The Gospel according to St John
R“WE’RE gonna be bigger than Jesus.” Not QUITE what John Lennon famously – or infamously – said about The Beatles in a press interview 55 years ago. His actual words were more thoughtful.
Lennon was talking to the journalist (and his confidante) Maureen Cleave, who has died aged 87. Cleave was a sort of Boswell to Lennon’s Johnson and later she would defend the star’s comment, saying he was merely noting Christianity’s steady decline in postwar Europe.
Lennon said it simply meant that many people, especially the so-called “young generation” were more familiar with the Fab Four than they were with Jesus.The actual quote was as follows.
“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink.We’re more popular than Jesus now.”
It’s hard to imagine that comment causing the kind of storm today that it did back in 1966.
Lennon was historically correct to say Christianity was declining (and with extraordinary rapidity) on the continent and especially here, but he spoke too soon.The Beatles were about to tour America so the comment could not have come at a worse time for the band.
Their discs were piled on bonfires and burned across the Bible Belt. Church-sponsored
radio stations banned all Beatles records, or indeed any mention of the mop-topped Scousers.The Ku Klux Klan organised anti-Beatles torchlight processions. In Rome, Lennon was roundly denounced by theVatican and Beatles albums were banned in South Africa. Indeed, the global storm marked the last time the band would ever tour. Cleave maintained that Lennon was being ironic and all on this side of the Atlantic knew that and indulgently rolled their eyes. (The “bigger than Jesus” quote didn’t even make it into the headline of the original article she wrote). But Lennon had a point nonetheless.
Today we have an Archbishop of Canterbury who is on record as openly admitting to sometimes doubting God’s existence, saying to Him during an early morning run: “Isn’t it about time you DID something, if you’re there?” Hmm. Hard
to imagineWelby keeping his job 50 years ago if he’d said that.
In the same interview he said he was certain, however, about the existence of Jesus. Hardly a leap of faith, is it? Jesus is a documented historical figure, every bit as real as Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor who washed his hands of him.
The real question is, was Jesus the son of God? Because if you don’t believe in the Almighty, how can you believe Christ was His child?
Decline in organised Christianity is all around. Abandoned churches. Minuscule congregations.Vicars (and archbishops) who sound more like muddled social workers than defenders of the faith.
Lennon died in 1980, his last words: “I’m shot”. His muse (Cleave was said to be the inspiration for the song NorwegianWood) passed away last Saturday.Are they reunited in heaven? I’d ask the Archbishop of Canterbury, but I’m not sure I’d get the kind of unswerving, robust reply his predecessor would have given in 1966.