John Lennon’s ‘Imagine,’ blared at the Olympics, is a totalitarian’s anthem – New York Post

The Olympics opening ceremonies in Tokyo featured one of the worst pop songs of all time: Yes, Im speaking of John Lennons Imagine, sung by a large childrens choir and a bevy of celebrities.

As a fan of the Beatles and Lennon especially, it pains me to say this, but its true: While its melody and arrangement are indeed beautiful, the lyrics are an invitation to moral and political chaos.

Consider the opening verse: Imagine theres no heaven / Its easy if you try / No hell below us, above us only sky / Imagine all the people livin for today.

I frankly cant imagine anything worse. To say that there is no heaven or hell is to say that there is no absolute criterion of good and evil no way of meaningfully determining the difference between right and wrong, no standard outside of the subjectivities of each moral actor by which to say any one agent is better than any other.

If you doubt the convictions of a Roman Catholic bishop, take a good hard look at the tens of millions of corpses piled up in the last century by people who took very seriously the proposition that there is no hell below us; above us only sky.

What about livin for today? Wouldnt a world in which we all just live for today be a utopia? Yes, it would, but remember that utopia means, literally, not a place. We can dream about such a society, but we should have the common sense to understand that it will never come true, through our efforts, this side of heaven.

In fact, when we convince ourselves that we can produce heaven on Earth as so many revolutionaries and dreamers of the last 200 years have done then we actually produce something much more like hell on Earth.

Next: Imagine theres no countries / It isnt hard to do / Nothin to kill or die for / And no religion, too. I could only smile as the choir and celebrities sang these words just after the parade of nations attending the Olympics.

To dream of getting rid of separate nations is to dream of erasing human difference. There is nothing wrong with the existence of separate countries, and sometimes its necessary to fight and die for ones country, when its unjustly threatened. To defend this human reality isnt to succumb to mindless nationalism.

To dream of getting rid of religion is worse still. It has been a commonplace among secularists for at least three centuries that religion is at the root of most of our conflicts. But objective studies reveal that something in the neighborhood of 6 percent of all the wars for which we have documented evidence were caused principally by religion. Far more deadly have been nationalism, economic rivalry, tribal disputes, colonial conflicts and perhaps especially atheistic ideologies.

I confess that I couldnt suppress guffaws when I heard the celebrities sing the final verse: Imagine no possessions / I wonder if you can / No need for greed or hunger / A brotherhood of man.

The ones expressing these sentiments with such emotion were, without exception, multimillionaires with, I daresay, lots of possessions. Well, I think that the rest of us should give away our possessions the minute they give away theirs and I dont think we should hold our collective breath.

Once again, the problem isnt owning things per se; its lacking the moral vision to subordinate what one possesses to the common good.

As for the very last verse, about the brotherhood of man: That is, indeed, a beautiful thing to dream of. But we must attend to the simple, logical point that there can be no authentic brotherhood of humanity in the absence of a common Father. We cant be siblings unless we come forth together from the same divine Source.

Simply put, you cant have the brotherhood of man if there is no heaven, if there is no religion, if there is no God.

So go ahead and enjoy the tune of Imagine, but please dont abide by the lyrics.

Robert Barron is the auxiliary bishop of Los Angeles.

Twitter: @BishopBarron

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John Lennon's 'Imagine,' blared at the Olympics, is a totalitarian's anthem - New York Post