John Lennon was right that, when it came to entertainment, the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. What he overlooked, though, is that entertainment is faddish and that music, like fashion and technology, is exceedingly transient. However, this observation by no means seeks to re-establish the “truth” of Jesus any more than it would serve to justify some other doctrinal or dogmatic religious “truth” that has endured over millennia.
What John Lennon didn’t understand, apparently, is that, whereas the Beatles offered a form of effervescent entertainment, religion generally and Jesus in particular speak to deeply individual, personal self-interest. There is a self-interest that drives the individual’s desire to be “right with ‘God’” that is totally absent when it comes to the individual’s ranking of the significance of an entertainment form for her/his life.
