John Lennon and Jesus

by Gunther Simmermacher · December 21, 2008

When the Vatican newspaper L�Osservatore Romano recently ran an article praising the Beatles� 1968 White Album (officially titled simply The Beatles), it ascribed John Lennon�s famous �the Beatles are more popular than Jesus� remark to youthful hubris.

In a peculiar pole-vaulting leap of logic, even such esteemed organs as the BBC crowed that the pope had at last �forgiven� Lennon � on the basis of a newspaper article that doesn�t even mention this pope or any other. Pope Benedict�s somnolence presumably has remained unthreatened by the philosophical endeavours of entertainers. Indeed, if Pope Benedict ever pondered Lennon�s remark, chances are that he would concede that up to a point, he had one.

�We�re more popular than Jesus now,� Lennon told Maureen Cleave of the London Evening Standard. Note: not superior, not more divine; just more popular. One might argue about the empirical statistics underpinning the claim, but broadly Lennon wasn�t wrong when he claimed that Christianity, at least in his home country, was being eclipsed by popular culture � and no doubt he referred to the Beatles as a proxy for that (in a later interview he said that he might just as well have said �television� instead of �Beatles�).

John Lennon�s prediction of Christianity�s general demise (which he conceded may be preceded by that of rock �n� roll) was wishful thinking. The faith will not vanish. But Britain has become radically secularised. The Church knows that in much of Europe today, the secularisation of social patterns is more potent than the influence of the churches.

Lennon proceeded to call Jesus� disciples �thick and ordinary�, adding: �It�s them twisting everything that ruins it for me.� And if the distortion of his comment and the violent reaction (including death threats) to it by Christ�s disciples in the United States in 1966 is representative � and some Christians are certifiable nutcases � it becomes difficult to reject Lennon�s view of discipleship without qualification.

In a recently rediscovered 1969 interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Lennon described himself as �one of Christ�s biggest fans�. In his notion, Jesus is a New Age spiritual role-model, a peace-sign wearing �berhippie with whom non-religious people like Lennon could connect. Christ�s disciples, in Lennon�s reduction three years earlier, are just religious functionaries, representative of the bogeyman �organised religion�. Lennon was broadly of the �I�m spiritual but against organised religion� school (George Harrison was the real spiritual seeker among the Beatles, ultimately settling for a Christian-influenced Eastern belief system).

According to a 2001 census, 70% of Britons consider themselves Christians, but only 7% go to church. For most of these 70%, the link to Christianity is cultural. A recent British survey found that many who don�t subscribe to a particular faith opt for fuzzy religious autonomy: �I don�t need organised religion to be close to God�. And this is what John Lennon meant when he predicted that popular culture, the post-modern age, would assure Christianity�s redundancy.

Many non-active Catholics have not abandoned God, but the Church. Here, then, the Church faces an evangelising challenge: to address those who have detached their spirituality from church with a persuasive argument � which by necessity must be on their terms � as to why they in fact do need the Church.

And L�Osservatore was wrong: the Beatles� true opus magnum celebrates its 40th anniversary only next year � and I don�t mean Yellow Submarine.