{"id":186,"date":"2012-01-12T08:35:00","date_gmt":"2012-01-12T08:35:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2012\/01\/john-lennon-cee-lo-green-peter-rollins-and-the-end-of-religion\/"},"modified":"2012-01-12T08:35:00","modified_gmt":"2012-01-12T08:35:00","slug":"john-lennon-cee-lo-green-peter-rollins-and-the-end-of-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/paperbacktheology\/2012\/01\/john-lennon-cee-lo-green-peter-rollins-and-the-end-of-religion.html","title":{"rendered":"John Lennon, Cee Lo Green, Peter Rollins, and the End of Religion"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
On New Year\u2019s Eve \u2013 Cee Lo Green stepped in it. The Rolling Stone headline<\/a> read: \u201cCee Lo Green Outrages John Lennon Fans by Changing Lyrics to \u2018Imagine.\u2019<\/span>\u201d The controversy could shed new light on a great old song.<\/span>\n

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THE SONG: I\u2019ve always loved the song Imagine<\/i>. For one thing, I grew up on the piano. I\u2019ve played well over 1500 gigs now with an acoustic or electric guitar in my hands, but piano still feels like home. Great piano songs in pop music are hard to find, and Lennon & McCartney wrote their fair share: Hey Jude, Let it Be, Life Goes On, My Life<\/i>, and the immortal Imagine<\/i>. It was always nice to have something good to pound out besides Van Halen\u2019s Jump<\/i>, or She\u2019s a Little Runaway<\/i> (yeah that\u2019s a Bon Jovi reference twice in one week). The song itself is simply brilliant: the piano part is whimsical, the melody beautiful \u2013 sad but w\/a tinge of hope \u2013 then there\u2019s that thing where Lennon jumps up into his head voice \u2013 it\u2019s a career song. I\u2019d give anything to have written it.<\/span><\/div>\n

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THE CONTROVERSY: On the New Year\u2019s Eve broadcast from Times Square, Cee Lo Green performed Imagine in a soulful, albeit lack-luster version that was unremarkable in every way except one \u2013 he change the words. Lennon\u2019s version was \u201cnothing to kill or die for \/ and no religion too.\u201d Green\u2019s version? \u201cNothing to kill or die for \/ and all religion\u2019s true.\u201d (An interesting stake in the ground for somebody whose big hit is the song \u201cF*#! You!) Lennon fans were not amused, and Green\u2019s been taking a beating. Granted some John Lennon fans are rabid. You should not provoke them, and here they have a reasonable objection. There are specifics to John Lennon\u2019s imagined future, and he was convinced that religion did a lot of harm. Green\u2019s minor lyrical adjustment does change the whole point of the song.<\/span><\/div>\n

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MY TAKE: For one thing, it is art and Cee Lo Green can do whatever he wants to do. You can love it or hate it, but you can\u2019t withhold his right to do whatever he wants with whatever song he wants. Art is free like that, and it\u2019s important for it to remain so.<\/span><\/div>\n

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However, I think perhaps we\u2019ve missed the deeper meaning of the lyric. Truth be told, the line \u201cno religion too,\u201d always bothered me \u2013 the whole first verse has. I just don\u2019t share the assumption that religion causes all of the problems in the world. The myth of religious violence is a pervasive thing. It holds that the creation of the nation state was necessary to keep all the crazy religious types from killing each other. It\u2019s taught in every Political Science department at universities, but if you consult the History departments at those same schools, they\u2019ll tell you that it is absolutely not true. It\u2019s just revisionist history. Nations are much more violent than religions, and much of the violence perpetrated by governments and political rulers has been pawned off on religion. From that point of view it\u2019s a lie to say religion is part of the problem and Lennon\u2019s song perpetuates the myth. The abuse of religion, however, is a huge problem, and this is what I think Lennon was talking about.<\/span><\/div>\n

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We can\u2019t forget that Lennon was deeply spiritual and, in a sense, a very religious person. In Imagine<\/i>, I think he is writing about something a little more nuanced. Could it be he was saying, \u201clet\u2019s get beyond religiosity.\u201d Peter Rollins<\/a> is working with this same idea. Rollins says that Christianity is not meant to have all of the answers<\/u> about life, it is meant to bring life<\/u>. Brilliant\u2026 He notes in an interview<\/a>: <\/span><\/div>\n

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\u201cOne of the most interesting things about Christianity is that Christ both founded a religion and yet signaled the end of all religions. Jesus said there will come a time when we worship in spirit and in truth rather than on one mountain or another\u2026.Christ thus can be seen as founding an irreligious religion, i.e., a religion that critiques the idea of religion, a religion without religion.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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In the end, I say: good art is not prescriptive, it\u2019s provocation. You don\u2019t have to agree with Lennon or Cee Lo \u00a0in order for their art to do what it is supposed to do to you. If you sing \u201cImagine there\u2019s no heaven,\u201d with John Lennon, maybe it can come to mean something different for you, like the rejection of the folk-theologies of heaven and hell that are used to control people, or of Platonic dualism and a privatized Christianity trained only on getting into heaven when you die. <\/span><\/div>\n

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Whatever you think \u2013 I have one suggestion. If you have a few moments\u2026 watch this. It\u2019s good for your soul! Especially the part at about 2:45 where Yoko looks completely baked\u2026<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=DCX3ZNDZAwY?version=3<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On New Year\u2019s Eve \u2013 Cee Lo Green stepped in it. The Rolling Stone headline read: \u201cCee Lo Green Outrages John Lennon Fans by Changing Lyrics to \u2018Imagine.\u2019\u201d The controversy could shed new light on a great old song. THE SONG: I\u2019ve always loved the song Imagine. For one thing, I grew up on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1118,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nJohn Lennon, Cee Lo Green, Peter Rollins, and the End of Religion<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"On New Year\u2019s Eve \u2013 Cee Lo Green stepped in it. 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