The Beatles Vs. Jesus

It's now been 40 years since The Beatles released their "White Album," which came a couple of years after John Lennon's famous claim that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus. More precisely, Lennon told a newspaper that "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink ... We're more popular than Jesus now." This comment wasn't well received by many Christians, and mass burnings of Beatles records in rural areas weren't uncommon. But Lennon may very well have been right, because the "White Album" went on to become one of the biggest commercial and critical successes of all time.

All these years later, even the Vatican seems to be over Lennon's perceived insult. Indeed, the Vatican newspaper marked the anniversary of the "White Album" by taking the time to say there are no longer any hard feelings:

"It is a phrase that provoked deep indignation at the time, but which sounds today like a quip from a young man from the English working class overtaken by unexpected success," the newspaper wrote.

The real talent of the Beatles, it said, "rested in their unequalled capacity to write popular songs with a sort of euphoric lightness that constituted a genuine trademark".

"Today," it went on to lament, "recordings seem above all to be standardized and stereotyped -- falling well short of the creativity of the Beatles."

Lennon did issue an apology for this remark, but he may yet be proven correct. Christianity has been slowly fading in much of the world, and The Beatles have had a resurgence in popularity as younger generations discover their music. Time will tell if The Beatles are truly bigger than Jesus.