Sometimes I think differently than the people I am generally like minded with. Perhaps some of it is my personal perspective, perhaps some of it is being in long term circumstances with difficult people where I had to see some sort of good in them in order to endure, perhaps some of it is being bullied and wishing people would see more good in me instead of something they hate. For instance, although I consider myself to be a Christian who is loyal to the teachings of Jesus Christ but I do not think that John Lennon’s statement about the Beatles being bigger than Jesus was meant to be an attack on my God.
Here he was, a young man who had lost his mom far too soon, was not turning out the way he was “supposed to” be per the cultural norms of the time, had previously lived an anonymous life that required him to be quite scrappy, and now Beatlemania has turned him into a relatively instant legend in the history of the world. I think he was just making an observation about something he found to be rather bewildering. A rock band is in some ways being worshipped more enthusiastically than numerous spiritual paths that have far greater depths than four lads with amplifiers. In one way, I think John was actually recognizing that Jesus is who you would expect to be the “biggest” figure in the world but sadly was not.
Some of John’s lyrics and interviews indicate an ongoing internal struggle regarding his thoughts and feelings about Jesus. It has been awhile since I’ve read John biographies or listened to more than just my handful of very favorite songs, but I believe he grew up in church with a relatively conservative upbringing and then his life dramatically changed when he lost his mom at a young age. Who knows how that loss impacted his view of Jesus?
Also, what if John at one point had a positive inclination towards Jesus but then had a negative experience at church? It can understandably impact your faith when you love Jesus but then you go to church and the people who are supposed to be your family in faith treat you worse than the “heathens” do. You may start to think that if God’s followers reject you, maybe these people represent God’s view of you and He’s not so fond of you either. If Christianity were to soon die out as John predicted, then John would be relieved of the pressure to sort out his faith and all of the related contradictory feelings within himself.
There is so much actual hateful evil in the world, I think it is sad when people find the need to create or exaggerate an “evil” that most likely did not come from an evil place at all. We need to listen to what someone is actually saying, not what we expect them to say or what everybody else accuses a person of saying. John was capable of having one of the biggest, most unfiltered mouths in the world and even he got drowned out by the masses sometimes. With his sharp wit and strong opinions, if John had meant to be insulting I think it would have been unequivocally clear.
We should be more thoughtful before we immediately dismiss someone from our lives and burn their albums. Not just a Beatle, but our family members and friends. We’ve got this!
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Dominic Milton Trott on Flickr under CC License
