The Alternative Jesus: Psychedelic Christ

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the Jesus-rock music is both professionally and theologically solid. Larry Norman, probably the top solo artist in the field, attacks the occult in his album Upon This Rock: "Forget your hexagram/ You'll soon feel fine/ Stop looking at the stars/ You don't live under the signs." Many Jesus-rock musicians commit their lives as well as their talent. Drummer Steve Hornyak, 30, of The Crimson Bridge, gave up a $35,000 house, a Toronado, and a career as a school-band director when another Jesus musician challenged him to "go tell about Jesus." Scott Ross, 31, a former New York disk jockey, has become head of a Christian commune in Freeville. N.Y., the Love Inn. Ross still tapes a weekly show that he uses to promote Jesus music on standard stations.

A growing number of musical stars, including Johnny Cash and Eric Clapton, are among the Jesus movement converts. Paul Stookey of Peter, Paul and Mary has preached on the steps of Berkeley's Sproul Hall; Jeremy Spencer of Britain's Fleetwood Mac has joined the ultrarigid Children of God. Few are more zealous than Pat Boone; he has baptized more than 200 converts in his own swimming pool during the past year.

The revolutionary word is also spread by a growing, literally free Jesus press that now numbers some 50 newspapers across the country. Donations are apparently enough to print 65,000 copies of Right On! in Berkeley and 400,000 copies of the Hollywood Free Paper, the movement's largest. Now Berkeley's CWLF is hoping to start a Jesus news service. There is much to report, in all parts of the U.S. Items:

> At First Baptist Church in Houston, youth-minded Pastor Bisagno, 37, brought in Evangelist Hoag to recruit the young in a week-long revival. Hoag traveled from school to school with his plea, and 11,000 young people stepped forward at Bisagno's church to declare themselves for Jesus. Now the first few pews at First Baptist are reserved for the youngsters. While the rest of the congregation mumble their amens, the kids punctuate Bisagno's sermons with yells of "Outta sight, man, bee-yoo-ti-ful."

> In Chicago's Grant Park bandshell, Street Evangelist Arthur Blessitt last month warmed up a crowd of nearly 1,000 with a lusty Jesus cheer, then led them off on a parade through the Loop, gathering people as they went. "Chicago police, we love you!" they shouted to cops along the route. "Jesus loves you!" Blessitt also passed a box through the crowd, asking for a special contribution: drugs. The box came back filled with marijuana, pills and LSD; it was turned over to the flabbergasted cops. This month, Blessitt is really testing Jesus' power. He is in New York City for a three-month blitz among the pimps, prostitutes and porno shops of Times Square for which he hopes to recruit as many as 3,000 young helpers. So far he has had only one unnerving setback. A streetwalker told him that she had worn one of his bright red stickers (TURN ON TO JESUS) and "never had a better night."

> On a cul-de-sac beach at Corona del Mar, Calif., the Rev. Chuck Smith recently held another of the mass baptisms that have made his Calvary Chapel at Santa Ana famous. Under a setting sun, several hundred converts waded into the cold Pacific, patiently waiting their turn for the rite. On the cliffs above, hundreds more watched. Most of