An evangelical against Christianity

I was talking with a church friend Thursday. At some point, when we were talking about culture vs. church, I mentioned how (back in 2010) I blogged about the most famous anti-Christian pop song of the late mid-20th century. We discussed how — given its anti-Christian bigotry — we couldn’t Imagine any Christian who listened to (or read) the lyrics would ever request or otherwise endorse it

After we got off the phone, I read that this same song was performed at the funeral of our 39th president, a man who had campaigned and been elected as a Southern Evangelical.

The song, of course, is “Imagine,” from the 1971 John Lennon album of the same name. It peaked at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. For those who didn’t read the earlier post, this is how John Lennon famously described his approach in a Rolling Stone interview at the time:

'Imagine' is a big hit almost everywhere -- anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic, but because it is sugarcoated it is accepted. Now I understand what you have to do: Put your political message across with a little honey.

Or as freelancer Stereo Williams reflected in Billboard during the turbulent summer of 2020:

Why John Lennon’s Protest Perennial Became an Anthem For the Clueless

…It’s a song that was almost destined to turn into what it’s become today. In many ways, the track epitomizes the sanitizing of Lennon as a persona and public figure; controversial ideas couched in a likeable melody — and a more saccharine distillation of what was a very complex and contradictory oeuvre of topical music on a wide range of issues. 

This Week’s Funeral

Fast forward to this week. Like any (departed) president, James Earl Carter Jr. (1924-2024) had multiple funerals, include the most visible, his state funeral Thursday at the Washington National Cathedral, the cathedral of the Episcopal Diocese of Washington. The diocesan bishop and Carter’s “personal pastor” led the prayers.

The full program is online. The hymns were

• Eternal Father, strong to save, aka the “Navy Hymn”
• Amazing Grace
• All hail the power of Jesus’ name

According to the program, the first two were performed by a choir, and the congregation was invited to sing the last hymn.

Just before the Lord’s Prayer was a song performed by Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood. The couple met in 1987 when both were married, and then toured and recorded songs together in the 1990s. She divorced in 1991, he divorced in 2001; they officially started dating in 2002 and married in 2005.

The program lists five verses of the song by Lennon and his wife Yoko Ono. The first two verses were

Imagine there’s no heaven

It’s easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky 

Imagine all the people

Living for today...

Imagine there’s no countries

It isn’t hard to do

Nothing to kill or die for 

And no religion too 

Imagine all the people 

Living life in peace...

To my earlier criticism, with a courses from two seminaries and a master’s degree under my belt, I would add two thoughts about why this song would be anathema to any devout Christian.

First, the premise of the song is that human being are perfectible, and through hard work, we can make a perfect utopia in this life. There are all sorts of political science and sociological explanations why that will never happen (e.g., “power corrupts”), but as Christians we know than after the fall and in this world, there never has been and never will be more than one perfect human to ever walk the face of the earth.

Second, in Christian worship, this reveals a faulty eschatology, one that does not trust in God the father (or son or holy spirit), His divine revelation and promises as revealed to the human race. We know where and what perfection will look like — in the New Jerusalem revealed in Revelation — but don’t know when or exactly how it will come about. Instead, we are called to wait for God to deliver on His promises, in the time and manner of His plan.

Reaction

A few other people remarked on the incongruity of this choice, most notably those reported by the Christian Post. The best known of those mentioned is the famous Christian apologist, Catholic Bishop Robert Barron:

"Under the soaring vault of what I think is still a Christian church, they reverently intoned, 'Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try' and 'imagine there’s no country; it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.' Vested ministers sat patiently while a hymn to atheistic humanism was sung."

"This was not only an insult to the memory of a devoutly believing Christian but also an indicator of the spinelessness of too much of established religion in our country," Barron added.

I admire Bp. Barron greatly, but presidential funerals are elaborately choreographed over years if not decades. This was no accident. This controversial song was variously reported as being one of Carter’s favorites by the Daily Mail and Fox News.

Like anyone else, President Carter had the right to pick his music — but Christian churches and pastors should draw the line. Alas, this church isn’t going to do so for an anti-Christian song, and (the reality is) probably no church (other than perhaps the decedent’s own pastor) is going to say no to a former president.

So why would Jimmy Carter do this? He was a smart man, an Annapolis grad, a former nuclear engineer. He taught Sunday school and knew his Bible, even if his Baptist beliefs moved markedly leftward after he left office.

The Nation, a famous (and historic) leftist weekly, both celebrated the choice and found earlier quotes explaining Carter’s reasons:

Carter spoke more than once about his enthusiasm for the song. He delighted in the fact that “Imagine” had become a truly international anthem. “[I]n many countries around the world—my wife and I have visited about 125 countries—you hear John Lennon’s song ‘Imagine’ used almost equally with national anthems,” the former president said in a 2006 NPR interview. “So John Lennon has had a major impact on some of the countries that are developing in the world.”

Asked by the Associated Press about his favorite Beatles song when he was attending the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival for the debut of Jonathan Demme’s documentary, Jimmy Carter Man From Plains, at the time of the premiere of Across the Universe, a film framed by the music of Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr, Carter once again mentioned Lennon’s majestic solo song.

“My favorite is ‘Imagine.’ When I go to a strange country, Cuba and other places, in some of those nations, ‘Imagine’ has become [an unofficial] national anthem. If you go to Havana, for instance, you’ll see a statue of John Lennon,” he said, referencing the memorial in Havana’s Parque John Lennon. “When we go to a folk performance or a symphony concert or to modern American music, they always play ‘Imagine,’ and it’s one of my favorites just personally. If you listen to the lyrics closely, you’ll see that it’s against religion, it’s against national boundaries, it’s against nationalism, it’s against jingoism, but the impact it has on people is profound.”

There seems to be a contradiction between this view and Carter’s stated religious beliefs. None of us know the judgement of our own souls, let alone someone else’s. But I would hope that most devout Christian clergy would reject this song in a Christian context, if for no other reason than for its potential for misleading both Christians and non Christians about our ultimate purpose and God’s promises to the world.