“Jesus Revolution,” the film recapping the Jesus Movement of 50 years ago, continues to perform well at the box office. For its second weekend, the movie was shown in an additional 100 theaters and made $8.7 million—just more than half of its $15.8 million opening-weekend earnings.
Now that audiences are turning out for the movie, Harvest Christian Fellowship senior pastor Greg Laurie is updating viewers about some real-life characters featured on screen. “Jesus Revolution” portrays how Laurie became a Christian at age 17 and then entered full-time ministry at age 19.
Greg Laurie: My Mom ‘Came Back to Her Faith’
Greg Laurie, now 70, posted a video to YouTube on March 3 titled “After Jesus Revolution: What Happened To My Mother?” In the clip, Laurie shows a 1950s-era photo of him with his mom, Charlene McDaniel (portrayed in “Jesus Revolution” by Kimberly Williams-Paisley).
As a boy, Laurie lived with his grandparents because Charlene—a “dead ringer for Marilyn Monroe”—was “out living her crazy party life,” he says. Although Charlene grew up in a Christian home, she eloped at a young age, had Greg after a one-night fling out of wedlock, and ended up getting married seven times.
“She chased after all of the empty promises of this world, and sadly saw the emptiness of all of it,” says Laurie. “But thankfully she came back to her faith and returned to it one month before she entered eternity.”
In the YouTube video, Laurie mentions having a “very important conversation” with his mother toward the end of her life, when she “recommitted her life to Christ.” Charlene is an example, he says, that “There’s hope for anyone, no matter what you’ve done, no matter what mistakes you’ve made, no matter what sins you’ve committed.”
