In 1966 journalist Maureen Cleave interviewed the Beatles’ John Lennon. He claimed that Christianity would fade. “We’re more popular than Jesus now,” Lennon remarked. Religious publications in Britain and America parsed Lennon’s comments and debated the state of organized religion. Newspapers included heated editorials on the topic. Protestors showed up outside of the Beatles’ US concert venues in late summer 1966.
Lennon’s remarks played into broader fears shared in Britain and America about the future of Christianity and the changing role religion in society. On April 8, 1966 Time magazine’s cover story asked, “Is God Dead?” In previous years Bishop of Woolwich John Robinson had posed similar questions to the British public, with bestselling books.
Participants in this seminar will discuss these and related controversies. Some of the questions to be asked include: How did the decline of traditional faith reform society, education, and culture? In what ways did the 60s youth revolution and rock music reshape religion? What role did writers and intellectuals play in the religion/secularism debate? How did church leaders and religious groups respond to concerns of religious decline in the Long 1960s?
The seminar is free and open for all. It is sponsored by the Jahre Fund.