Growing up as a teenaged, American youth in the late 1960s to early 1970s, I witnessed from a Middle America, Southern California perspective, the counterculture’s effect upon mainline, evangelical Christianity. Pianos and organs of traditional Christian music were introduced to guitars and drums of popular music. White shirts and ties gave way to leisure suits. Hal Lindsey’s “Late, Great Planet Earth” (1970) was preparing for the Rapture. The Charismatic Movement was promoting the Baptism of the Holy Spirit in both Protestant and Roman Catholic circles. Chuck Smith’s Calvary Chapel movement was making headway in emphasizing personal evangelism, planting local churches, and promoting Bible study. Fundamentalists were resisting the tides of change. The Crossroads Church of Christ (FL) — later the ICOC — was emphasizing the necessity of baptism to be saved, partly responding to an emphasis on Easy Believism Salvation. Anti-war (Vietnam), drugs, sex, and rebellion were responses not only  to society’s morality, but the Professed Church’s failure. Not all change was bad; and, upon reflection, the Jesus People (sometimes called Jesus Freaks) seemed to best epitomize that period’s struggle to return to a more primitive Christianity. “These that have turned the world upside down are come hither also” (Acts 17:6 KJV).

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