An upcoming faith-based film about the Jesus movement of the 1960s and 1970s has a powerful message for today's generation, says one of the lead actors.
Jonathan Roumie, best-known for his portrayal of Jesus in the Bible-based hit series The Chosen, plays evangelist Lonnie Frisbee in the new movie Jesus Revolution. It will be released in theaters on Feb. 24 and also stars Kelsey Grammer (Cheers, Frasier), Kimberly Williams-Paisley (We Are Marshall, Father of the Bride films) and Anna Grace Barlow (The Goldbergs).
Jesus Revolution reveals how young people in the hippie generation encountered Christ.
"It's about faith, it's about hope and redemption and finding your identity in God," Roumie told Christian Headlines. "It's the great human conundrum; it's the great question we all ask ourselves: What am I doing? Why am I here? What is my purpose? And every generation has that and is distracted from God in the pursuit of that in some way. For the hippies in the 70s, in the 60s, it was LSD, drugs, psychedelic drugs. Youth are always looking for ways to identify.
"And I think when people come to the realization that God is their identity, God is behind their identity, everything falls into place. And so I think this will really bring that home to a lot of people."
It was co-directed by Jon Erwin and Brent McCorkle and produced by the same company behind I Can Only Imagine, I Still Believe and American Underdog.
"It was such a phenomenal script from the get-go," Roumie told Christian Headlines. "And the amount of talent that they pulled together to tell the story of the biggest spiritual revival in the last 50 years was incredible. It was a joy to dive into the life of Lonnie Frisbee, the hippie preacher that I play, to get a sense of his imperfections, to get a sense of his passion for the Holy Spirit, for God, for Jesus and the vision that he had, which was to bring his generation to Christ.
"And it literally [involved] a vision, and he came down off the mountain and started preaching the gospel, and bringing people to Christ and found Calvary Chapel Church, and everything exploded."
Publication date: December 28, 2022
Photo courtesy: ©Kingdom Story Company, used with permission.
Video courtesy: ©Kingdom Story Company
Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel.
