The Beatles and American Religion

Paper Summary:

This paper examines how Robert Bellah first introduced the term "American civil religion" in 1967, with references to God, the nation's mission, and the transcendent standards that Americans viewed as worthwhile. It looks at how it was also during the 1960s that the Beatles hit the music scene, serving as both a catalyst and a focal point for the millions of dissatisfied and marginalized teenage fans who believed that the world should be a better place than what was being offered. It shows how, although two of the Beatles are dead, their impact on the American civil religion endures because of the profound influences that the group had on the country during this formative period.

From the Paper:

"According to Farrell (1997), the American media had an insatiable thirst for all the Beatles' activities, musical or otherwise. Virtually anything the Beatles had to say about drugs, sexuality, politics, and religion were received like the words of philosophers or seers, no matter how casual their comments. The Sixties were also the period when John Lennon would infamously remark that "the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ, causing an immediate storm in the press and the media and resulting in an anti-Beatles campaign in the United States" (Farrell 1997:171)."

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