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"More popular than Jesus" (or "Bigger than Jesus") was a controversial remark made by the Beatles' John Lennon in 1966. Lennon said that Christianity was in decline and that the Beatles had become more popular than Jesus Christ. The comment drew no controversy when originally published in the United Kingdom, but angry reactions flared up in Christian communities when it was republished in the United States five months later. Lennon had originally made the remark in March 1966 during an interview with Maureen Cleave for the ''London Evening Standard'', which drew no public reaction. When ''Datebook'', a US teen magazine, quoted Lennon's comments in August, five months later, extensive protests broke out in the Southern United States. Some radio stations stopped playing Beatles songs, their records were publicly burned, press conferences were cancelled, and threats were made. The controversy coincided with the group's US tour in August 1966, and Lennon and Brian Epstein attempted to quell the dispute at a series of press conferences. Some tour events experienced disruption and intimidation, including a picketing by the Ku Klux Klan. The controversy contributed to the Beatles' lack of interest in public live performances, and the US tour was the last they undertook, after which they became a studio-only band. ==Background == In March 1966, the ''London Evening Standard'' ran a weekly series of articles entitled "How Does a Beatle Live?" which featured John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison, and Paul McCartney respectively. The articles were completed by journalist Maureen Cleave, who knew the group well and had interviewed them regularly since the start of Beatlemania in the UK. Three years previously she had written they were "the darlings of Merseyside", and had accompanied them on the plane on the group's first US tour in February 1964. For her lifestyle series in March 1966, she chose to interview the group individually, rather than all together, as was the norm. Cleave interviewed Lennon on 4 March 1966. At his home, Kenwood, in Weybridge, she found a full-size crucifix, a gorilla costume, a medieval suit of armour and a well-organised library, with works by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Jonathan Swift, Oscar Wilde, George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and ''The Passover Plot'', by Hugh J. Schonfield, which had influenced Lennon's ideas about Christianity. Cleave's article mentioned that Lennon was "reading extensively about religion", and quoted a comment he made: Cleave's interview with Lennon was published in the ''Evening Standard'' in March 1966 and provoked no public reaction in the UK. Church attendance there was in decline and the Christian churches were making no secret of their efforts to transform their image into something more relevant to modern times. Music historian Jonathan Gould wrote, "The satire comedians had had a field day with the increasingly desperate attempts of the Church to make itself seem more relevant ('Don't call me vicar, call me ''Dick'' ...')." In 1963, the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich, John A. T. Robinson, published a controversial but popular book, ''Honest to God'', urging the nation to reject traditional church teachings on morality and the concept of God as an "old man in the sky", and instead embrace a universal ethic of love. Bryan R. Wilson's 1966 text ''Religion in Secular Society'' explained that increasing secularization led to British churches being abandoned. However, in the US, churches remained popular. Both McCartney and Harrison had been baptised in the Roman Catholic Church, but neither of them followed Christianity. At the start of Beatlemania, the group came into contact with the Revd Ronald Gibbons, who told reporters that a Beatles version of "O Come All Ye Faithful" might provide the Church of England with "the very shot in the arm it needs". 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「More popular than Jesus」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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