Just as the Beatles‘ hype was reaching a fevered pitch, John Lennon uttered an off-hand comment that sparked protests, led to their records being banned, and even incited death threats. But a newly released interview from 1969 sheds more light on what Lennon meant, and it turns out he was stumping for Jesus.
On March 4, 1966, Lennon told the London Evening Standard, “Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I do not know what will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. We’re more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary.”
Lunkheads around the world, especially in the southern United States, wigged out and proclaimed Lennon a blasphemer. Shortly thereafter he issued a half-hearted apology, but stuck to his guns on what he meant.
“I was not saying whatever they’re saying I was saying. I’m sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing,” Lennon said in a press conference in Chicago on August 11. “I apologise if that will make you happy. I still do not know quite what I’ve done. I’ve tried to tell you what I did do, but if you want me to apologise, if that will make you happy, then OK, I’m sorry.”
In a newly available interview from 1969, Lennon defends his first statement and echoes some language that would warm the hearts of evangelicals…had they heard it. He saw the Beatles’ popularity as an opportunity to turn kids on to Jesus’ message:
