After reading the Prothero book and the section on "Jesus freaks" I looked for an excerpt from the movie Godspell that showed how the hippies of the late 60s to early 70s tried to make following Jesus the in-thing to be doing. What is interesting about the Jesus movement was that the Jesus freaks were trying to turn the acid frenzy of the late 60s, being high on drugs, into being high on Jesus as the cool thing. The movie Godspell shows kids dressed sort of how hippies would dress, the average look of that time, and instead of promoting the acid, heroin, and marijuana they wanted to show how following Jesus Christ would be more rewarding than drugs.
In the clip I have from the movie Godspell, the song is about following Jesus and the actors are shown throwing off their shoes, throwing out their material possessions and having fun in a fountain with an angel statue. Now I'm not 100% sure because I wasn't around in the 60s-70s but I believe what hippies were about at that time was being mellow and carefree, some wouldn't wear shoes, they wore loose clothing and their hair was often long and unkempt. Well similarly, Jesus was mellow and carefree set on living simply and just spreading the Word in a calm way. I wonder if Godspell and other Jesus freaks of the time were trying to show this connection between the drug hippies and the Jesus freaks (hippies). Maybe they weren't so different after all, only with what they were using to get high on. That's just an idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9viyJB8a7GQ
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Godspell is one of my favorite musicals ever, not least becaue my brother has been in it twice in different productions of it, as John the Baptist and as Jesus. It's a phenomenal production from an aesthetic perspective, and as you point out, from the perspective of late 60s-early 70s culture as well. Certainly the idea of "being high" is common to both.
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