Roving Hippies Spreading New Kind of Religion
By Warren Weber, Chronicle Reporter, Houston Chronicle, Texas
December 5, 1969, North America
Nothing was really seedy about him.
His clothes might have been a bit wrinkled and his hair a bit long. Otherwise he looked like any college student.
He walked up to the small boy with a John-John haircut—his son—and asked him, “Where is God?”
The little boy unhesitatingly pointed up toward the heavens.
“That’s right,” said the young father as he took his son’s hand and led him to a camper.
“The church of today has turned its back on the young people and offers them nothing,” added Levi.
The revolutionary Christian commune was formed a year ago with six members. It now comprises about 10 couples, 25 single girls and 45 single males—mostly in their late teens or early 20s—and 10 children.
The single men live in a large tent, the single women in two old buses converted into dormitories and the couples in campers and small tents.
Each day includes six to eight hours of Bible study plus two general assemblies at which the group sings, prays and engages in discussions. The children attend make-shift schools.
The general assemblies are preceded by the playing of reveille by a member they call Gabriel.
The songs, their own compositions, are led by a 23-year-old Mexican-American who says he is a medical school dropout. He calls himself Elijah Levi and says he comes from hell.
“But I’m on my way to paradise,” he said.
After Houston, the group plans to seek shelter in a warmer climate, yet undecided.
Wherever they go, they say they will continue to follow this Bible selection:
“All whose faith had drawn them together held everything in common; they would sell their property and possessions and make a general distribution as the need of each required.” (Acts 2:44–45).