Last week I heard a ‘Thought for the Day’ by theAnglican Deacon and writer Jayne Manfredi. You can find it here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0lhky6w
Manfredi considers the writings of two influential people born within 7 years of each other. One was cut down in his prime, the other has just died. Walter Brueggemann, who has just died, aged 92, was an American Old Testament scholar, yet whose work and influence way exceeded the bounds of that rather abstruse and dusty ptofession. He managed to take the Old Testament out of the ‘ancient history’ department into the modern world. When divided up the Psalms into ‘psalms of orientation’ (‘Life is good because I’ve followed God’s path- eg Psalm 1), ‘disorientation’ (‘Life is rubbish’ -‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me- Psalm 22) and re-orientation (‘Life makes no sense but I still praise you – Psalm 73), it seemed to connect with the human experience of my parishioners.
Prophecy was however his main theme and the ‘Prophetic imagination’ (1978). He helped a whole generation of Christians to see the Old Testament prophets not just as seers or predictors of the future but people who imagined a future with God, and the church as an imaginative body (Which, one might say, takes quite a lot of imagining!) ‘The essential question for the church,’ writes Bueggemann, is whether or not its prophetic voice has been co-opted into the culture of the day. The community of God’s people who are striving to remain faithful to the whole counsel of God’s word will be prophetic voices crying in the wilderness of the dominant culture of the day.’
The other person mentioned by Manfredi in her talk was John Lennon, with whose words ‘Imagine there’s no heaven, it’s easy if you try’ she started the reflection. This took me right back to his death 45 years ago. She sees his words in a somewhat negative light; I see them a little differently, not at all the ‘atheist anthem’ described by many. The following is a piece I wrote on the song 7 years ago.
“It was a dark December morning in Exeter in 1980. I was getting ready to be taken to the school where I was to do my teaching practice in East Devon the following term. As I was shaving, I turned on the radio and ‘heard the news today’, the news that John Lennon had been shot dead in New York. This news had a powerful effect on me, as on so many others, with the ripples spreading further through the course of my short teaching career. One song, above all, defined that period for me: ‘Imagine’. Although not his greatest song, it possesses a wistful simplicity to which I and many others could relate. This might seem surprising, given my strong commitment to Christianity and the song’s opening line: ‘Imagine there’s no heaven.’ When I came to write the long essay required by my Postgraduate Certificate in Education, I wrote it with the title ‘Where there is no vision, the people perish’ quoting extensively from the song, the prophet Ezekiel and Peter Berger’s ‘Rumour of angels’. When I delivered Morning Assemblies to the students as a young RE teacher, I used to quote the song extensively and I even performed it to them- to much acclaim!- on my last day of teaching, before starting ordination training.
What are we to make of this influential and iconic song? On one level, it is a continuation of half-baked, lazy thinking, begun on ‘All you need is love’ and continued in his song ‘God’ from the 1970 ‘John Lennon/ Plastic Ono band’ album, a record written after undergoing Primal Therapy with Arthur Janov. This begins with an enigmatic and elusive thought which he completely fails to develop: ‘God is a concept by which we measure our pain’. The rest of the song is full of negatives, of things he doesn’t believe in: I don’t believe in magic…., Bible…, Jesus…., Buddha…, Elvis…, Beatles. I just believe in me, Yoko and me that’s reality. ’
It’s important, I think, to take this song in the context of his words from 1966 ‘We’re (The Beatles) bigger than Jesus now.’ This song from 5 years later might be seen as a wish for that to come about as soon as possible: ‘Imagine no heaven…..And no religion too.’ Is it, as some have claimed, an atheist hymn? If so, I wonder why it is it that I don’t feel attacked and alienated when I hear it sung? Often when I hear people railing about ‘God’ and why they don’t believe in God, I find myself saying, ‘I don’t believe in that God too’. I have similar sentiments when I hear this song.
Yes, I believe in heaven, but not in the way that Lennon seems to imply, as pie-in-the-sky, as something to distract us from fighting for the goals in verses 2 and 3. Yes, I am religious, that is, my faith binds me (Religio=bind) to ultimate reality (God) and other people (neighbour). If that is what religious means, then ‘Imagine there’s no country/ it isn’t hard to do/nothing to kill or die for/ and no religion too’ makes no sense, because my religion urges me to look beyond nationality too.
As for ‘Imagine no possessions….a brotherhood of man’ this is clearly a utopian vision, and one Lennon clearly didn’t buy into. The very video accompanying the song has him and Yoko walking up to a mist-enveloped Tittenhurst Park mansion . In this, he is not unique. Yet a vision of ‘no possessions’ is one shared by early Christians, St Francis of Assisi and many monks and nuns since. One of Christianity’s key beliefs is in the Fatherhood of God and the shared kinship of all people.’ Once again we find Lennon’s fatal flaw, which was his laziness, both in thought and in lifestyle.
Yet the power of this song (and it is powerful) lies not in the propositions expressed, as if it formed part of a new ‘credo’ but in its evocation of mood and firing of the imagination. AS Jeffrey Keuss wrote: ‘Lennon is saying that the problem with religion today has more today with a lack of imagination than a drive for certainty…(He goes on) It is a moving song with a piano track that gets me every time.’ This is certainly true, for the piano chords are meditative and the tone more inviting than flag-waving: ‘I hope some day you’ll join us, and the world will live as one.’ Which believer, except the most ardent of fundamentalists, could really feel threatened by this?
Lennon is calling us to ‘imagine’ the world and our communities and join in for their good. In Christian terms, this means striving for the Kingdom of God. Part of that striving is the assurance that, whatever small progress may be made on this earth, is not the end of the matter. Heaven is a supremely imagination-driven state, where all barriers are broken down and where love finally wins out. Part of the impetus to work for the poor, feed the hungry etc is the belief that, in heaven we will be seeing them face to face as equals.
So if it turns out, as some predict, that baby boomers will sing songs like ‘Imagine’ at their funerals, I could, as a priest, find plenty of food for thought in this song while steadfastly holding on to faith in heaven which Lennon appears to, but is not really rejecting.”
Imagine that!
Hugh's Views 