Every group has a message – a gospel, or good news – that they hope to transmit. This is certainly true for the “most popular, repeatedly covered, influential, and enduring rock group of all time:” the Beatles.[1] The goal of this essay is to piece together from the music, lyrics, and lives of the Fab Four the gospel according to the Beatles.

A Word about Method

There are many ways to develop a gospel according to the Beatles. Following is one of the wackiest:

Let’s assume that it is 1968 and we are all part of an apocalyptic religious group waiting for the end of days. As Beatles’ fans, we purchase the self-titled album known to fans as The White Album (because of its blank cover). Under the influence of mind-altering drugs, we realize that the experimental track, “Revolution 9” sounds a lot like Revelation 9. Looking up this chapter in the Bible, we read the following:

And the fifth angel blew his trumpet, and I saw a star that had fallen from heaven to earth, and he was given the key to the shaft of the bottomless pit; he opened the shaft of the bottomless pit, and from the shaft rose smoke like the smoke of a great furnace, and the sun and the air were darkened with the smoke from the shaft. Then from the smoke came locusts on the earth. … In appearance the locusts were like horses equipped for battle. On their heads were what looked like crowns of gold; their faces were like human faces, their hair like women’s hair. … they had scales like iron breastplates … So the four angels [of the apocalypse] were released … and fire and smoke and brimstone came out of their mouths. (Revelation 9:1-3a, 7-9, 15a, 17b)

As we reflect on this Bible passage the pieces come together. The “locusts” are insects, much like beetles. Obviously, they represent the Beatles, for they have “faces like men” but “hair like women.” The “iron breastplates” represent their electric guitars. The “fire and brimstone” from their mouths represents the music and power of the Beatles’ lyrics. Our conclusion: The Beatles are thus divine messengers of the last days.

Now, the rest of the songs on the album make sense. “Blackbird” is a call to blacks to arise and begin a race war. “Happiness is a Warm Gun” urges us to arm ourselves for the impending race war. In “Revolution” the divine messenger challenges us: Are we in or are we out?

As crazy as this may sound, this is the gospel according to the Beatles from the perspective of Charles Manson. He believed that the Beatles were the four horsemen of the apocalypse and through their music they were speaking directly to Manson and his cult, inciting them to spark a race war between blacks and whites. In the summer of 1969 in Los Angeles, the members of Manson’s cult would follow orders, and commit brutal murder. In human blood, they wrote the words “Helter Skelter” as proof of their devotion to Manson and his divine messengers.

This is not how we will discern the gospel according to the Beatles. We will not look for hidden messages, but rather, consider what is obvious in regard to the lyrics, lives, and message of the Beatles. Obviously, we do not expect to encounter the full gospel of Jesus Christ, but we will listen for echoes of the gospel – for they are surely there. Indeed, this is one of the reasons that the Beatles’ music remains timeless.

Christian Responses to Culture

There are two extreme responses Christians have to culture. Some Christians label all culture as bad, and completely reject all forms of cultural engagement as worldly, unproductive, and defiling. Other Christians brand culture as good, and baptize all of it without exception. They uncritically engage in all forms of culture without regard to its potential dangers.

Both of these responses are inadequate. Culture is neither completely bad nor completely good. As a product of human invention, it is both good and bad. It possesses negative qualities and positive qualities. More often than not, these qualities are intermingled in such a way that it is impossible to completely extract the good from the bad. If we hope to engage with culture, we will have to take it in this mixed form.

Navigating culture is not an easy job. The problem with the extreme views of complete rejection or complete acceptance is that these solutions are far too simple. It takes little effort to completely reject or completely accept culture. In contrast, learning to lovingly yet critically engage with culture is difficult and challenging. It demands that we learn to discern.

It is necessary that we learn how to navigate culture because, quite frankly, it is the only context in which we have to work. No matter how hard we try, we cannot completely escape its influence. In fact, those who pretend to completely reject culture usually create a sub-culture that reflects its host culture more than they care to realize. Just look at much of today’s Christian sub-culture and you will see a similar, yet sanitized, version of America’s culture.

Because we must learn to live within our culture without being completely defined by it – something Christians have classically labeled as being “in the world but not of it” – we must learn the art of loving yet critical engagement. In other words, we must learn to “read” our culture. Hopefully, one positive outcome of this article will be that you will be better equipped to read whatever aspects of popular culture interest you.

One way to read our culture is to recognize that God is the source of all truth, beauty, and goodness. Good art, therefore, reflects God’s beauty, truth, and goodness. Bad art does not. However, even bad art sometimes echoes the cry of the human heart for something more.

I advocate approaching culture both redemptively and graciously. We are surrounded by a wealth of cultural items that echo the beauty, truth, and goodness of God. Like ancient Israel, we should “plunder the Egyptians” and take full advantage of our cultural context in communicating the gospel. For those who have “eyes to see” and make the effort, there are many aspects of culture that can be redeemed, transformed, and used to communicate the gospel of Jesus Christ.

We not only approach culture redemptively, but also with grace. By doing so, we follow Paul’s admonition: “Whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, of good reputation... if anything is worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things” (Philippians 4:8). Many Christians use this verse to reject culture. I believe it was meant to guide us to approach our culture with grace and kindness. The verse does not call us to find completely good things, and think about them. Instead, it calls us to find the true, good, and the beautiful in all things. “If anything is worthy of praise” is a call to gracious evaluation. We are looking for the good, even in the bad, broken, ugly, and twisted. We assume culture is a mixed bag and look for the treasure in the trash, the diamond in the rough.

Fortunately, as we seek to uncover the gospel according to the Beatles, we will have no problem finding good things. The Beatles message was primarily about love, freedom, and enlightenment. All these are good themes. But, as we will see, the gospel according to the Beatles falls short – as we should expect – of presenting the whole gospel. But, if we are patient and gracious, we will discover that it certainly points us in the right direction, and thus, we are easily able to round out its message with the scriptures.

Meet the Beatles

In June of 1957, John Lennon met Paul McCartney and invited him to join his band, the Quarrymen. Paul accepted, and soon introduced the band to the young George Harrison. Years later, Ringo, also a Liverpudlian, would be added to the group.

The four lads from Liverpool conquered England in 1963 before setting their sights on the United States. Unlike other British performers before them, they took America by storm. On February 9, 1964, 73 million television viewers witnessed the Beatles’ first live performance in the US on The Ed Sullivan Show. According to Neilson ratings, an astounding 43 percent of all television sets in the country were tuned in. In early 1964, “I Want to Hold Your Hand” was number one on the US Top 100. Two months later, on April 4, 1964, the Beatles occupied all five top positions on Billboard’s Top Pop Singles with “Can’t Buy Me Love,” “Twist and Shout,” “She Loves You,” “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” and “Please Please Me.” “This phenomenal feat was a first for rock and roll, and the record still stands in the twenty-first century.”[2] The next week, they held 14 positions on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, beating Elvis’ record of nine.

Beatlemania was born!

The Beatles’ popularity continues to this day. The Beatles 1 – a collection of twenty-seven No. 1 Beatles hits – moved 3.6 million copies in its first week of release. By its third week, it had sold more than 12 million copies worldwide, becoming the fastest-selling album of all time. And now, with the Beatles’ Anthology and Cirque du Soleil’s Beatles tribute, Love, it appears that their popularity shows no signs of decreasing.

The Beatles’ were not only immensely popular, but groundbreaking. Unlike previous rock stars (e.g., Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard) the focus was on a group of musicians rather than on one individual. Unlike most other artists, they wrote their own music. Although many British acts had attempted to crossover to America, the Beatles were the first to hit it big in the States. Because their fan base was so large, the Beatles were the first to tour huge arenas. Their masterpiece, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, was the first album where each song bled into the other, giving it the feel of a concept album. And the list goes on.

The Beatles’ massive popularity allowed them to make great stylistic changes over the course of their career. This was true not only in their fashion, but in the maturing of their music. There is no doubt that “Strawberry Fields Forever,” and “A Day in the Life” are musically leaps ahead of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “She Loves You.”

Midway through their careers, the Beatles went from crooners to preachers. Abandoning the adolescent romance songs that made them famous, the Beatles began to sing of freedom, peace, and love. Many mark this transition with the song “The Word” off Rubber Soul. “Recorded two years after ‘She Loves You’ (July 1963) and two years before ‘All You Need Is Love’ (June 1967), ‘The Word’ marks the transition between the body-meets-girl love of Beatlemania and the peace-and-harmony love of the hippy era.”[3] It could very well be “the first gospel song of the Beatles.”[4] At the time, Paul himself said, “This could be a Salvation Army song.” [5]

The chorus urges the listener to pronounce the word:

Say the word and you’ll be free,
Say the word and be like me,
Say the word I’m thinking of,
Have you heard the word is love.
It’s so fine, it’s sunshine,
It’s the word love.

Armed with the boldness of an evangelist, the Beatles sing:

Now that I know what I feel must be right,
I mean to show ev’rybody the light,
Give the word a chance to say,
That the word is just the way,
It’s the word I’m thinking of,
And the only word is love,
It’s so fine it’s sunshine,
It’s the word love.

The song is “sprinkled with clues pointing to a song of a different kind. The love that John was now singing about offered ‘freedom’ and ‘light’. It even offered ‘the way’. He may even have been thinking of ‘the word’ in the evangelistic sense of ‘preaching the word’.”[6]

This emphasis on love is most pronounced in the song heard around the world, All You Need is Love. In 1967, the Beatles had given up performing live shows and were putting the finishing touches to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. They were invited to be featured in Our World, the first television program transmitted live around the world via satellite. The 125-minute program would be broadcast to 26 countries. “To mark the occasion, the Beatles were asked to write a simple song that would be understood by viewers of all nationalities.”[7] In a matter of weeks, both John and Paul wrote songs for the show, agreeing that the best song would be performed. Paul’s song – “All Together Now” – was rejected, and Lennon’s song was chosen. “All You Need is Love” was first introduced live to a worldwide audience estimated at 400 million and quickly became the anthem of a generation. The song extolled the enlightened to reject human limitations and embrace what is universally needed: love. After all, “It’s easy.”

Turner writes, “Like all good preachers, they believed that something was clearly wrong with the world. Their answers were secularized versions of Christian teachings: ‘love, peace, hope, truth, freedom, honesty, transcendence.’”[8] Paul McCartney reflected on this broadcast: “We had been told that we’d be seen recording it by the whole world at the same time. So we had one message for the world – love. We need more love in the world.”[9]

What had led to their enlightenment? The most likely answer is that their experimentation with drugs was leading to a greater awareness – a cosmic consciousness. One could call this “enlightenment through chemicals.” Drugs opened the Beatles up to the mystical and transcendent. Both Paul and George attribute their belief in God to LSD. In 1967, Paul said, “God is in everything. God is in the space between us. God is in the table in front of you. For me it just happens that I realized all this through acid.”[10] In the same year, on an acid trip, Harrison said, “Reality is God alone. Everything else is illusion.”[11] Because of these experiences, the Beatles’ songs about love went from personal and erotic to universal and spiritual. Ultimately, their newfound consciousness would lead them to dabble in Eastern religions. However, all the Beatles eventually experienced disillusion with Eastern religion with the exception of George. (More on this in our next session.)

Clearly, the Beatles were not philosophers, politicians, or theologians. And they made no claims to sainthood. But they were certainly gifted artists. Their simple message of love, peace, freedom, and enlightenment combined with their larger-than-life personalities established them as the musical messiahs of their generation. And their influence continues to this day.

Three Themes

Three prominent themes arise in the Beatles’ music: the power of love, the need for hope, and the exaltation of individual freedom.

The power of love. From “Love Me Do” to “In the End” the Beatles sang of the healing power of love. The early songs highlighted erotic love to appeal to adolescents. “P. S. I Love You,” “All My Loving,” “She Loves You,” “And I Love Her,” “Can’t Buy Me Love” are a small sample of these types of songs. Over time, the call to love became more mature and universal. “All You Need is Love” exemplifies this message. John’s continual refrain at the end of each verse – “It’s easy” – implies either that the answer for the world’s problems is simple or that the love we all need is easy to give. If John means the former, he is correct, and with a bit of tweaking can be found to be in agreement with Jesus. If John means the latter, he is wrong. Love is not easy. It is good, but not easy.

The need for hope. In the midst of social unrest and moral confusion, the Beatles possessed a bedrock hopefulness. “We Can Work It Out,” “Fixing a Hole,” and “Getting Better” are examples of this positive outlook. This optimism is generally assigned to Paul McCartney. In contrast, Lennon was downright cynical. (Of course, some would say, in contrast to McCartney, everyone is cynical. He is, after all, the source of so many “silly love songs” … and “what’s wrong with that?”) One can see the intersection of these two opposite personalities in McCartney’s song, “Getting Better.” McCartney’s hopeful chorus is “Got to believe it’s getting better. It’s getting better all the time.” John’s contribution consists of one line: “It can’t get much worse.”

McCartney’s optimism shone through even during the worst of times. When the young Julian Lennon was forced to deal with his father’s divorce to Cynthia Lennon, Paul offered the following advice in “Hey Jude”: “Hey Jude, don’t make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better.” McCartney’s incessant hope channeled through the Beatles was helpful and healing during the turbulent late 60s.

The astute reader will notice that, so far, the Beatles’ message consists of love and hope – the first two of the three theological virtues. Noticeably absent is faith. Obviously, we should not expect the Beatles’ to be a religious band, but in view of the absence of faith, we must recognize that the love and hope of which the Beatles sang was essentially a “secular” hope. It was hope in the power and potential of humanity. The absence of faith themes is interesting, especially when it is noted that all four Beatles had religious connections in their background. Paul, raised Catholic, was apathetic and disinterested in religion. John, raised Anglican, was cynical and agnostic, at best. “Across the Universe” is probably the gentlest and sweetest Lennon song that speaks of religion, but it is the exception and not the norm. In “God” John renounces belief in everything except himself and Yoko. His hymnlike “Imagine” rejoices in a world devoid of God, where “above us is only sky.” John once told George, “You have to believe in yourself. You’ve got to get down to your own God in your own temple. It’s all down to you, mate.”[12] George was the most serious Beatle in regard to matters of faith and religion. We will look at this in more detail in our next session.

Individual Freedom. Like many in their generation, the Beatles were suspicious of authority. They challenged authority and questioned reality, refusing to accept the status quo. Lennon writes in “Strawberry Fields”: “Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.” In the Playboy interview published one month after Lennon’s assassination, Lennon states, “The whole Beatle idea was to do what you want, right?” In “Come Together” Lennon makes it very clear, “One thing I can tell you is you’ve got to be free.”

The assumption was that individual freedom would protect people from oppressive institutions and lead to peace, love, and truth. This was assumed by all the flower children of the 60s who advocated “free love.” Unfortunately, this formula was backwards. The problem is not freedom itself, but freedom divorced from truth. Jesus taught that “you shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free.” Freedom alone leads to license and licentiousness. Individual freedom devoid of responsibility and commitment to others, can use and abuse others just as badly as corrupt institutions. In other words, freedom alone is no virtue. It must be freedom for something else.

Steve Turner argues that putting freedom before truth is the greatest flaw of the gospel according to the Beatles.

Instead of believing that the truth would set us free, we believed that the freedom would make us true. In other words, we thought that by following our appetites and instincts we would eventually be led to the truth about ourselves, that the road of excess, as William Blake had said, would end up at the palace of wisdom. But Jesus insisted on truth as the prerequisite for real freedom and said that truth could only be found if we “hold to my teaching.” If we didn’t put truth first, we wouldn’t be able to distinguish freedom from license.[13]

Freedom must not be used to indulge the self, but to fully give oneself for the good of others. Freedom is at the heart of the gospel, but it is freedom for the sake of doing good, and not simply freedom for freedom’s sake. In his letter to the Galatians, the apostle Paul writes,

For freedom Christ has set us free. … For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another. (Galatians 5:1, 13-15)

The Apostle Paul continues by urging us to “live by the Spirit” and refuse to “gratify the desires of the flesh” (Galatians 5:16). The reason: the desires of the flesh lead to self-destruction and harm human relationships. In other words, freedom alone is not virtuous. Freedom used to do good to other is virtuous. Thus, Paul invites us to “walk in the Spirit” by embodying “the fruit of the Spirit” which is “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Gal. 5:22-23).

Clearly, freedom is not a virtue in and of itself. It can be abused. It can also be the means to full and complete self-giving for the benefit of others. The self-indulgence that marked the Beatles’ lives is clear evidence that their message of freedom needs to be reevaluated and redefined by the gospel according to Jesus. In this regard, the Beatles allowed their optimism concerning the human situation to cloud them to the obvious faults that brought humanity so much trouble in the first place. Only Harrison would accurately assess the human situation and see the need for God’s love to overshadow and overrule human love. (But, again, more on this in our next session.)

All You Need…

The bulk of the Beatles’ material is positive and life-affirming. Their message of love, peace, freedom, and illumination are all compatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Love is central to life, for God is love. We have been created by Love for love. Our very being is hardwired to desire to love and be loved. Furthermore, according to Jesus all biblical revelation can be whittled down to the Great Commandment, which is really two commands in one: “Love God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind and love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:34-40).

There is a reason that the two commands are inseparable. It is impossible to fully, freely, and truly accomplish the latter without the former. Divine love proceeds from God and is communicated through individuals who have dedicated their entire being to God in love. It is an individual’s resting in God’s love that allows that person to fully give one’s self in love for the good of another. This love equips us to love the unlovable, to love when it is difficult, and to love when love is not returned. It is God’s love that truly brings peace, reconciliation, restoration, and transformation.

Perhaps the greatest shortcoming of the Beatles’ gospel is not the message they advocated – “All You Need is Love” – but their failure to speak of the source of love. Only George would go on and suggest that divine love must be the source of human love.

Yes, we need love, but we need divine love – gracious love, overflowing love that accepts us as we are and lifts us to higher places. We do not worship (and worship is the ultimate display of love) freedom, love, or peace, but we worship God in Spirit and truth, and this leads to freedom, love, and peace.

In spite of this critical absence, the message of love is certainly admirable, and completely compatible with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Love is the goal of all things. In some way, every act of love toward others – whether offered in faith or not – draws us into the love of God. The Desert Fathers illustrated this through the use of a circle. In the sixth century, Abba Dorotheos wrote:

Suppose we were to take a compass and insert the point and draw the outline of a circle. The center point is the same distance from any point on the circumference. . . . Let us suppose that this circle is the world and that God himself is the center: the straight lines drawn from the circumference to the center are the lives of human beings. . . . Let us assume for the sake of the analogy that to move toward God, then, human beings move from the circumference along the various radii of the circle to the center. But at the same time, the closer they are to God, the closer they become to one another; and the closer they are to one another, the closer they become to God.[14]

This metaphor not only illustrates how love draws us to God, but it also puts God in his proper place – at the center of all things and all relationships. “It assumes that God is present in a real way in God’s own universe, at the center, metaphorically speaking, drawing all people and things to God by a natural love for God, placed in their nature by their creator.”[15]

The Christian gospel teaches that this kind of love does not come about through human effort alone, but must be fueled by grace. Our ship needs the wind of the Spirit to fill our sails and empower us to guide our actions in love toward others. The fact is that we all need love, and we all need more love than we can give or that we deserve. It is God’s gracious love that provides the foundation and framework for our acts of love toward others.

True love – faithful, committed, responsible, self-giving love – is not, as Lennon sang, “easy.” It calls us to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ. Though the Beatles’ music did not acknowledge this, George Harrison recognized the human need for something more – for divine love to fuel and channel human love. Interestingly, the most recent solo material of both Paul and Ringo clearly communicate a need for God and divine love. We will look at this in two weeks.

Regardless of these critical corrections to the Beatles’ gospel, it is hard to deny that the bulk of the Beatles’ material is positive and life-affirming. In Episode Eight of the Beatles Anthology DVD, Paul McCartney reflects, “I’m really glad that most of our songs were about love, peace and understanding.” I’m glad as well. There are few artists’ catalogues that so clearly communicate such an upbeat, hopeful, peaceful, and love-centered message. We can give thanks for this, for in this we clearly hear echoes of the Gospel.

© Richard J. Vincent, 2007