“Jesus Revolution,” a movie about the “Jesus People” movement in the 1970s, is now in theaters across the country just as the Asbury University revival comes to a close.
The film is based on the real-life story of Greg Laurie, senior pastor of Harvest Christian Fellowship in California, who said the university revival happening now resembles scenes from the movie.
“So it’s sort of like art imitates life,” Laurie told Newsmax. “The timing could not be more perfect It really seems to me like God is at work, and are we seeing the beginning of another spiritual awakening among young people.”
Going back 50 years, the movie follows a young Laurie who falls in love with his wife, Cathe, and Jesus as the two are swept up by the revival in Southern California.
The Lauries met charismatic hippie street preacher, Lonnie Frisbee played by Jonathan Roumie from “The Chosen” series, who introduced them to Pastor Chuck Smith, who is credited with sparking the “Jesus People” movement, and played by “Kelsey Grammer from “Frasier” and “Cheers.”
The name of the film comes from a TIME article titled, “The Jesus Revolution.”
Jesus is alive and well and living in the radical spiritual fervor of a growing number of young Americans who have proclaimed an extraordinary religious revolution in his name. Their message: the Bible is true, miracles happen, God really did so love the world that he gave it his only begotten son.
…
In a world filled with real and fancied demons for the young, the form their faith takes may be less important than the fact that they have it.
TIME, 1971
Producer Kevin Downes said this movie was set apart from any other film he’s worked on.
“This one had miracle after miracle…where we really sensed and felt God’s presence throughout the entire process,” Downes told CBN News.
Grammer, a multiple Emmy Awards and Golden Globes winner, has been very open about his love for the film, even on the verge of tears in a discussion with Kelly Ripa and Ryan Seacrest.
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Laurie said the movie is available at local theaters, and he hopes that people will go and see it and start a similar spiritual revival.
“It’s a very entertaining film. It’s funny, it’ll make you cry for sure,” Laurie told Newsmax. “But it tells the powerful story of how a generation was saved, a generation that was crying out for revolution and a revolution came, but it wasn’t a political revolution. It wasn’t a moral revolution. It was as Time magazine put it, ‘A Jesus Revolution.’”
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Caleb Parke is the SMG managing editor. Follow him on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and connect with him at calebparke.com.