What comment did john Lennon make that was controversy to US?

Answer 1

The full quote in London's Evening Standard went: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that. I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick [meaning stupid] and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me. I don't know which will go first - rock and roll, or Christianity."

Lennon had been reading The Passover Plot (whose author suggested that Jesus had faked his own death on the cross, to be "resurrected" later), which he naively expected to sound a kind of death knell for Christianity, in the wake of declining church attendance and interest in religion among young people.

The comment came and went in Britain, with no fanfare; months later, an American teen magazine printed the quote out of context, and it turned into "The Beatles are bigger than Jesus Christ!" (which wasn't even what he said, or suggested), as the Beatles were on what turned out to be their last concert tour.

Christians in the US did not appreciate the quote very much, and organized public record burnings. Even the Vatican issued a statement: "Some subjects must not be dealt with lightly, even in the world of beatniks." Under pressure from his bandmates and manager Brian Epstein, Lennon made a public apology at a press conference in Chicago, during the summer of 1966.

Lennon: "I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it, but I just happened to be talking to a friend and I used the words "Beatles" as a remote thing, not as what I think - as Beatles, as those other Beatles like other people see us. I just said "they" are having more influence on kids and things than anything else, including Jesus. But I said it in that way which is the wrong way."

Reporter: "Some teenagers have repeated your statements - "I like the Beatles more than Jesus Christ." What do you think about that?"

Lennon: "Well, originally I pointed out that fact in reference to England. That we meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this."

Reporter: "But are you prepared to apologize?"

Lennon: "I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I was saying. I'm sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done. I've tried to tell you what I did do but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I'm sorry."

Lennon remembered the experience years later as the "Jesus Christ Tour", and wrote in a memoir "I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days."

There ain't no Jesus gonna come from the sky

Now that I found out, I know I can cry!

-- John Lennon, I Found Out (1970)

Answer 2

The comment was made in March of 1966 during an interview with journalist Maureen Cleave for a series of articles entitled "How Does a Beatles Live?" that appeared in London's The Evening Standard. John Lennon's comments provoked no reaction in the UK. On the 3rd of July the interview appeared in the 'New York Times' Magazine and again provoked no reaction. Later that month part of Lennon's quote appeared on the cover of teen magazine 'Datebook'. In Birmingham, Alabama DJ Tommy Charles heard of Lennon's remarks and pulled the Beatles from the stations airwaves. News of the stations ban spread across the South and soon other stations fallowed suit. Stations in the 'Deep South' organised bonfires and urged teens to burn their Beatles records. After continued anger and death threats from the KKK, in August of '66 Lennon reluctantly apologized

-John Lennon's "More popular" quote was never meant to incite anger or riots but was merely an honest observation of England's decline in Christian church attendance.

(NOTE: I tried to type the entire quote but answers.com censored it.)