June 2005

I’m not really old enough to remember it, but the “Jesus People” move­ment was a full-blown phe­nomenon in the late 1960s and into the early 1970s. Centred mostly in northern California, hip­pies began get­ting into Jesus and these “Jesus Freaks” turned the estab­lished church on its ear. One of the most influ­en­tial fig­ures in this period was a young man with the unlikely name of Lonnie Frisbee. Lonnie’s min­istry was influ­en­tial in the found­a­tion of two of evangelicalism’s biggest denom­in­a­tions. And yet, his name has dis­ap­peared from most accounts of the move­ment. Why? Because Lonnie was gay.

David di Sabatino has made a doc­u­mentary film about Lonnie and it will be shown here in Toronto later this month as part of the Reel Heart Film Festival. I’m very inter­ested in seeing it, but I do find one thing inter­esting. The dir­ector, who is an evan­gel­ical, talks about Lonnie’s homo­sexu­ality as a “struggle with sexual sin” and points to Lonnie as an example of a flawed prophet. Sadly, Lonnie died from AIDS in 1993, but I wonder what would have been the out­come if Lonnie had been able to embrace his sexu­ality and be accepted in the evan­gel­ical move­ment for what he was, without feeling like he had to live two sep­arate lives.

Film critic Peter Chattaway con­ducted a lengthy inter­view with dir­ector di Sabatino back in April and the dir­ector says that Lonnie was raped as an eight-year-old child and that this might explain his frag­mented iden­tity, but I always find it funny that Christian people always need some “explan­a­tion” for someone’s sexu­ality. It’s more likely his frag­mented iden­tity was a result of not being able to tell people close to him about his homo­sexu­ality for fear of being denounced.

That being said, the film sounds like it genu­inely tries to under­stand a com­plex indi­vidual, and I hope I’ll get to see it. It doesn’t hurt a bit that there are lots of Larry Norman songs in the soundtrack.

Note: Music was a huge factor in the Jesus People move­ment. Here’s a great site with lots of his­tory on “Jesus Music”.

Tagged as: christianity, Documentaries, faith, homosexuality, music, religion, spirituality

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