More popular than Jesus are going, They're gonna crucify me." In a BBC interview a few months later, Lennon called himself "One of Christ's biggest fans", talked about the Church of England, his vision of heaven, and unhappiness over being unable to marry Yoko Ono in church. On 3 December 1969, Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice asked Lennon to play the part of Jesus in the stage production of "Jesus Christ Superstar", which he declined, although he said he would have been interested if Ono could play the part of Mary Magdalene. Lennon mentioned Jesus again in his 1970 song "God", singing, "I
Religious views of the Beatles the "Evening Standard" that the Beatles had become "more popular than Jesus". The comment went unnoticed until in August the same year, the American magazine "Datebook" published it, inciting protests against the Beatles. The band were threatened, their records were publicly burned, and radio stations refused to play their songs. After the Beatles' 1966 US tour, Harrison broadened his interest of Indian culture to Hinduism. He and his wife Pattie Boyd went on a pilgrimage to Mumbai to meet gurus. In 1968, all four Beatles went to Rishikesh in northern India to study meditation with the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. Although