Bigger than Jesus

September 20, 2011 By 26 Comments

Speaking of changes in attitude among Christians, check out the posts from Charity R. Carney over at Religion in American History. Carney has been writing about her experiences working in a Christian retail store, and this latest post is about the muzak that she was forced to listen to – some of which was not what you’d expect:

In addition to Christian-themed music, the stores also have an odd array of non-Christian songs (in fact, some songs used are by nature not conservative or Christian at all). This fact first struck me as I was stocking merchandise and immediately recognized the butchered version of “Imagine” that suddenly began playing over the loudspeakers. “Imagine”? “Imagine no religion”? When I finished my task and returned to my department I asked another employee about the song–how could this store be playing that song (as happy as I was to hear it and for the respite from “Awesome God”)? I was confronted by a very defensive fellow worker who explained to me that “Imagine” is a Christian song and that John Lennon and the Beatles were all Christians.

Wait, weren’t the Beatles still the antichrist just a few years ago?

Anyway, I think this means that Lady Gaga will be Christian muzak for our children’s generation.

Filed Under: Christianity, Music 26 Comments
  • http://garlixperience.blogspot.com/ M J Shepherd

    It’s like the Mormons baptizing the dead: they’re just taking everything and making it theirs. David Barton is like that, too.

    • UrsaMinor

      This rewriting of history is insidious. Lennon himself is on record as saying that “Imagine” was anti-religious.

      It’s a lot more honest when you just lift your leg and pee on stuff to mark your territory.

  • Michael

    But “Imagine” is anti-religious, anti-statist, anti-capitalist, and pretty much anti-everything these people stand for. Have they ever listened to a single lyric in the song?

    I’m not a huge Lennon fan, but this kind of thing still makes me rage hard.

    • Konrad

      I believe the standard practice is to just change the lyrics. WHen Evangalicals sing Imagine, they change it from imagine no religeon to imagine one religeon. They are probably so familiar with the modified lyrics that thats what they hear when the original is played.

    • http://itsmyworldcanthasnotyours.blogspot.com WMDKitty

      How can you NOT like the Beatles?!

      • Nzo

        I can’t stand them… I don’t like a single song of theirs, and I can’t understand how someone could like them.

        • http://itsmyworldcanthasnotyours.blogspot.com WMDKitty

          Eh… I don’t get it, but, uh, whatever.

          • UrsaMinor

            Liking the Beatles is not a requirement. I’m not a raging fan, but they do represent the music of my youth and so they have a lot of nostalgia value for me. They are an icon of the era, not necessarily its best music.

        • blotonthelandscape

          +1′d. I just don’t understand the continual hype, particularly from younger generations who missed the craze. It’s not my flavour, that’s for sure.

        • vasaroti

          We older folks owe them a big debt. You can’t imagine how sappy everything else on the radio was before they came along. I don’t think harder rocking bands like the Rolling Stones would have gotten any play time if stations weren’t trying to feed the sudden interest in all things British.
          Before them, bands didn’t change much; they just stayed with the type of sound that their first big hit had. Now, we expect groups to experiment.

        • TrickQuestion

          Not even Maxwell’s silver hammer? I’m surprised that you’d not like that one Nzo.

      • Michael

        I actually do like the Beatles. Not all their music of course, but a decent amount of it.

        But “Imagine” was not performed by the Beatles, and I find most of Lennon’s solo career pretty lame.

  • FO

    “Imagine no possession” WTFFFFF!?!?!?
    Are these the same people screaming “socialism” when they hear “socialized healthcare”!?

    I don’t.. I can’t…
    How fucking stunted must your brain be to think that Lennon was a conservative christian?

    • UrsaMinor

      Maybe they think the line is referring to demonic possession? Which, of course, will cease immediately when the whole world becomes Christian.

  • Trey

    Wow. It amazes me what pretzels some people can twist their mind into, in order to force reality to be the way they want it to be (in their own heads). Even in the face of stark facts to the contrary. Those are some serious cognative-dissonance avoidance skillz.

    Wait…we’re taking about fundie Christians. Never mind. Carry on…

  • Noelle

    Don’t know what y’all are complaining about. This makes me smile. A customer goes in to buy a Rob Bell book, and comes out with the lyrics imagine there’s no heaven stuck in his head all day. How is this a bad thing?

    There must be other pretty secular music that could be added to the play list.

    • Melissa

      There were no lyrics, it’s Muzak, elevator music.

      What’s upsetting is the claim that “Imagine is a Christian song and that John Lennon and the Beatles were all Christians”.

  • Sajanas

    It reminds me of how we watched the Life of Brian and Jesus Christ Superstar at my church lock-ins, and later I found out that they were pretty controversial with religious people when they came out. But the Lennon song? Yeesh, its like a Christian bookstore selling The God Delusion because it has God in the title.

  • busterggi

    Well I agree that Lennon’s song is anti-religion but the Beatles in general weren’t anti-religion. Just listen to Ringo’s paean to Cthulhu in ‘Octopus’ Garden’.

  • http://thesauros-store.blogspot.com thesauros

    Rob Bell thinks Lennon was a Christian – at least John’s certainly not going to hell, or not for very long anyhow. Many of Bell’s ideas sound like they came from The God Delusion. On that note, this slide on the part of “Christians” (I use that term lightly) toward what atheists are thinking and preaching (it’s getting through people – what you’re doing is working) was prophesied a long, long time ago. Enjoy it while you can.

    • http://garlixperience.blogspot.com/ M J Shepherd

      No True Scotsman alert!

  • vasaroti

    I enjoy Gaga, but it saddens me that she’s religious. Not her grandmother’s version of Xianity, to be sure, but if pastors stop screaming about her sexual imagery, someone may actually listen to her lyrics and elevate her into the bowdlerized Hollywood Strings sound track of our lives.
    Has that happened with Madonna yet? Or was Cabbala just too weird to be forgiven?

  • Robster

    The deluded folk that sell the nonsense stocked in xian stores deserve the muzak they’re forced to listen to. They should feel guilty for the silly stuff their retail outlet is releasing to the world as it may be seen by unaffected people and will result in those with the religion monkey on their back being further derided by the non believing community. What with the catholics imploding, the protestants evaporating and only the muzzies expanding, do the xians and their similarly deluded really need this on top of the rest of it? Yep, they do.

  • Len

    You’d think that there’d be some form of copyright infringement here – ie, changing the lyrics and still calling it Imagine – and having it sound like it’s still being sung by John Lennon.

  • SunshinEsBH

    ah the memories…

    I remember when i was a youth only being allowed to listern to Christain music. This led to some extreme searches thru the lyrics of some bands/songs – many of whom made our “acceptable” list. Growing up in the 80s i;m sure that many of you would be happy to know that the likes of Paul Simon (Graceland), Spandau Ballet (Gold) and Dire Straits (Brothers in Arms) all managed to pass the “Chritian Test” after much research into the lyrics.

    Go figure…

    Of course, Stryper playing on MTV made us all metal-heads…but that is another story.

    So yeah, as for the Beatles being Christian of course they were. After all Lucy is in the Sky (heaven) with Diamonds which she got from here Crown of righteousness. And weren;t they called the fundie four afterall?

    • http://atheistinaustin.blogspot.com/ Austin Atheist

      I went to Stryper’s church once in the 80s, and a guy performed a version of “Hey Jude” but had changed the lyrics to “Hey Dude, do you know God?…just let him into your heart and everything will be better” or some such nonsense. *sigh*