The movement spread like wildfire up the California coast. In 1969, a group of converted hippies started the across the bay from UC Berkeley, passing out "Jesus Loves You" leaflets next to the Free Speech Movement café. By 1971, Time magazine put a psychedelic painting of Christ on its cover with the headline: "The Jesus Revolution."
They were the counterculture: the hippies. They sought peace, love, and spiritual meaning outside the rigid, establishment churches of their parents. For them, organized religion was part of "the system"—hypocritical, judgmental, and irrelevant. They found their sacraments in LSD, marijuana, and the music of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. But by 1970, the Summer of Love had curdled. Free love had led to broken hearts and STDs; psychedelics had led to bad trips and psychotic breaks; the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco had become a wasteland of heroin overdoses and homelessness. Jesus Revolution
And that message, unlike any drug or political slogan, never goes out of style. The movement spread like wildfire up the California coast