More popular than Jesus to religion in his songs "God" (1970) and "Imagine" (1971). He was murdered in December 1980 by Mark David Chapman, a born-again Christian who was incensed by the "more popular than Jesus" remark. In March 1966, London's "Evening Standard" ran a weekly series of articles titled "How Does a Beatle Live?" that featured, in chronological order, John Lennon, Ringo Starr, George Harrison and Paul McCartney. The articles were written by journalist Maureen Cleave, who knew the group well and had interviewed them regularly since the start of Beatlemania in the UK. Three years previously she had described them as "the
More popular than Jesus In 1963, the Anglican Bishop of Woolwich, John A.T. Robinson, published a controversial but popular book, "Honest to God", urging the nation to reject traditional church teachings on morality and the concept of God as an "old man in the sky", and instead embrace a universal ethic of love. Bryan R. Wilson's 1966 text "Religion in Secular Society" explained that increasing secularisation led to British churches being abandoned. However, in the US, churches remained popular. Both McCartney and Harrison had been baptised in the Roman Catholic Church, but neither of them followed Christianity. At the start of Beatlemania, the group