Gentle and yet increasingly stirring as the song progresses, "Imagine" is unabashedly utopian and deeply moral, calling on people to live, as one humanity, in peace.

It is also purposely and powerfully irreligious.

From its opening lyric, "Imagine there's no heaven," to the refrain, "And no religion too," Lennon sets out what is, to many, a clear atheistic message.

While most pop songs are secular by default — in that they are about the things of this world, making no mention of the divine or spiritual — "Imagine" is explicitly secularist. In Lennon's telling, religion is an impediment to human flourishing — something to be overcome, transcended.

As a scholar of secularism and a devout fan of the Beatles, I have always been fascinated by how "Imagine," perhaps the first and only atheist anthem to be so enormously successful, has come to be so widely embraced in America. After all, the U.S. is a country that has - at least until recently — had a much more religious population than other Western industrialized democracies.

Since being released as a single on Oct. 11 1971, "Imagine" has sold millions, going No. 1 in the U.S. and U.K. charts.

And its popularity has endured.

Rolling Stone magazine named "Imagine" as the third greatest song of all time in 2003, and it regularly tops national polls in Canada, Australia and the U.K.

Countless recording artists have covered it, and it remains one of the most performed songs throughout the world — the opening ceremony of this year's Olympics Games in Tokyo featured it being sung by a host of international artists, a testament to its global appeal.

But not everyone is enamoured of its message.

Robert Barron, the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles, responded to the recent Tokyo rendition by lambasting "Imagine" as a "totalitarian anthem" and "an invitation to moral and political chaos."

His issue: the atheistic lyrics.

Numerous attempts have been made since "Imagine" was released to reconcile Lennon's anthem with religion.

Scholars, those of faith and fellow musicians have argued that the lyrics aren't really atheistic, just anti-organized religion.

Others have taken the sledgehammer approach and just changed the lyrics outright - CeeLo Green sang "And all religion's true" in a televised rendition on New Year's Eve 2011.

In interviews, Lennon was at times ambiguous about his beliefs on religion and spirituality, but such ambiguity is at odds with the clear message of "Imagine."

The song's irreligious ethos is frank.

The first verse speaks of there being "no heaven," "no hell" - "Above us, only sky."

In such clear, distilled words, Lennon captures the very marrow of the secular orientation.

To me, Lennon is saying that we live in a purely physical universe that operates along strictly natural laws - there is nothing supernatural out there, even beyond the stars.

He also expresses a distinct "here-and-nowness" at odds with many religions.

In asking listeners to "Imagine all the people, livin' for today," Lennon is, to quote the labour activist and atheist Joe Hill, suggesting there will be "no pie in the sky when you die," nor will a fiery eternal torture await you.

Lennon's lyrics also give way to an implied existentialism.

With no gods and no afterlife, only humankind - within ourselves and among each other - can decide how to live and choose what matters.

We can choose to live without violence, greed or hunger and - to quote "Imagine" - exist as a "brotherhood of man … sharing all the world."

It is here that Lennon's humanism — the belief that humans, without reliance upon anything supernatural, have the capacity to create a better, more humane world - comes to the fore.

Nihilism is not the path, nor is despondency, debauchery or destruction.

Rather, Lennon's "Imagine" entails a humanistic desire to see an end to suffering.

The spirit of empathy and compassion throughout the song is in line with what scholarship has found to be strong traits commonly observable among secular men and women.

Despite attempts to tie Lennon and "Imagine" to blood-lusting atheists like Stalin and Pol Pot, the overwhelming majority of godless people seek to live ethical lives.

For example, studies have shown that when it comes to things like wanting to help refugees, seeking to establish affordable health care, fighting climate change and being sensitive to racism and homophobia, the godless stand out as particularly moral.

Indeed, secular people in general exhibit an orientation that is markedly tolerant, democratic and universalistic — values Lennon holds up as ideals in "Imagine."

Other studies reveal that the democratic countries that are the least religious — the ones that have gone furthest down the road of "imagining no religion" — are the safest, humane, green and ethical.

"Imagine" was not the first time Lennon sang his secular humanism.

A year before, in 1970, he released "I Found Out," declaring his lack of belief in either Jesus or Krishna.

Also in 1970, he put out the haunting, scorching "God."

Beginning with a classic psychological explanation of theism — that humans construct the concept of God as a way to cope with and measure their pain — "God" goes on to list all the things that Lennon most decidedly does not believe in: the Bible, Jesus, Gita, Buddha, I-Ching, magic and so on.

In the end, all that he believes in is his own verifiable personal reality. Arriving at such a place was, for the bespectacled walrus from Liverpool, to be truly "reborn."

But neither "I Found Out" nor "God" achieved anywhere near the massive success that "Imagine" did.

No other atheist pop song has.

• Phil Zuckerman is a professor of sociology and secular studies at Pitzer College.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission.

Mark David Chapman, 59, told the New York State parole board last month about his faith journey behind bars, almost 35 years since he took Lennon's life.

Chapman told the board the reason he had killed Lennon was: "I had extremely selfish motives for my own self-glory. That's the best way I can say it."

But that has changed, the Christian Post reported.

"My focus is totally, it isn't on me anymore. God has helped me through the years to see, 'hey, there is other people in this world'. Jesus has helped me to see that he loves me, and that is what has made the difference in my life is him."

Chapman was denied parole for the eighth time, with the reason being his premeditated act in killing Lennon.

He is serving a 20 year to life sentence in a prison near Buffalo in New York State.

Chapman said a series of letters exchanged between him and a pastor was what led him back to God.

At the beginning of Chapman's sentence, he had received a letter from a pastor.

Although it took Chapman a year and half before he would respond to the letter, over the last 33 years Chapman has written over an estimated 500 letters to the pastor who has helped him with spiritual guidance.

Chapman said he meets with this pastor every now and again and is scheduled to meet with him in a few weeks.

Chapman said there is only one purpose in his life now: preach about the love of Jesus Christ to prisoners.

"I am interested in one thing and that is ministering to prisoners," Chapman said.

"Me and my wife have a ministry. We distribute brochures and tell people about Christ. These kids coming in here now, they can have an option. They don't have to go to the gangs."

The Christian Post story reported that Chapman is still married to his wife, Gloria Abe, despite her living thousands of miles away in Hawaii.

She tries to visit him about once a year.

"I can't believe she has stuck with me for all these years but she has," Chapman said.

"We are closer to the Lord now than we were on the street. So I am going to credit him with keeping our marriage together and our sanity."

Source

• Christian Post
• Image: ABC News

To "live for today" is precisely what we all do, all of us, believers and not. Christians do not neglect present exigencies just because they believe there is a afterlife. Rather, the call of eternal life makes this world more, not less important. To claim that Christians do not care about today, so wrapped up are they in what is to come, is to confuse Christianity with millenarian cultists, which is what we are not.

Heaven and hell, by the way, are not places - they are states. Heaven is the state of seeing the Beatific vision; hell is the state of being utterly cut off from God. The idea of these being places either above or below us is persistent, and has its roots in Classical literature, but is certainly not taught by the Church.
Again, the nation-state may well engage in war with other states, but it is important to realise that the nation exists to defend and protect its citizens. Anarchy, in the classical meaning of the word, is envisioned as some sort of utopia, but in practice, where the state withers away, anarchy of the most non-benign type succeeds. Look at Somalia today. Look at Lebanon in the time of its civil war. Look at England under King Stephen. The withering away of the state does not lead to peace - but the complete opposite.

As for religion withering away and leading to peace - have a look at some of the avowedly atheist states of the twentieth century. Continue reading

Image: ucanews.com