Let’s make one thing clear: I am a smidgen too young to be into this whole, “Hey man, did you make it to Woodstock or not?” thing that’s going on in the mainstream media right now. My priest, however, is another matter, since he was there and I still think he looks like Jerry Garcia.
However, this Southern Baptist preacher’s kid somehow got turned on to the Byrds and Buffalo Springfield and, thus, Crosby, Stills & Nash and I am totally capable of cranking up the volume on “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes” and singing every note of David Crosby’s harmony part (although I am more of a “Wooden Ships” guy, to tell you the truth).
Now, on the religion side of the equation, you knew that someone was gonna connect the dots — Joan Baez and “Amazing Grace” right on over to Ravi Shankar — and make the argument that Woodstock is, in many ways, the tipping point that turned religion into spirituality for the Baby Boomer generation and, thus, for America. We’re talking sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll and do-it-yourself visions (often a combination of the previous three ingredients).
So I was not surprised that the Religion News Service put out a story with the headline “40 years later, Woodstock’s spiritual vibes still resonate” and I was not surprised that my old Colorado buddy Steve Rabey wrote it and that religion-beat veteran Don Lattin is a major voice in the piece. I wish this feature could have been a lot longer, but here’s the heart of the matter:
“The counterculture became the culture,” says Mark Oppenheimer, who examined changes among Protestant, Catholic and Jewish believers in “Knocking on Heaven’s Door: American Religion in the Age of Counterculture.”
Oppenheimer says the era’s main religious changes were “aesthetic, not theological.” As he explains, “Woodstock, wasn’t about a lot of intellectual content, or sophisticated arguments. Instead, there was an extraordinary artistic, musical, social happening. And that’s what the era was for religion.”
During the 1960s, Southern Baptist seminary students had to fight for their right to wear long hair or sandals. By the ’70s, Oppenheimer says religious leaders realized there was “no virtue in being buttoned-down and square.” Now, the unbuttoned look is the norm for megachurch pastors like Rick Warren. “No one questions that a burly fellow who stands up front with a beard and a Hawaiian shirt can speak prophetically about the Gospel message,” said Oppenheimer. “That’s not something that would have happened in the 1950s or 1960s.”
Lattin then comes along to stress that there were content changes, as well. Can you imagine “seeker-sensitive” churches without Woodstock and the new forms of spirituality that swirled around it? Heck, you can make a case that Dr. James Dobson owed much of his success to the heart-centered world that followed the ’60s.
To cut to the chase:
“There was a pervasive shift from the theological to the therapeutic,” said Lattin, author of “Following Our Bliss: How the Spiritual Ideals of the Sixties Shape Our Lives Today.” “It was all about feeling good rather than being good. It was about stress reduction, not salvation.”
Feelings! You got it. What part of the evangelical and charismatic worldview is tied up in emotional experience and feelings? Just asking.
But I still keep coming back to the music. Can you picture drums, Les Pauls and stacks of electronic keyboards in big, ultraconservative Southern Baptist sanctuaries without Woodstock? Can you picture the birth of Jesus rock, Christian music festivals and the whole Contemporary Christian Music industry (and later, the whole “worship wars” trend) without the earthquake that was Woodstock and the pop culture of that era?
If you have your doubts, then click here make sure you read to the last quote.
Or read to the end of this Washington Times story about a new blast of Pew Forum data about the gaps in modern American culture on matters of morality and culture.
The morality issues are important, but this is what stuck with me.
But on the bright side, the young and the old have come together over music. Rock rules across the generations, and the Beatles were the most widely liked over all age groups, with 49 percent of respondents saying the liked the Fab Four “a lot” and an additional 32 percent liking them “a little.”
The Beatles finished ahead of 1970s supergroup the Eagles, who placed second in terms of respondents who liked them a lot (42 percent), and country star Johnny Cash, in third at 39 percent. Placing fourth was the recently deceased Michael Jackson, with Elvis Presley fifth and the Rolling Stones sixth.
All these acts had their first major successes by 1972.
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Comments (16) |
August 17, 2009, at 12:56 am
That reduces the 60’s down to Woodstock. As someone who lived through the 60’s and was at Woodstock, it was the acme of a certain outlook that was soon countered with Altamont. For many of us it was nothing more than a groovy festival.
That’s a singularly inaccurate image of the 60’s. It ignores the social gospel from Martin Luther King through the anti-Vietnam war movement and other religiously inspired political efforts. A positive view of religion was reinforced by the straight-ahead gospel songs of Peter, Paul & Mary; Joan Baez and others.
It also ignores or distorts that many of us felt that the churches of the time preached the letter (that killeth) not the spirit of God’s Truth. Many people attended (and many still do) because it was a socially required or useful thing to do not because they really believed. One response to this feeling was the “Jesus freaks” who were interested in Jesus’ message not the pallid experience available in church.
So many of us looked around for something else, sometimes doing some foolish and dangerous things in the search. Certainly the “sex, drugs and rock&roll” meme was alive for a time, but many also searched for the truth. The growth of Eastern religions during that time was part of that search.
And yes, there was a growth in various psychological therapies during that time which sought to help people feel good.
August 17, 2009, at 7:06 am
Religion as a means to feel good, more important about oneself and one’s tribe is hardly an invention of the 60’s. It’s been an essential element of just about every religion since the beginning.
August 17, 2009, at 8:37 am
Very early on was George Harrison’s interest in the sitar played by an Indian band in the 1964 movie “Help”. George studied and played some sitar in 1965’s “Norwegian Wood”. Then members of the Byrds introduced George to Ravi Shankar later in the year and he studied with Shankar in India. This led to all the Beatles’ interest in the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi who was touring the world teaching Transcendental Meditation (TM). 1967 all the Beatles went to India to meet with the Yogi and they went again to study with him with a group including Mia Farrow in 1968.
I don’t recall seeing Hare Krishna’s around airports before George popularized the Indian gurus, but I could be wrong. My brother took up with a different Indian guru late in the 1960s - that little guy out in Denver.
In the 60’s “TM”, Carl Rogers’ consciousness-raising groups, and the notorious “Playboy Philosophy” promoted the trend away from right and wrong and to how you feel. Music glorified subjectiveness and selfishiness - “Love the One You’re With” and “Going up Cripple Creek”. Amazing that young women put up with being used in this wonderland for the guys. Would not have been possible without “The Pill”. [But see “Hair” - How can People be So Hearless?”] The backlash came harshly - e.g. “a woman needs a man like she needs a bicycle”.
August 17, 2009, at 9:09 am
the following is my personal opinion.
Should have also said: Woodstock was very late on the scene. 1967’s Monterey Pop Festival was much more influential and ground-breaking. Woodstock is such a big deal because of all the young people on the East Coast who who wanted to be cool, but couldn’t go to Monterey on the West Coast years earlier. Also because lots of folks in the MSM with HQ in NYC like to say they were there.
I would say that Arlo Guthrie’s “Alice’s Restaurant” in 1967 was more influential on the East Coast and eventually across the country. The movie of the same name came out right after Woodstock, but the song had already had been part of the country’s consciousness for several years.
I don’t think Woodstock changed much of anything - it was a “me, too” event. It was better documented than Monterey and thus more in the public eye. Lots of great stills and nudity. The huge numbers told the adults that it wasn’t just a few hippies like in San Francisco - there were now tons of wannabes in their midst.
I don’t recall lots of people quitting church in the 60s. It was a gradual process.
August 17, 2009, at 9:16 am
Sorry - two corrections and I’m off this thread.
Comment #3
- Hair’s “How Can People Be So Heartless”
- “A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle”
August 17, 2009, at 9:40 am
It was “A woman without a man is like a fish without a bicycle.”
Having lived through the Sixties in my twenties, I’d put Haight-Ashbury and Timothy Leary ahead of Woodstock as spiritual influences on the Boomers (a cohort I do not quite belong to but have usually sympathized with). The underground press played a role, too; it fostered a sense of connectedness between the individual and the larger events of that startling decade.
August 17, 2009, at 10:36 am
I’ve often thought that Woodstock defined the 60s generation the way D-Day defined the 30s generation. Whatever that means, it’s just a feeling i have.
August 17, 2009, at 10:55 am
Only amazing for a one-dimensional view of women. There were enough young women rarin’ to break the bonds of what “good girls don’t do” to keep the scene afloat. Of course, effective contraception was essential.
This condition continued for decades despite efforts of some feminists to put new limits on what “liberated women don’t do.” Plenty of divorcees took their new status as a second chance to be single, and let their libidos hold sway — not becoming doormats, but seeking and getting what they wanted and discarding any man not with the program (including treating their kids right). Again, effective contraception was the sine qua non.
AFAIK this form of women’s liberation has only been covered tangentially in the MSM, in the assumed background of Style Section pop-sociology. The change from fifty years ago deserves more press attention, imho.
August 17, 2009, at 1:45 pm
Dave at #6:
Having been a war baby, I was a few years ahead of my baby boomer siblings, but I was the one in San Francisco for the Summer of Love, staying across from the Panhandle just before Monterey. My cousin’s husband invented putting LSD on papers and went to the Federal pen for it. Timothy Leary and many others of the era were not baby boomers. I don’t think any of the Beatles were baby boomers.
Dave at #8 (same Dave?):
Along with the ’60s sexual freedoms we still had the very influential Playboy Philosophy running alongside it. Check out the Playboy Mansion via Google. That mind set you see on Mad Men did not die out. Check out the attitude towards women in movies of the time; very few strong women as in 40s. We had Barbarella and Gidget and go go dancers.
I mentioned a harsh backlash, but things have mellowed in the past 20 years or so. Not too many women buy into radical feminism anymore; most men and the culture have changed.
August 17, 2009, at 3:22 pm
Arguably, the women’s movement was a response to the ’60s counterculture which was essentially a Men’s Movement—rejection of traditional male responsibilities to protect and provide financial support. Men wanted, and expected, to get it all: free sex with no strings, no financial burden, no long term commitment. On the contrary, we chicks were supposed to support them by waitressing or doing other pink-collar drudgery so that they could do the important political work of the Revolution. And, of course, the core issue was the anti-war movement that kicked into high gear when middle-class lads became de facto subject to the draft.
Men broke the Old Contract: sex and domestic services in exchange for lifelong financial support. Women quite reasonably responded: if we have the same obligation to work as men do we want to be able to get the same jobs men get. That is the whole core issue of feminism.
August 17, 2009, at 3:40 pm
Woodstock follows the American tradition of counterculture. From Johnathan Edwards to Shakers, Mormans, and even Born-Agains, American countercultures have steered new ideas into our popular culture often going against the grain of the status quo, and they have always been a hallmark of our country in its generational independent streaks. Woodstock, the 60’s rock concert, brought home the counterculture to the rural heartland and marked a firm shift of the youth of America affirming its cultural, spiritual and demographic independence from the tumultuous upheavals of that decade.
Any coverage of Woodstock limited to music or viewed without the context of those times is narrow. America kids witnessed our country torn apart by the unsettling times - with political assassinations, riots and brutal repressions, civil rights in the ultimate culture war of the last century fought out down in the Bible Belt, Cold War warmongering at its worst, and generational differences so rigidly separate as if each were from different planets.
Woodstock marked a clean break for a American counterculture to stand on its own and emerge to the American popular culture it is today. Today generations play the Rock Band video games together, rock music is common fare in churches, and country radio stations play what is essentially country rock.
August 17, 2009, at 5:21 pm
H.E. Baber:
Ditto.
A lot of people today don’t know or understand what you wrote.
Hank:
Woodstock was not far from NYC - it was nowhere near the rural heartland.
The youth counterculture and thumbing noses at the old folks started with Elvis. And watch “Hard Days’ Night” not long afterwards to see George Harrison dealing with the vendors who were beginning to cater to young people. It was the disposable money kids had and the growing numbers of the boomers that gave them power in the culture.
August 17, 2009, at 7:39 pm
@Julia
You’re right, the youth culture revolted financially in addition to culturally and spiritually, and they were saying in essence: We’re not buying that old garbage anymore.
In any case, Upstate NY is the direct opposite of NYC and often gets criticized as Upper Appalachia, but it’d be silly to quip about whose rural is more heartland or whose heartland is more rural, especially back forty years ago when the country was still majority rural. Enough to say Woodstock represents a generational shift that once was treated a counterculture, but now sells Cadillacs and pickup trucks in the Mainstream. The event affected youth across the country and no one’s looking back.
August 17, 2009, at 10:35 pm
Hank, I think you have to go back a lot more than forty years to get to a time when the country was majority rural.
August 18, 2009, at 1:27 am
One final thought. Maybe some of those reading this blog would rather celebrate the 60’s by watching “Jesus Christ Superstar” rather than “Woodstock, the Movie”?
August 19, 2009, at 2:13 pm
An interesting story would be about the many performers of the woodstock generation who later became publicly professing Christians and recorded Christian music. A few that are of note: Bob Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, Noel Paul Stookey (Peter, Paul & Mary), Richie Furay (Buffalo Springfield, Poco), Chris Hillman (Byrds), Barry McGuire, John Michael Talbot & Terry Talbot (Mason Proffit), Mark Farner (Grand Funk Railroad), Phil Keaggy (Glass Harp), e.g.