“Christianity will go, it will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue about that; I know I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now.”
John Lennon took one hell of a lot of heat way back in 1966 for suggesting that The Beatles were more popular than Jesus. What he was saying was that the level of admiration, loyalty and devotion being afforded them was fanatic in its fervor and seemed to surpass any apparent level of similar devotion toward God. I don’t believe the statement was either boasting or lamentation but merely observation.
John Lennon never met the Internet; he was killed shortly before the emergence of the home computer and long before we collectively began to carry computers in our pockets. A few years back I started acquiring religious iconography of the sort that used to be displayed in the homes of our parents and grandparents. Much of it ends up in thrift stores as these older generations die off and their offspring inherit and discard the unfashionable and unwanted relics. I took this photograph as a recently purchased icon sat on my desk waiting to be archived. The statue ended up in the basement with the others but my beloved Mac, my spiritual crutch, my umbilical to the world at large remains prominent and central to my existence. Daily I sit before it, gazing into its infinite array and marveling at the wonders within.
Have we ever in human history in our reverence of God, approached on such a universal scale, the cult like level of devotion we afford our devices? We carry the apple in our pocket daily, we finger it to reassure ourselves that it is still there, we nibble it while we drive, we swallow it seed and core and then we reach back in the bag for another. We indulge every fleeting whim and every impulse in an effort to assuage our soul crushing reliance on information, entertainment and recognition. We have gained much but we have lost something more. I now carry the entire Beatles catalogue in a box, in my pocket but it is empty when compared to the memory of waiting and wanting to hear Revolution on the radio. John Lennon is long gone, Yoko Ono tweets me daily spiritual advice and I wrap up another Jesus picture and store it in a cool dry place.
