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"(You got to serve yourself / Nobody gonna do it for you / You may believe in devils / You may believe in laws / But you know you're gonna to have to serve yourself.")Unlike the other Beatles, Lennon was raised as a nominal Christian and attended Sunday school at St. Peter's Church in Woolton, Liverpool. This early exposure to Christianity may explain why he always seemed to regard Jesus as a figure who had to be dealt with, whether through comparison ("The Beatles are more popular than Jesus"), identification ("They're gonna crucify me," in "Ballad of John and Yoko"), or challenge ("I don't believe in Jesus," in "God").

Where his contemporaries ignored Jesus, Lennon had to continually take him on. In his final interviews, carried out just weeks before his death in December 1980, Lennon said his beliefs could be described as "Zen Christian, Zen pagan, Zen Marxist" or nothing at all. Speaking to Newsweek's Barbara Graustark, however, Lennon revealed that he still reads the Bible. "Some of [Christ's parables] are only making sense to me now, after a whole life of sitting in church or school," he told her.

"It was just moany, moany, moany for years, and then I hear it again and I think, God, that's what he means."

Steve Turner is a journalist and poet living in London.

Nowhere Man and Lennon in America are available from Amazon.com and other Web retailers. The Buffalo Newsand The Times discuss the controversy swirling around the sources used for Lennon in America. An interview with Geoffrey Giuliano, author of Lennon in America, is available online. Excerpts of Nowhere Man are available from the publisher.In 1966, there was a furor over Lennon's alleged comment that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus. About.com has an area devoted to the Beatles, which links to the other top Beatles sites.Sister publication Books & Culture looked at the spiritual side of Lennon contemporary Bob Dylan in a 1998 issue.

Previous Popular Culture columns include:

The Clay Cries Out | "The Miracle Maker" presents an animated, supernatural, and utterly believable Jesus. (April 3, 2000)

Take a Little Time Out | Amy Grants ever-smiling face is everywhere, obscuring the tragedy of two failed marriages. (Feb. 7, 2000)

Rocking the Church | The Rolling Stone of Christian magazines turns 20. (March 1, 1999)

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June 12 2000, Vol. 44, No. 7