started in the faith and the people he connected with there?

Larry Eskridge 

Well, Lonnie frisbee was a teenager, in Southern California. And he had began experimenting with drugs and LSD. And during one of his, you know, pilgrimages out into the, to the desert, and on an LSD trip, he had an experience, what he described as a revelation, where God showed him a vision and explained to him, you know, the truth about salvation, and also that he would play a role there. And now, all of that didn't click necessarily right away. He ended up in San Francisco, went up north, and began hanging out up in Haight Ashbury, and he was just part of that scene there. But he was while still ingesting drugs, and he was talking about Jesus to people. And there he met a group of older I guess you would call them proto hip hippy. Christians, who were really were, had their roots back towards the beatnik days, but they had been converted through the auspices of a Baptist church over in Marin County on the other side Bay Bridge. And they ran into frisbee and said, Wow, this guy is, you know, talking some crazy stuff. And he's talking about Jesus and the Christ consciousness and flying saucers. And they said, let's see if we can straighten them out. So they sort of took him under their wing, sobered him up and began to try to just teach them biblical basics to him and brought him into their truth. Now, their group was a group centered around a mini commune, and a lack of a better word, a drop in center in Haight Ashbury called the living room. And some folks there particularly guy named Ted wise, and some other folks and their wives. Were kind of the center of this whole thing. And they brought Lonnie frisbee into that and began to sort of, you know, just try to straighten up his theology a little bit and get him involved.

Keith Simon 

In from the very beginning, it sounds like there was this emphasis on communal living. And I guess that just because, well, let me ask, why is that? I mean, it seems weird to us to think that you're all going to live like in some dormitory together, that kind of thing. Was that just the cultural norm there in Haight Ashbury in San Francisco in the late 60s? Or was this something unique to Christians?

Larry Eskridge 

Melon communal thing has, you know, had gained some currency amongst the hip population. And, you know, the first there's a lot of things feeding into that social views, views on, you know, the economy, and, you know, what, what community really meant. And so it was sort of natural that, you know, young Christians moving into that ethos would begin to think that oh, okay, is that this makes sense. But what really made it come alive to them was they read the book of Acts. And they read in Acts, chapter two, the sections about where they live together and had all things in common. So they decided, well, Aha, there was this mindset, presence amongst these folks that was very open to what they read in the Bible, and they took it seriously. And so, you know, they thought it only natural, they looked around at the church folks that they knew, and wondered, what's the story? You know, why aren't they doing this? Because it's, you know, we're supposed to be Christians and disciples. And we have this example, in the book of Acts, why don't we do it, so they naturally took to it. And it became, in a lot of ways, that kind of a practical strategy for looking after each other, and discipling young converts, because, you know, a lot of these folks were coming out of the drug culture had been into all sorts of behaviors, which, you know, most middle class, you know, conservative Christians, didn't think were a great idea, you know, the whole free love concept and dropping LSD and that sort of thing that didn't play in most congregations. So the communal living was both a nod to the counterculture and also kind of a practical survival strategy for the folks to be able to live to feed people to give them a place to live. Because as I mentioned, Haight Ashbury was a place where 1000s of people were sleeping on the streets at night, during this summer of love, and for a couple of years thereafter, you know, a youth homeless population. And so this was a practical way to kind of get around them or where they could disciple people teach them basic biblical knowledge and, you know, try to evangelize other folks as well.

Keith Simon 

So here we have this Summer of Love in Haight Ashbury drugs. People coming from all over the country, young people come from all over the country hanging out together. Talking about big ideas, these movements come out of Haight Ashbury, and here we have that God intervenes, I, you know, I don't want to put too much of a Christian spin on it. I know there's probably a different way to tell the story. But from the best I can tell. God intervenes in this kid's life high school kid Lonnie frisbee, who came from an abusive house, and we'll get into some of that a little bit later, and intervenes in his life so that he comes to faith in Christ, but he's still doing drugs. He's still a he's still talking about this Christ consciousness, kind of weird stuff. He hooks up with the other Christians, and they're trying to straighten him out. While they're also telling everybody In Haight Ashbury, about Jesus, people are responding. They're kind of coming to faith. And I guess if you're going to lay out kind of how you would expect revival to go this, isn't it right? This isn't the story that you are I would probably write. In other words, this isn't kind of the culmination of some strategic initiative by a church, right? It was very unexpected, and maybe not something that a lot of people were comfortable with.

Larry Eskridge 

Well, in some ways, I mean, there's kind of like a twin heroes of this whole development. I look at, you know, here at one hand, we've got Ted wise in this living room group who meet Lonnie frisbee and try to straighten him out. But you've also got a group of pastors who kind of take a flyer on this idea. There was one in particular film the name of John McDonald, who was the pastor of the First Baptist Church of Mill Valley, California. And he had been the one to first make contact with Ted wise and some of these other people back in 1966. And he realized that these people could connect with the hippies, and all these runaways in a way that they never could. The John McDonald book in 1970, called the House of Acts, talks about how he went to Haight Ashbury, Ted lies. How just completely, you know, he felt like he was, you know, the man on the moon, walking the streets with Ted wise amongst all this craziness, you know, and he realizes that, you know, if someone is going to be a missionary to this place, it's probably not going to be the straight Baptist pastor with the tie in the sport coat, walking the streets. Yeah. And I really did turn out to be the case. So he got together with some other Baptists, past mostly Baptist pastors, and they started a little nonprofit organization aimed at attempting to reach the hippies. And of course, there are a lot of people who weren't very comfortable with the idea. And nonetheless, they persisted.

Keith Simon 

Well, it sounds like there were some churches, pastors like you're saying, who had enough vision to see that God was doing something and were willing to kind of go with what happened instead of making it conform to their expectations. Hey, did you see the movie Jesus revolution that came out? I don't know, several months ago, but this Jesus revolution told a part of this story. What did you think of the movie, just out of curiosity?

Larry Eskridge 

All things considered, I thought it was a fairly well done movie. As far as that goes. The, you know, the fact that they landed, you know, Kelsey Grammer, to play Chuck Smith was a coup for them. And then they you know, got Jonathan roomy. You know, when you've got Frasier Crane and Jesus as part of your movie already. You've got to hit the jackpot in terms of audience recognition and all that. But yeah, it was pretty well done. I mean, they caught the spirit of the times, to a fair extent, I think they got the relationship between Chuck Smith and Lonnie Frisbee. Pretty, pretty close. And, you know, of course, there were some details in there that were a little bit Hollywood added, and, you know, truncated and collapsed and you have, you know, different things that weren't necessarily chronologically in the right order. But, you know, overall, it did a pretty fair job in presenting the times and the reactions.

Keith Simon 

Well, you know, I don't think it's probably reasonable to expect Hollywood to get the details right, right. But I was curious if you thought the kind of the gist of the movie they captured the spirit accurately and you talk about the Jesus guy, Jonathan, roomie, right. He played Lonnie frisbee because if you've ever seen a picture of Lonnie frisbee for those of you who haven't, he looks like Jesus would look I mean, at least a lot of people Jesus image of what comes to mind when you think of Jesus, and then Kelsey Grammer played Chuck Smith, and we'll get to him and just a little bit. In the movie, one of the things that it showed was that when the hippies, these Christians who were now coming into churches that the churches had some problems receiving them. Is that accurate? I mean, you have these kinds of stayed older, conservative sport coat, tie to church people, and then here come the Barefoot hippies. And what was that like when those two collided?

Larry Eskridge 

could often be a recipe for disaster. As you can imagine, a lot of times it just didn't happen in Calvary Chapel, to the credit of Chuck Smith and the congregation there. It overcame some obstacles and they were able to get, I mean, one cow calf was a little bit bigger of a church than how they portrayed it and it was doing a little better. You know, when the hippies arrived,

Keith Simon 

because in the movie, it acts like it's almost about to shut down. And Chuck Smith is the pastor of Calvary Chapel chapel, which now is down in Southern California in a city called Costa Mesa. And if I remember, right, somehow a friend, maybe his daughter or a friend brought Lonnie Frisbee to introduce him to Chuck Smith. And they had kind of an instant connection. Right.

Larry Eskridge 

Right. Well, his daughter is the and her boyfriend were the main conduit, actually, in the reality that they hit begin bumping into some of these beach bums, street kids before that. But the Lonnie frisbee moment is kind of the moment where it all clicks for Chuck Smith and his wife, Kay Smith is very important in all that, because she was the one who sort of urged Chuck Smith, you know, these kids are somebody's sons and daughters, and we got to reach them for Christ. And so he began to okay, you know, sort of grudgingly give in to it and he met Lonnie frisbee and he was sort of taken by this the winsome personality that, you know, Frisbee evidence to the fact that he really seemed to be someone who had been whose life had been changed by his encounter with Christ. And so that began to win him over. But the thing is, is that I think the movie, the movie doesn't catch the fact just as Jonathan roomy, I think is in his mid to late 40s. You know, Lonnie frisbee was actually about 1920 years old, at this point. So he is a kid.

Keith Simon 

So imagine you're a pastor of a church and some 1920 year old kid who's come from a difficult background, like I've already alluded to, who now says that he has met Jesus while doing LSD comes from Haight Ashbury, which had its own reputation. And now he comes to your church and says, Okay, I can help you reach people in my generation. I mean, how would most pastors react to that? You'd probably say, Well, you know, thanks. But no thanks, or you're a little bit crazy, or let's put you through some training regimen in order to trust you, but But Chuck Smith trusted him quickly, relatively quickly, at the urging of his wife, you tell a story, I think in the book about how the congregation was against genes in church, is that right? Or they had several

Larry Eskridge 

people in there who? Yeah, I mean, part of the story was the fact that they had just, we're moving into a new sanctuary of a new church. So we have a middling sized church that they built, and they had carp fit. And they had padded pews with a nice upholstery and all that. And all of a sudden, these kids start coming. And, you know, bare feet, you know, the whole nine yards, some of them who looked like they hadn't bathed in a bit. The so the reaction was, we got to have some propriety here. And on one Sunday morning, some of them congregation put up a sign that said, no bare feet allowed and, you know, in the in the sanctuary, you know, on the carpet in the pews, then basically, and Chuck Smith, quickly removed the sign, and, you know, called the meeting of the church afterwards said, Listen, if we have to, we'll rip all the carpet out in the pews. And we'll put up some steel folding chairs, you know, we'll go that direction. Because if it's the choice between the kids and the carpet, I'm going with the kids.

Keith Simon 

Oh, I love that story. Because we think we'd be on shucksmith side, right? When we hear that story, we think, Oh, I would do the same thing. He did. Imagine that a bunch of homeless people started coming to our churches. I bet there'd be people who maybe they weren't worried about the carpet, but maybe they'd be worried that they weren't safe or they would want to kind of have some, you know, extra eyes on people to make sure they weren't hurting kids or something. Right? Absolutely. But he's got a heart that says the kids are more important than that. The people are really more than just kids are more important than the stuff that God has given us. And I love it. So one of the ways that this movement gained credibility is by connecting with Billy Graham, can you tell us how that happened?

Larry Eskridge 

Well, you know, Billy Graham, of course, was very interested in youth. I mean, he had started off his days as a Youth for Christ speaker. I mean, that was his background. And young people had been fairly important in the development of His ministry over the years. But Graham had some limited exposure to this youth movement that was going on. And of course, she'd been a guy who'd rarely counseled teenagers that, you know, rock and roll, not good, stay away from it, you know, this sort of thing. And he was, you know, friends with Richard Nixon. And so he was definitely on the other side of the cultural barriers, you know, that were in place in America at that point. But nonetheless, he was open to the idea as he began to think about this situation, have, you know, that maybe he needed to reach out to these folks, so he began actively investigating the hippie and youth culture. He, in a couple points, even went into it, put on a disguise and walked into some and walked in student protests. Wow. I don't know that he went to look. He went to a some rock festivals, and hung out with the kids and tried to talk with them wrapped with the kids as they used to say, and, you know, so, you know, the fact that he was open to doing something like that just showed that well, he was trying, you know, he, Ruth Brown, his wife went and bought an armload of rock albums at one point and sat down and started listening to them just to see what's all this about, you know, what are these Nene kids up to? And, you know, he didn't become a fan, apparently, as far as we can tell. But nonetheless, he was like, What are they saying, you know, the Bob Dylan's you know, these sorts of artists, what are they saying in their music?

Keith Simon 

That's really interesting. And then there was a parade moment, right? Where he's the, in the parade was he the Grand Marshal was at the Rose Bowl parade, or I forget the the Grand Marshal,

Larry Eskridge 

the Rose Bowl parade, 1971. And at the parade, there were some folks from a couple of different youth groups, and a group of countercultural Christians from an outfit called the Hollywood free paper that are they're passing out Jesus papers on the street, you know. And so, as Billy Graham is driving down the street, you know, and his convertible, they begin to flash the one way symbol which gained currency amongst the Jesus people in Southern California, which meant one way to heaven. One way, Jesus, they just

Keith Simon 

pointed to the sky. And that was their kind of modest guy, just yeah, one way,

Larry Eskridge 

yet one way. And Billy Graham looked at that, and heard them, you know, and saw some posters and things and kind of connected to the fact that oh, this is some sort of Jesus thing as a Christian thing. So he began returning the one way symbol. And pretty soon, this became quite a thing in the audience. Now, there was some confusion that maybe the older non hip people thought that it was. Graham was signaling, hey, we're number one, you know, like, to just become a thing in American society for a couple of years, so everybody's doing it. But it started out as these Christian kids play in one way, Jesus, you know, Billy Graham, we like you, that sort of thing. And so after the break, he began talking to the press and talking about this Jesus people movement, and that sort of paved the way for, you know, when Billy Graham at that point, you know, had for several years there in the 60s and 70s, the most admired man in America in the Gallup poll. And when he would begin talking about something, people began to take it seriously. So from that point, suddenly about five or six weeks later, you start seeing a lot more newspaper coverage. You see magazine articles start to come up. And Billy Graham begins to talk it up in his crusade preparation and his press conferences and that sort of thing. So he was kind of a key figure in terms of the publicity and pushing the visibility of the Jesus people over the edge. Not always I want to I want to

Keith Simon 

get into some of the key players here that played a role in this and all out of your book, God's forever family. And one of them we've already mentioned is Lonnie Frisbee. And so I just wanted to get a little bit more of a feel for him specifically in a couple areas. But let's set the scene if you want to add anything to this or correct anything, feel free, but he grew up in kind of an abusive hard home especially his dad was an alcoholic and was violent at some points. And so that kind of shaped, you know, his early childhood. He was kind of an artist though. I mean, he was a good kid, relatively speaking, but as he got I think it was even involved in church. But as he gets older, he drifts away from that like a lot of people do ends up in the drug culture. And we've already kind of talked a little bit about that comes to Christ on an LSD trip out in this canyon by him self goes back into Haight Ashbury talking about Jesus and all and and really, in some ways, a main catalyst, not the only person, but a main catalyst in this story, but but he ends up with kind of, I think, at least I don't know, I want you to correct what I got wrong here. But kind of an odd theology. You know, he loves this faith healer named Kathryn Kuhlman, who, well, she heals and all this other stuff. Can you just talk a little bit about some of the extreme? The maybe odd theologies? Yeah, that's what I was trying to say, eccentricity. There we go of his theology, and what's this relationship with Kathryn Kuhlman? Who is she? And why is that important?

Larry Eskridge 

Well, he was, you know, because of, you know, the nature of his conversion experience, was very in and also, you know, being in touch with some exposure to Pentecostal church services and that sort of thing. He really was convinced that part of the whole Christian, the normal Christian experience were the experience of sort of signs and wonders, casting out demons necessarily, casting out demons, being slain in the Spirit, speaking in tongues, you know, different things like that, that were manifestations of the Holy Spirit, sort of randomly coming upon people, and, you know, transforming, they're beginning to transform their lives. And, you know, there was one anecdote. At one point, he had this deer skin that had a portrait of Jesus, he painted on it. And, you know, he began to, as part of his evangelistic efforts would sort of tossed this deerskin on top of people, and say, in the name of Jesus, you're healed or speak in tongues or whatever. And he thought that was a normal way to do business. Now, there's the folks sort of took him aside and said, you know, maybe that's a little zany. And you're doing something like that, and he sort of backed off of that. But there were other ways that, you know, he was intent upon bringing signs and wonders into, you know, the the church services that he was

Keith Simon 

in is that before he let Catherine Oh, go ahead. I'm sorry.

Larry Eskridge 

Oh, yeah. Before Katherine Coleman, I mean, Kathryn Kuhlman, that whole episode. I think he was probably one of several healing evangelists that he admired. And I just think that the actress who played Kathryn Kuhlman in the movie was spot on, really is a good representation of her. Yeah, she was a little different.

Keith Simon 

And she kind of like, like we think of televangelists today, people who have healing ministries of Benny Hinn and Oral Roberts, Kenneth Copeland, I'm not saying that all those are the same. Joyce Meyer to some extent, although lesser so why was she viewed by kind of the Christian Church, the the establishment Christianity as kind of a off base, because I came across her name. Also, in reading Johnny Erickson taught his book, and she, of course, was paralyzed as a teenager and has had a great life ministry. But she talks about going to a Kathryn Kuhlman event to seek healing, you know, not long after she had had her accident that caused her to be paralyzed. And kind of the way I got the impression from Johnny book was well, Katherine Coleman was kind of a bit of a fake like a fraud. How do we understand her best you can tell?

Larry Eskridge 

Well, I mean, that's, that's a toughy. I mean, it depends on where you stand, the Pentecostal sorts of things. Certainly there were a lot of skeptics in kind of the mainstream evangelical A movement. But there were also people in some of the Pentecostal ends of the spectrum who respected her she had a different audience, I think, than some of the other Pentecostal guys like Oral Roberts or some of the other folks who were big at that time. A Alan and some of these other Pentecostal, it was a little more I guess mainstream, you might say in the sense that she attracted a fair number of mainline Protestant people.

Keith Simon 

So a lot of frisbee is credited himself when he went to her stuff and kind of teamed up with her. He wasn't discredited by large parts of Christianity, or the church.

Larry Eskridge 

Kind of hard to say, Well, yeah, I mean, those people who would not look at Kathryn Kuhlman as a positive figure would have been disturbed by that. But then he also had a, she was popular. Yeah. The, you know, the fact that Chuck's Smith actually was willing to go hang out on her TV show with some of his kids from Calvary Chapel was an indicator that there was a level of acceptability there. You know, Chuck Smith, or, although he had a background, in the international church of the Foursquare gospel, which was Aimee Semple, McPherson, female evangelists back in the 20s and 30s. He had been burned by some of that and become skeptical of it. But nonetheless, he still felt there was enough validity and Catherine Coleman's overall message that he, you know, could could hang with her, and let Lonnie frisbee and the company exposed to her.

Keith Simon 

Let's get to Chuck Smith. Now, we've said he's the pastor of Calvary Chapel that met Lonnie frisbee and kind of accepted him and stood up for those hippie youth who are coming to his church and I kind of love accepted him. I've heard that he's was a great Bible teacher. I've never listened to him. But I've heard he was a great Bible teacher. He died a few years ago. And he launched kind of the Calvary Chapel movement, which I don't know a lot about, but it's a big network of churches with lots of people. It's big on the west coast, but I think it has spread beyond that at this point. Now, he was like, I think kind of almost like a father figure to Lonnie Frisbee. You know, they had a great relationship, but yet at the same time, Lonnie left, Chuck, you know, he left him to go to Fort Lauderdale. And we can talk about that later. But what I want to know is, was there ever a rift between Lonnie and Chuck? And if so, what was it over?

Larry Eskridge 

Alright, I don't I think the movie may be overdramatize is some of that in the sense that it kind of portrays Lonnie frisbee as this idea that he was the ministry and that move of God was totally centered around him. I don't think he would ever have said that. And I think a lot of people who knew him at the time that I've seen some of the conversations around the movie have said that they couldn't imagine that that was really a little bit of dramatic license. But there still was some conflict over the fact that Chuck Smith wanted to keep a lid on a lot of Frisbees, tendencies to want to emphasize speaking in tongues and signs and wonders and miracles. And so he wanted that if there was an element of frisbees ministry, that was to be something done in after service meetings, you know, in small groups, not out in public, you know, sort of taking the Apostle Paul's instruction on those sorts of matters to heart that not something to make a big spectacle out of. And so that was a rubbing point, I would guess you would say in terms of over the years, the comments I've seen from some of the folks was that even some of the kids knew that Lonnie, during the services was having an impact and that they would actually during prayer time and stuff be holding people up because they were, you know, ready to be slain in the Spirit. And they were sort of doing it to make sure that okay, Chuck's Smith will be unhappy with what's going on here. And to try to get that to work out now. easily. But I have some of the conflict came over came out of regards to his marriage to his wife, Connie, who was upset about the fact that just the time and effort Lonnie was being expected, put into the ministry. And there were some conversations that Connie frisbees claims were, you know, where Chuck Smith basically said ministry first marriage second,

Keith Simon 

and Lonnie and his wife, Connie, they had marriage problems, they worked on them as best they could. They ended up getting divorced later on. But I want to go to the end for a second. In a second, I want to go and talk about the impact that this movement had. But before we leave wanting frisbee, he dies in 1993 of AIDS or complications related to AIDS, that he can track that from homosexual sex or to he could track them from something else, or do we know the answer to that question? Was he gay his whole time that he was involved in this ministry? Is that something we know much about?

Larry Eskridge 

Well, yeah, there's a lot of controversy and discussion about that. It seems that he was molested by a babysitter at one point during his youth.

Keith Simon 

He tells that story in his own book, right that he was molested several times, but nobody believed him.

Larry Eskridge 

Right. Which is, you know, that's a very real story, and it's acted out, you know, and unfortunately, in so many lives, but he basically dealt with homosexual attraction. You know, for years, there was a fact that in Haight Ashbury, when he was rescued by the living room through he was living with a man at that point in Haight Ashbury. You know, and then he later got married to Connie frisbee and Connie, Rema at the time. And so their marriage, whether there was anything going on, during that period of the ministry, nobody knows for sure what was going on? I don't think

Keith Simon 

Yeah, and that's fine. We don't need to pry too much into that just right. I just, I think my point is that people's lives are messy, right, that we don't have these cutout cardboard heroes, or heroines that do everything right and make all these good decisions, that we're all we're all messy, but God still used this messy person to do a lot of amazing great things for for himself for God. So let's jump. Oh, go ahead.

Larry Eskridge 

I'm gonna say Lonnie Frisbee. It was described by a lot of folks and Chuck Smith did this at his funeral, actually, as a Samsung figure, someone who was used by God tremendously, but who had flaws. And who overcame them. He certainly had this incredible gift for evangelism.

Keith Simon 

He was a great speaker, right? very charismatic speaker drew people's attention.

Larry Eskridge 

Yeah, amazingly. So, you know, and particularly given the fact that, as you mentioned, I think alluded to already, not well versed in, you know, biblical scholarship, certainly no graduate theological education or anything of that nature. But yet, he could convict people of their sins and get them, you know, ready to accept Christ. There was a story tool by Ted wise, his old associate in Haight Ashbury that years later, this is probably the 80s, late 80s. He had invited Lonnie frisbee up to northern California, in connection with some sort of event probably with Peninsula Bible Church in Palo Alto. Dr. Ray Stedman was the pastor, their very famous evangelical pastor, and this event was really viewed as kind of an evangelistic thing. And Lonnie came in and gave this sermon and wises Ted wises daughter was there and she had known him as Uncle Lonnie back during the day when they were living in the commune and, you know, this sort of thing. And she turned to her dad and said, this is Terry Trouble, this sermon that, Lonnie is it said, Well, you know, well, it is what it is. And we'll see what happens. And at the end of it, you know, he came and said, anybody who wants to come, receive Christ come forward. And all over the theater that they'd rented people were streaming forward coming forward to accept Christ. And, you know, of course, they're both flabbergasted at how this had happened. And she asked, Lonnie later said, Well, you know, what's the story, he says, I have a gift, I can't explain it. He says, I could go up there and say, Mary Had a Little Lamb come except Jesus, and people would come.

Keith Simon 

So that's a great story. I mean, it shows that your character is God uses weak people that God uses people who don't necessarily excel in public speaking or, you know, whatever the important gifts are considered to be God uses ordinary people. So by 1976, this has started to fade off a little bit, the Jesus movement has lost some momentum. You mentioned that Ken Woodward writes this big article and for Newsweek, in 1976. And he's kind of declaring 1976 is a year of evangelical because you have the evangelical born again, Jimmy Carter, facing off in the election against born again, Gerald Ford. But you say that the article never mentioned the Jesus people, this Jesus movement? And it was just kind of evidence that it had begun to fade, not totally extinguished, but it wasn't prominent anymore. What is it that caused this to fade off? Is there a are there some things you can point to that say, Yeah, this is the reason that it faded offers this God's spirit started doing something different? Or how would you explain it?

Larry Eskridge 

Yeah, that's one of those moments where a Christian hat historian hat, yeah. Put on the historian how you look at this thing? Yeah, from the historical side. A lot of this was the fact that these people were just maturing and growing older, they were getting married, they were starting careers, going to school, they had other things that sort of took them away from the sort of intensive, full time, Jesus people thing, whether it be in living in a commune and evangelizing or working in a coffee house or whatever. So a fading away really is kind of an accurate description. They went, they became older, and they became absorbed into evangelical churches and ministries all across the country. If you scratch a person, yeah, scratch the surface of any person who grew up as an event, who scratched the person who grew up as an evangelical in the 1970s. And you realize that they had connections probably with Jesus people movement in some regard. And they really did simply a lot of folks just absorbed into local churches and became part of what was going on in those churches and ministries. Another factor was the fact that youth culture had changed during the period, to where the kind of hippie model was out of vogue. And the Jesus people were really tied into the old hippie counterculture vibe, and way of presenting themselves I mean, even the fashions and that sort of thing. If you looked at people who were involved with Jesus people ministries in the mid 70s, they still looked like hippies, even as that was starting to fade, they've got these alternative youth culture identities coming along, punk, the disco popularity, heavy metal, all these things that just weren't very conducive to kind of this hippie cultural representation. And as a result, that was a bit of a problem too now, evangelical youth culture sort of transmogrified over the years and so they had elements and music and appeal to different those different subsets that became a thing, but nonetheless, you know, the old image was was gone. So the culture then there were also some problems

Keith Simon 

with well, so the culture change.

Larry Eskridge 

Go ahead, cultural changes. And there are also some problems with it. Some abusive groups that were out there that turned off people and made people wary. The abuse of groups like the children of God, and some other cultic sorts of things, there was this thing called the shepherding movement, which we can talk about in a minute at Lonnie frisbee did get involved with that was an effort to try to get people coming out of the charismatic movement, and also the Jesus people movement to disciple them, and to thoroughly ground them into scriptures and relationships and that sort of thing. But in a lot of cases, it became very controlling, and domineering and abusive. And so you have people and churches, which just kind of go off the rails and implode, because of that sort of hyper control of their lives are not safe. Now. That wasn't a huge thing. But probably when you look at all those factors, I think probably just the fact that the Jesus people grew up was the main reason that the movement faded.

Keith Simon 

You mentioned the shepherding movement. You mentioned the shepherding movement, and you have to read this book to find out more about it. But it sounded pretty weird. Like you said, people would maybe with a good intention of discipling, these new believers, but it got pretty bizarre and was pretty misogynistic against women and all kinds of bizarre stuff. But I like what you said that they just grew up. It's it's funny to think, you know, you start getting married, you have kids, you know, you're at soccer games, or whatever they did with their families. And there's not so much time to live in communes where there's not so much interest in that kind of lifestyle anymore. So these Jesus people, they took their faith into the churches. And I'm wondering what the lasting impact of the Jesus movement is. And I know this is where your book has gotten kind of good attention, because a lot of people have said, well, there really wasn't any lasting impact. It just was here, it was gone, and it didn't leave a mark. And I think you've done a really good job of pointing out some places where no, this Jesus movement did leave a mark on culture and mark on the church and mark on a broader evangelicalism. In one of them is just a music. Can you unpack that a little bit of music was really big in this Jesus movement? How did it impact Christian music and church music and all that kind of stuff?

Larry Eskridge 

Yeah, it was huge in that regard. It's hard to remember, I remember, when I was my days of doing some teaching, at Wheaton College, I would teach on the 60s or give lectures on the Jesus people was always sort of amazed. Brought up short by the fact that I would have young people you know, this is in the early 2000s, you know, who had grown up in evangelical churches, and who thought, you know, this is how church always was, you know, guys with guitars and drums, you know, these praise choruses, that's, you know, what evangelical churches have always been about. And that was not the way it was, you know, going into the 60s and 70s, you know, it was fairly staid and gospel songs, and that was, what you did, it was, you know, the Oregon and the piano, that were the acceptable instruments. Occasionally, maybe we'd have a brass quartet, you know, and do a special performance, something like that. But that was the norm. And, you know, for most of the evangelical population, rock and roll, and those upbeat sorts of instruments, and songs were very questionable at best and demonic at worst, in terms of how they looked at them. And the youth coming up during that period, of course, had other ideas about that. And the Jesus people in particular, just absorbed, you know, the music of their pure culture. And so guitars and rock bands, and that sort of instrumentation just became naturally what they did. So they, you know, the folk idioms, the pop idioms, the Rock and Roll idioms, they absorbed all those musical styles and utilize them so it was just so huge, that I talked about the fact that any Jesus people outfit, you know, had music as a major constituency of what they were doing. Whether it was somebody just plunking on a good card, a Bible study to lead a few choruses or that sort of thing. Or, you know, weekend you know, you'd have a band in it your coffee house You know, to do things, and to have concerts and to invite your friends to, you know, sort of have an evangelistic of that, you know, come here, this band, you know, that we've got here, it's a band called Mephibosheth. And it's going to be coming here to our coffee house, let's go here, these guys, you know, Eastern Gate, you know, we I was part of a coffee house in the Chicago area back in the mid 70s. And, you know, we would have these bands come in and was usually pretty good nights, people were interested in hearing this, it was just part of the whole or atmosphere of the thing. And what begins to happen is that, you know, just an infrastructure rises around that. People want the music. So you began and have recordings, people are selling the music, concerts, then professional, distribution, promotion, yada, yada, yada, leading to the creation of Jesus music, which by the late 70s, early 80s, was being called contemporary Christian music, and became his whole separate genre of music. So that was a major thing.

Keith Simon 

So if you've listened to, if you've gone to, if you go to a church that has guitars and drums and that kind of thing, or if you've been to a concert, maybe by Phil Wickham, or some other Christian artists are you've sat around a campfire at and play Christian songs and sang or anything like that. That's because you've been influenced by this Jesus movement. Those are some of the outcomes that we can trace back to the Jesus movement. And I think a lot of us don't know our history. And like you said, we just assume it's always been this way. And I even remember the worship wars that happened inside of churches, should you have that kind of service in music in their service? Or should you stay with the traditional, and so churches would start having well at, you know, the early service was traditional in the late service was contemporary. And now I think most of those have kind of died off and reconcile. But those worship wars were forced by the Jesus people coming into churches and wanting to bring their music along with them. And that conflict between the old school and new school, you might say, outside of music, are there some other influences that we still see today from the Jesus movement?

Larry Eskridge 

I think one of the enduring things that came out of the Jesus people movement was the way in which churches and evangelical churches in particular how they handle youth culture. Back in the pre 1960s, the general approach was, we want to have youth evangelism. You know, we want to reach our kids and, you know, bringing them up in Christian knowledge and values. But we want to basically hold the youth culture of the world, at arm's length. We there's too many things out there that we don't like, you know, we're suspicious of rock and roll, for instance. And of course, dancing, you know, was the major problem, that was a major problem as far as they were concerned. So that was verboten. That was forbidden. And Jesus people movement, you know, really issue has an influence in terms of saying, We've got this huge generation here, that has to be reached, they've got some of these things that, you know, with the music and everything, we're gonna have to maybe concede a little bit to accommodate this. And there were a number of pastors and denominational officials at the time, who commented that, you know, if we lose this generation, we're in big trouble, because this is the baby boomer generation, this huge slice of the American population. And so they sort of budge on that. And since that whole time, rather than, you know, totally keep, you know, sort of the musical styles and fashions and just some of the, you know, instruments of the popular youth culture out of the churches, there's been a general idea that instead of will baptize them, and we'll take what's good out of them, what the neutral stuff we can put up with that. You know, of course, we don't want to bring in, you know, truly immoral or, you know, anti Christian sentiments behind some of these things, but, you know, not the kid of their own thing. thing. And that's been a matter of controversy, because some folks say, you know, well, is that helped bring a generational divide into the churches, you know, that's been there where the kids have their own separate thing? Would it be better to sort of merge them with the whole congregational life, but you know, it hasn't become a fact of life that this is, this is how we approach youth culture these days.

Keith Simon 

So in our churches, so when the Jesus people move into churches, as they get older, and the tour and go through different stages of life, they push the church to engage culture more instead of trying to separate and build a wall. But maybe instead of building walls, they encourage them to build a bridge. Now, I'm wondering what the impact on politics is, in other words, do we go from Jesus movement into the Moral Majority? Are those the same people that were part of Jerry Falwell's movement back in the late 70s, early 80s? Or is that a different group of people? Or do we just not know?

Larry Eskridge 

It's a little tough to say, because at one level, the Jesus people were a political, they were not a political movement at all, you know, in terms of when people got together to talk about things, it really not a major concern, the real problems, the concern was, how are we going to get people to Jesus. And that was aided by another factor in all of this was that this particular period, 1960s and 70s, the state of society, really made a lot of folks have the opinion that the Second Coming was right around the corner. political efforts was, we're kind of a waste of time, you know, because time was short. Christ is coming back anytime now. We've got, you know, we're manning the lifeboat, we got to pick as many out of the waters as we can. And that really did seem to characterize the mindset of the Jesus people. However, as they're beginning to be absorbed into the churches, it seems like, you know, a lot of folks who adopted sort of conservative political viewpoints, as they were moving into church life sort of went along with the flow. Now, this needs to have a lot more study to be done, you know, research to see exactly where these lines fall. But generally, I'm thinking that there was a tendency towards conservative politics amongst the Jesus people as they matured into the churches, that they went that direction I, in my book, I do talk about a survey that I've done of 800 Plus, former Jesus people in online service, not scientific. I don't make any claims in that regard. But it was very clear that, you know, we asked the question, what was your How would you describe yourself politically, before your experiences of being in the Jesus people, and afterwards, and you do see this big move? For a lot of people who describe themselves as liberal in the 60s and 70s. Now describe themselves when they were taking this survey in the 90s and early 2000s. As conservative,

Keith Simon 

it's interesting that the people who are Yeah, it's interesting that the people who are rub rebelling against the culture, at some point later became more conservative, like the culture they rebelled against. And not they weren't conservative in the same way, there was a lot of change a lot different, but they still kind of found themselves in a more politically conservative camp than they were then you would have maybe thought somebody who grew up as a hippie would have. You know, people have been talking about the Asbury revival. And it seems like people really want a revival right now. You know, the Asbury revival was significantly different than what you and I had been discussing was only for a short period of time, and it was kind of relegated mostly to one location, I know there are a few offshoots, but mainly in one location, whereas the Jesus movement spread throughout the country. And, and so they're not the same thing, but they are kind of revealing that people are hungering for some sort of work of God, to change our hearts and to change our neighbor's hearts to change our world. And one of the things I love about your book, I don't think it's maybe your intention when writing it because you're writing it as more of a historian, but it just couldn't, I couldn't help but walk away from it thinking well, first of all, it starts really small. I mean, you know, here is just a guy Ted wise that you mentioned earlier. He's in In Northern California, they area in Haight Ashbury talking about Jesus and he runs into Lonnie frisbee who's this random duty with no from anybody. But somehow God uses that small thing to do something really big. And you know, I know as a historian, you probably don't want to appeal to God. There's sociological and historical factors that are all true. But as a Christian, and I know you are that, you can't help but see God's hand in it somehow. And then we've already talked about the messiness of the people, that God uses messy, broken people, kind of you were talking about Samsung? Well, in some sense, we're all Samsung, in a sense that we're all flawed, and yet, somehow God uses us. And I think he gets glorified by that. And then we've referred to just idea that it's gonna make you a little uncomfortable, if revival really broke out. And if God was really bringing all kinds of people to faith, the current churches would be uncomfortable with it, just like they were in the late 60s and early 70s. And if we're not prepared to be uncomfortable, if we're not prepared to think outside the box, if we're not prepared to put people above our own, you know, property or our mission statement or whatever, then maybe we're not ready for revival. As as we think. Are there any other lessons like that, that you would throw in? Larry?

Larry Eskridge 

Yeah, I would say that. Yeah, one of the things that, yeah, here definitely wearing my Christian hat. God surprises, the things that he does, the people he uses. Just you never know, I think there is a tendency, probably amongst a lot of the, you know, aging, Jesus freaks out there to, you know, have a nostalgia for those times, understandably, I mean, exciting. And there was an openness to the gospel during that time that you certainly don't see these days. And if you start trying to unpack that, you know, by looking at the, you know, the history in the society and culture, you can certainly come up with some reasons why that might be. But I think what we tend to get sidetracked by is this expectancy to see the same thing happen again, you know, this tendency like, well, we need another Jesus people movement. Yeah. You know, if you begin looking at the older revivals of the church back in the day, they generally didn't tend to happen quite the same way. There was always something different going on at the time. And if a new revival was to be unleashed these days in North America, it probably would not look like the Jesus people movement necessarily. Well, I think that's really good. That might be one. Yeah, I think that might be one thing we have to get past.

Keith Simon 

It won't go be according to our expectations. And I think that's really good. Because if you would have gone back into the late 60s is obviously a time of great turmoil in our country. And you would have never thought, Oh, I bet God is going to raise up a new Christian movement out of Haight Ashbury in San Francisco in the summer of love. It would have never been anyone have guessed. And maybe it gives us hope now, because right now, there's a lot of fracturing in our country, a lot of problems. And maybe everybody go well, there's no possible way God's going to do something. Now. I mean, look at all seems stacked against us. You never know when God's going to move, who is going to use and how he's going to do it. Hey, I really appreciate your time. Larry, the book is God's forever family. I loved it. And if you want to learn more, far more than we were able to cover and our conversation today. I think you will love the book. Also really appreciate you being with us. Thanks.

Larry Eskridge 

Thanks so much. God bless.

Keith Simon 

Thank you, Larry. I really appreciate it.

Larry Eskridge 

Thank you. I hope you can cobble enough stuff together.

Keith Simon 

I think we'll be fine. We start our episodes by saying let's you would say if you're okay with it. My name is Larry Eskridge and I choose truth over tribe. Would you be okay saying that? Yeah, I was definitely okay. If you say that we'll record it.

Larry Eskridge 

Okay. My name is Larry Eskridge and I choose truth over my tribe or shoot over travel.

Keith Simon 

Thanks, man. I really appreciate it. I loved your book and

Larry Eskridge 

thank you. I appreciate that.

Keith Simon 

We'll recommend it widely. Thank you much if we can work together. Yes, future let me know take care. Have a good day. Bye.

Larry Eskridge 

Be great. be good. bye bye.