Everything is Bigger than Jesus in England

Randall Stephens

A review essay in the July 2 issue of the TLS is well worth the read (though it doesn't appear to be on-line). It gives some perspective on whatever counts as "secularization" in the United States. Theo Hobson discusses Cole Moreton's Is God Still an Englishman? How We Lost Our Faith (but Found New Soul); Peter Hitchens' The Rage Against God; Richard Harries' Faith in Politics: Rediscovering the Christian Roots of Our Political Values; and, weirdly, Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christianity.

"The English inhabit the ruins of the greatest national religion of modern times," argues Hobson. "The nation's exceptionally close fusion of religion and politics has been crumbling for nearly two centuries, but refuses to collapse and die. It still gives good pomp; the anointed monarch retains a sacramental buzz. This ruin cannot be repaired or restored without two centuries of liberalism being reversed. But nor can it be simply condemned: the country's constitution rests on it, as does English identity."

Ruth Gledhill's May 2008 essay in the Sunday Times began with these lines: "Church attendance in Britain is declining so fast that the number of regular churchgoers will be fewer than those attending mosques within a generation, research published today suggests." Roughly 6% of the population attended church in 2006.

Theodicy anyone? How could a loving God allow England's team to go down in defeat year after year since 1966?

I like what William Butler Yeats had to say on compromise and hedging bets in the divine. "You know what the Englishman's idea of compromise is?" he wrote with a flourish of sarcasm. "He says, Some people say there is a God. Some people say there is no God. The truth probably lies somewhere between these two statements."

I am the eggman (woo), They are the eggmen (woo), We were bigger than Jesus

By Randall Stephens

Will miracles never cease! The Guardian reports that the “the Vatican has finally announced that it likes the Beatles.” A semi-official newspaper of the Holy See has praised the Fab Four’s “unique and strange alchemy of sounds and words.” Though not sanctioning the Beatles penchant for alchemicals in general—lysergic and THC, the sort that turns rock Gods into walruses—the Vatican has feted the White Album’s 40th.

The chill came in 1966 when John Lennon told Maureen Cleave of the Evening Standard about his views on Christianity: “Experience has sown few seeds of doubt in [Lennon]: not that his mind is closed, but it's closed round whatever he believes at the time. ‘Christianity will go,’ he said. ‘It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first—rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.’” Lennon’s remarks had a bit to do with his reading of Hugh J. Schonfield bestseller The Passover Plot.

Whatever nuance was there in the original statement was soon lost. Official condemnations appeared in denominational magazines, Beatle boycotts and Beatle record burnings rallied the faithful. At an August 1966 show in Memphis the Beatles mounted the stage as firecrackers went off and a barrage of fruit and debris pelted them. In 1978 Lennon “thanked” Jesus for putting an end to their hectic and now seemingly dangerous tours.

According to the Daily Telegraph the Vatican has absolved “John Lennon of his notorious remark, saying that ‘after so many years it sounds merely like the boasting of an English working-class lad struggling to cope with unexpected success.’” (For one of the best treatments of the “bigger than Jesus” episode, see Bob Spitz’s hefty tome, The Beatles: The Biography or Devin McKinney’s poetic, Magic Circles: The Beatles in Dream and History. Brian Ward’s popular lecture on the subject is tremendous.)

This turn of events marks a thaw not a full-scale warming. Other acts—Black Sabbath, the Stones, the Kinks, the Zombies—will have to wait for their blessing. (Of those groups, my money would be on the Zombies' uplifting dramatic pop. Rod Argent sang in the choir at St Albans Cathedral and Colin Blunstone’s heavenly voice could melt the heart of Richard Dawkins. The Zombies masterful Odessey & Oracle deserves to be spotlighted on Vatican Radio.)

It’s nice to hear that Rome has made peace with the world's greatest rock band, even if it is 40-some years late. My good friend Bryan Zimmerman wonders if this represents a general shift away from the social conservatism of yesterday. (Southern Baptist Convention, take note.) Here’s to hoping this official reappraisal is not like Father McKenzie’s “sermon that no one will hear.”

Publish glad tidings, ye saints of Liverpool.