Posted on 11/05/2017 7:47:57 AM PST by Kaslin
When I came to faith in Jesus in 1971 as a heroin-shooting, LSD-using, 16-year-old, Jewish, hippie rock drummer, I had no idea I was part of a worldwide spiritual happening known as the Jesus People Movement or Jesus Revolution. It even merited a cover story on Time Magazine, June 21, 1971.
Interestingly, Jewish young people made up a conspicuously high number of these newly born-again hippies and rebels and radicals in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Today, a new poll commissioned by Jews for Jesus makes me wonder if we could be on the verge of a similar spiritual movement today, one that will especially impact Jewish young people.
Jews played a leading role in the counterculture movement of the 1960s, with names like Allen Ginsberg and Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin immediately coming to mind. Key leaders of the Weather Underground were also Jewish, including Terry Robbins, who died when his own bomb exploded.
One website notes that, among the bands that played at Woodstock, Jefferson Airplane had three Jewish members, Sha Na Na had three, and Blood, Sweat, and Tears had 5. Both Country Joe McDonald and Arlo Guthrie were born to Jewish mothers, while singing icons like Bob Dylan, Paul Simon, Art Garfunkel, and “Mamma” Cass Elliot were Jewish, just to name a few.
But the 1960s were not only marked by sex, drugs, rock and roll, and rebellion. They were also marked by deep spiritual searching, and it was common to get high, listen to rock music, and talk about spiritual things, ranging from Eastern religion to human consciousness to Jesus (not so much in terms of the Christian faith but in terms of him being a cool, revolutionary leader). And again, during this time, Jews were at the forefront of this spiritual search, even making up the largest number of Buddhist converts in the West. That’s why the term JewBu (or JuBu) was ultimately coined, to describe Jewish Buddhists.
I was even told by a Hare Krishna leader that, at the height of the movement in the 1970s, 75 percent of their world leadership was Jewish. Perhaps the best known example would be Hridayananda Goswami, born Howard Resnick. He joined the Hare Krishnas while at Berkeley in 1969, ultimately earning a Ph.D. in Sanskrit and Indology from Harvard.
What makes me think that something similar might be happening today?
We are certainly living in turbulent times again, with America deeply divided and radical student movements on the rise. And while it is true that many millennials are dropping out of organized religion, they are still on a spiritual search.
That being said, I have no evidence that young people today are looking for spiritual answers at the same level we were during the counterculture revolution, nor do I have evidence of a growing groundswell of radical conversions among millennials, parallel to what happened when I came to faith.
Still, the results of a new Barna poll, commissioned by Jews for Jesus, are raising many eyebrows, producing headlines like this in the Jerusalem Post: “STUDY: ONE-FIFTH OF JEWISH MILLENNIALS BELIEVE JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD.” What a headline!
Bear in mind that, while this was poll was financed by Jews for Jesus, the polling was not done in that organization’s name, and the Barna Group, which conducted the research, is highly respected. So, the results must be seriously evaluated rather than discarded as religious propaganda.
In sum, “These young adults [born between 1984 and 1999] describe themselves as religious, and practice Jewish ritual, but are unaffiliated. They value tradition and family, but don’t plan on marrying only Jews. They are proud to be Jewish, but don’t feel that contradicts with practicing other religion.”
That being said, I have no evidence that young people today are looking for spiritual answers at the same level we were during the counterculture revolution, nor do I have evidence of a growing groundswell of radical conversions among millennials, parallel to what happened when I came to faith.
Still, the results of a new Barna poll, commissioned by Jews for Jesus, are raising many eyebrows, producing headlines like this in the Jerusalem Post: “STUDY: ONE-FIFTH OF JEWISH MILLENNIALS BELIEVE JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD.” What a headline!
Bear in mind that, while this was poll was financed by Jews for Jesus, the polling was not done in that organization’s name, and the Barna Group, which conducted the research, is highly respected. So, the results must be seriously evaluated rather than discarded as religious propaganda.
In sum, “These young adults [born between 1984 and 1999] describe themselves as religious, and practice Jewish ritual, but are unaffiliated. They value tradition and family, but don’t plan on marrying only Jews. They are proud to be Jewish, but don’t feel that contradicts with practicing other religion.”
Accordingly, there was ample evidence of assimilation and syncretism, with 42 percent of the respondents saying that they practiced Christmas. (A 2013 Pew Research poll, cited in the article, found that one third of its Jewish respondents celebrated Christmas.)
And when it came to beliefs about Jesus, the results were absolutely striking: “The survey found that 21 percent of Jewish millennials believe Jesus was ‘God in human form who lived among people in the 1st century.’ And 28 percent ‘see him as a rabbi or spiritual leader, but not God.’”
This means that a whopping 49 percent of Jewish millennials see Jesus as either God incarnate or as a rabbi or spiritual leader, an extraordinary figure no matter how you parse it. This is not far from the Pew poll of 2013, which surveyed American Jews of all ages, finding that “34 percent said belief in Jesus as the Messiah was compatible with being Jewish.”
Obviously, among very religious Jews, the findings would be radically different, but the fact that so many Jewish young people see Jesus as a spiritual leader, rabbi, or more is incredibly significant.
I can’t verify this from my own experience with Jewish millennials, and, when it comes to Jewish assimilation, as indicated by the polling data, there is always cause for concern. But without question, for all who have eyes to see, there is much greater Jewish openness to Jesus the Messiah than we have seen in the past.
This is wonderful news for those of us involved in Jewish outreach and should encourage all Christians to pray with special focus for Jewish millennials today. May they truly encounter Jesus-Yeshua as their Messiah!
“...Jewish young people made up a conspicuously high number of these newly born-again hippies and rebels and radicals in the late 1960s and early 1970s...”
The two most famous were Abbie Hoffman out of Brandeis University and Jerry Rubin out of Berkeley. Both fellas were interesting stories.
On the other side, We had conservative Jews like my old boss Mario Rosenthal in El Salvador who was a very outspoken and brave anti-communist. I once kidded him that his views were far different than Abe Rosenthal of the New York Times and he replied, “ahh “Rosenthal” is like “Smith” for Jews!
I wonder what the atmosphere is like today at historically Jewish and very liberal Brandeis.
The strongest “faith” group today are radical muslims, who really do practice what they preach.
Black churches that I have watched are in serious need of revival and turning back to the L_rd.
I used to say the same about the basic protestant denominations, but I am not sure that they even want to be saved anymore.
Evangelical denominations are slightly better but they are all too often focused on “me!”.
The Catholic Church in the West has little power. I would love it if an African or an Asian became the next Pope but they would need to overcome the entire Western bureaucracy.
In short, it is time to continue to pray for a revival of souls on this earth.
It truly is not Us verses Them, but of Sin and Death verses all of us.
If the Jews who strayed were actually faithful to Judaism, there would be a Third Temple by now.
They’re all over the place. Don’t try to pin them down.
I don’t know but Bob Dylan’s Christianity is coming to the forefront again with a reissue of the 3 albums, unreleased songs, and video/film from the tours.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/01/arts/music/bob-dylan-bootleg-series-trouble-no-more.html
Bob Dylan’s Songs for the Soul, Revisited and Redeemed
By JON PARELESNOV. 1, 2017
Even in 1979, Bob Dylan could cause a commotion. That was the year he released “Slow Train Coming,” the album that announced his embrace of Christianity, soon to be followed by “Saved” in 1980 and “Shot of Love” in 1981: his born-again trilogy. For those three years, the iconoclast, freethinker and reluctant voice of a generation proclaimed faith in salvation by Jesus Christ (despite his Jewish upbringing), with lyrics that drew a line in the sand. In “Precious Angel” on “Slow Train Coming,” he declared, “Ya either got faith or ya got unbelief, and there ain’t no neutral ground.”
That phase of Mr. Dylan’s music gets a revelatory second look with the boxed set “Trouble No More — The Bootleg Series Vol. 13 / 1979-1981,” to be released Friday. Eight CDs and a DVD collect performances, rehearsals and studio outtakes. The DVD intersperses live footage from 1980 — Mr. Dylan, often camera-shy, clearly wanted this era documented — with fiery sermons written by Luc Sante and delivered by the actor Michael Shannon...
Some fans who had stayed with Mr. Dylan through his multiple transitions since the early 1960s — from folk singer to electric rocker to country crooner to Americana sage — rejected his new, sectarian message. The critic Greil Marcus’s first reaction to “Shot of Love” was that it was arrogant, intolerant and smug.
Doubling down on his message, Mr. Dylan also decided to sing only his new evangelical songs on tour, interspersed with some preaching, though he relented in 1981 and began performing older songs, too. Throughout the born-again years, his audiences would be divided in a way they hadn’t been since Mr. Dylan went electric in the mid-1960s. There were protests outside shows and a mix of enthusiasts and hecklers in the theaters...
Thank G-d that today the Chabad movement is flourishing on college campuses and worldwide. Jewish lost souls seeking a spiritual connection now have substantial opportunities to find it in Judaism without resorting to following acolytes of other faith groups.
That’s interesting news, thanks. I enjoyed those albums, along with 1983’s “Infidels”.
Dylan already informed us that he was a drug addled person. That takes a certain kind of addictive personality and certainly throws doubt on his judgment. So I wouldn't go by him or any similar person turning to drugs/liquor as an example. His confusion only shows an abysmal failure of his parents to give him a proper Jewish education. His neshomah (Jewish soul) was crying out for sustenance and, having not been given exposure to the incredible spirituality of Judaism, he felt compelled to look elsewhere.
Chabad is seeking out those deprived children of ignorant or lackadaisical Jewish parents who failed in their obligation to provide adequate religious education AND personal examples by their own behavior. Chabad is providing the correct spiritual sustenance for their neshomah to thrive, as no other faith can do, because the neshomah is designed to operate optimally following the tenets of Judaism, and nothing else.
I personally know many now-observant Jews who had their spiritual voids ignited by Chabad or by ordinary observant Jews who saw the need and devoted the time and love to do it. I recently attended one of the seven celebratory feasts following the wedding of my cousin's son. My cousin was raised as secular as you please, yet here stood a man clothed in somber black, with a full grey beard and a black fedora, surrounded by observant-from-birth friends, Torah study partners, and rabbis, all heaping praise upon him for having been raised secular, having found his way to his heritage, having excelled at learning Torah and maintaining a household true to Torah Judaism and having raised such a paragon of virtue and intelligence as his recently married son. It was a shining moment which brought tears to my eyes.
AMEN!
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