Perhaps you missed it in the midst of your New Years’ Eve revelry, but during a national broadcast of the Times Square ball drop, the singer Cee-Lo Green blasphemed one of America’s major religions. Singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” in front of thousands of drunken partiers with cameras trained on him from CNN and NBC, Green substituted words in the verse that reads:

Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do,
Nothing to fight or die for,
And no religion, too.

Green’s interpretation of the final line: “And all religion’s true.”

This immediately set off a flock of angry twitterers, mobbing the former Goody Mob singer’s account with curses and invective. Typical responses from Twitter included:

@Austin McCarty: @CeeLoGreen All region is true = no religion is true.

@Occupylvcampout: @CeeLoGreen you don’t change the words to one of the best songs to what you believe go to hell fat boy I wish you a heart attack…

@Vegardkvaale: @CeeLoGreen who are you to change the words of a true artist. So fucking disrespectful and ignorant.

@SKYENICOLAS: @CeeLoGreen Look man, you’re nothing close to John’s intellect. You editing the song makes it a Pro Religion song and not a SECULAR song!

These critics seem unaware of just how religious their responses are. Other commentators used terms like “iconic” to describe the song, and “desecration” to describe what Green did to the song. They were essentially accusing Green of heresy against a system of spiritual beliefs that might be called “Lennonism.”

Lennonism sets itself against a perception of institutionalized, dogmatic religion, not the broader, less judgmental expressions of spirituality that have become part of the modern Western landscape. Surely Unitarian-Universalists would disagree with @AustinMcCarty’s assertion that all religions being true means no religion is true.

But whether using Thomas Luckmann’s suggestion of religion as a life-integrating discipline or Paul Tillich’s “matter of ultimate concern,” the responses to Green’s performance reveal the deeply religious meaning Lennon’s “Imagine” has for his fans. “Imagine” is the central creed of Lennonism. More than a pop song, it is a hymn to secular utopian spirituality.

Like the many evangelical Christians who misunderstand the American Founders’ deism as being compatible with their own theocratic agenda, some of Green’s critics seem to have equated Lennon’s song with contemporary “new atheism.” New atheists like Richard Dawkins or the late Christopher Hitchens believe in an aggressive rationalist or scientific materialism that would be pretty incompatible with the hippy utopianism of “Imagine.”

Lennon’s belief seemed to be more of an “anti-ism-ism” in which the lines of ideology would be erased in favor of a simpler and less-contentious mode of enlightened being. In the 1960’s, a time of heightened conflict between ideologies of Marxism and capitalism, nationalism and individualism, Eastern and Western religion, Lennon played the media trickster, subverting expectations of politicized celebrity opinion by promoting “bag-ism,” “hair peace,” and “bed-ism.” The solution-based striving of political and religious ideologies were replaced with slogans like, “Together we can get it together;” “War is over…if you want it;” and “All you need is love.” The idea was that the power you needed to change the world was inside you.

Furthermore, Lennon in the late 1960’s styled himself as a guru of this so-simple-its-obvious religion. The height of his spiritual influence was the Montreal Bed-in of 1969, in which Lennon and Yoko Ono took to their hotel bed for a week, and invited in counterculture celebrities, including Timothy Leary, Tommy Smothers, and Dick Gregory. Visually emulating the Beatles’ former teacher, the Maharishi, Lennon and Ono led the assembled disciples in the recording of “Give Peace a Chance.” It was the founding moment of Lennonism, the sacred moment of the 60’s that gives life to much of the nostalgic passion the Baby Boomers have for their rock-n-roll messiah.

Non-religious figures John Lennon and Yoko Ono

What’s disturbing is how dogmatic the latter-day followers of Lennonism have become. Like many believers, after their founder’s death, they become unyielding in their faith in an attempt to show “true discipleship.” How perverted is it to lay claim to Lennon’s philosophy by telling someone to “go to hell fat boy I hope you have a heart attack.”

Cee-lo’s expression that “All religion’s true” is surely as innocuous (and ultimately impractical) as Lennon’s wish for no religion. Many of us share the ideals of peace and harmony Lennon and Cee-Lo were attempting to express, but believe that it’s only by capturing the spirit of the human religious impulse and using it for good that real peace will come about. This is a faith of addition instead of subtraction. Not “no religion” or “any religion you want” but belief in the transformative power of the most enlightened elements of religion. This is ultimately closer to Martin Luther King’s statement, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension; it is the presence of justice and brotherhood,” than a negative statement of eliminating peoples’ systems of meaning-making in pursuit of some nihilistic desert of anti-conflict.

Whatever you are, though, Lennonist, Cee-Lo Universalist, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or Buddhist, by all means, let’s Give Peace a Chance. You can start by keeping it civil on your Twitter account.

A romp of Biblical ridiculousness proves there’s nothing new under the sun.  Review by Richard Lindsay.

In my recent course on religion and popular culture, I gave part of a lecture about the history of Jewish comedy in America. Examining the seemingly endless list of comedians from among the Chosen People—the Marx Brothers, George Burns, Jerry Lewis, Mel Brooks, Sid Caesar, Milton Bearle, Lenny Bruce, Seth Rogen, Sarah Silverman, Larry David, Jerry Seinfeld, John Stewart—one quickly understands that the phrase “Jewish American humor” is a redundancy.  Through the long history of Jewish humor, there’s an ironic delivery, an examination of the absurdity of life, an ability to throw banana peels at sacred belief that grows out of a tradition of wrestling with scripture and history that congeals into the comedic patter known as “Schtick.”  If Year One, writer/director Harold Ramis’ latest film, is to be believed, the Schtick goes back to Father Abraham and beyond.

The story is about two hunter-gatherers named Zed (Jack Black) and Oh (Michael Cera) who are pretty much losers among their Stone-Age crew.  Zed’s hunting expeditions result in spears to the back of his fellows and Oh’s gathering leaves him at the bottom of the pecking order in his lust for the ladies.  “What does she see in those hunters?  She’s not even a hunter, she’s a gatherer. She’s a self-loathing gatherer.”  The pair have resigned themselves to their lot in life when Zed decides to break the one big rule and eat from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. The fruit tastes “knowledgy” but it doesn’t seem to make Zed any smarter, just convinced that he’s “chosen” to do something great with his life.  The two are banished from the tribe after Zed’s “sin” and set off in search of their fortunes.

They emerge from the woods and move seamlessly into the Iron Age, where they stumble upon feuding farm boys Cain and Abel (David Cross and Paul Rudd, respectively). After the first fratricide, Cain, Zed, and Oh escape from father Adam (Ramis) in an extremely low-speed oxcart chase. Separated for the time being from Cain, Zed and Oh find themselves a few centuries in the future, about to witness Abraham (Hank Azaria) sacrifice Isaac (Christopher Mintz-Plasse—a.k.a. “McLovin’” ingeniously cast). Filling in for the Angel of the Lord, the pair stop Abraham. “You were about to kill your son!” “I was about to sacrifice my son. There’s a subtle difference!” Drop knife on foot. Rimshot. Next joke.

Father Abraham turns out to be somewhat of a religious kook—no sooner has he taken Isaac off the altar than he’s ordering every male in the camp circumcised. He’s also convinced God has made his people “chosen” and promised them a wide swath of prime Middle Eastern Promised Land. “Yeah,” Isaac says in his ‘my-dad’s-so-dumb’ voice “but evidently God forgot to tell anyone else ‘cause we’re in different war like every year.’” Here the underlying message of the film begins to emerge—be careful what god you’re listening to when you’re convinced you‘re “chosen.”

Led by the rebellious Isaac, Zed and Oh go to Sodom, which turns out to be more like Las Vegas than the Castro. All of the earthly (mostly heterosexual) pleasures can be found in the city, but the religious and political leaders have a bad habit of burning virgins alive to appease the gods when things aren’t going well. (Oh wonders nervously if this practice only applies to female virgins.)

When the two end up in the holiest of holies in the town’s temple, they have an argument about God, wondering if the silence in the place is because God isn’t there—or perhaps he “stepped out.” Zed is actually the more adventurous one, leading this goose chase across the ancient world, but also seems to have more faith in himself and in God. Oh is the skeptic, unconvinced of God’s existence or his own ability to live a self-constructed life.

Eventually, Zed, seemingly with God’s approval, realizes his “chosenness” didn’t come from the forbidden fruit after all, but from his irrepressible spirit and his inherent value as a human being. He then leads the people of Sodom in a moment of self-actualization reminiscent of (but not as funny as) Brian’s speech to his mindless followers in Life of Brian (1979): “You don’t need to follow me. You don’t need to follow anybody! You’ve got to think for yourselves! You’re all individuals!” CROWD: “Yes! We’re all individuals! LONE VOICE: “I’m not…” Rimshot. Next Joke.

Throughout the film, Black and Cera essentially play the same roles as in all their other films, although Black’s slightly smarter than the average rock antics and Cera’s brainy mumbling make an appealing comedy team. As usual in buddy movies, the girls the guys are after, Eema and Maya (Juno Temple and June Diane Raphael, respectively) serve mainly as pretty plot devices for a story that’s really about a relationship between the boys.

Underneath the film’s schtick, and maybe the uber-schtick I mentioned earlier, there lies an underlying question of meaning. Should you be a follower or an explorer? Should you find your “chosenness” or have it handed to you by tradition, culture, family, and religion? The writers seem to suggest the answers may have as much to do with personality as anything else. Throughout the whole ridiculous story, God seems a little out-to-lunch, but there’s a possibility God still exists. In the end, Ramis and crew seem to come to the same conclusion as the Teacher of Ecclesiastes: “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun.” Especially when it comes to circumcision jokes.

Year One (97 mins.) is rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content throughout, brief strong language, and comic violence and is in theaters everywhere.

The middle-aged boys of Green Day continue they’re singular positions as composers of punk opera, as explained in this review from Richard Lindsay. 

There are pop music artists that hold us in awe of their voices, not just their power or range, but their longevity. The fact that Bono and Sting can still hit the high notes in the hits they recorded in their 20’s despite being old enough for AARP membership is surely one of the miracles of music. In the case of Billie Joe Armstrong, lead singer of Green Day, the miracle is not the purity or clarity of his voice, but that he still sounds like a punk kid when he’s pushing forty. Somehow the adolescent edge has never gone out of Green Day, either in their sound or in their songs, although maturity has brought on political awareness that takes them far beyond their early hits about masturbation and smoking pot.

21st Century Breakdown, one of the most anticipated albums of the year, continues the oxymoronic genre (punk concept album) Green Day created with 2005’s American Idiot. With this second concept album, Green Day has positioned itself as historic, chronicling the cultural malaise caused by the Bush war in Iraq and the subsequent “Great Recession” from the point of view of working-class suburbia. One of the few Generation X bands that have taken a real crack at political protest, they’re cranking out some of the most socially relevant rock since Nirvana.

Not that they weren’t always innovative. “Pop punk” was a putdown for their creation when Green Day hit it big with Dookie in 1994. At the time, a punk band that could write a decent melody and sing in tune was considered a sell-out. Then the numbered imitators came along (Blink 182, Sum 41, THX 1138…wait, no…never mind) and suddenly they were pioneers. But unlike the latecomers to the genre, Green Day has dared to evolve, continuing to stretch their talents as musicians and songwriters In the process they now have lots more tricks up their sleeve than the usual punk three-chord Monte.

21st Century Breakdown is broken into thee acts, “Heroes and Cons,” “Charlatans and Saints,” and “Horseshoes and Hand Grenades.” The album starts with an introductory waltz, “Song of the Century” sung a capella by a distant-sounding staticky Billie Joe that sounds like a hymn of yore. Then the band launches into the title track, and a great line, “Born into Nixon I was raised in hell/A welfare child/ Where the Teamsters dwelled.” As usual with Green Day, the tormented lyrics are balanced with an almost jaunty pop music accompaniment—in this case, Beach Boy-style harmonies. The song continues the innovation of American Idiot, with tracks that switch up tempos and styles within the same song, creating extended punk epics. In the first song, they switch from straight-ahead pop into a kind of Irish jig, then segway into a Queen-like half-time modulation that ends with “Dream American dream,” then “Scream America scream.”

Now as a bit of personal disclosure, since moving to the East Bay, I’ve been become a bit of a Green Day pilgrim, checking out 924 Gilman Street, a nonprofit, drug-and-alcohol-free punk club where the band played many of its early gigs, and (how do I say this in most un-stalker-ish way possible?) I have located and driven by Billie Joe Armstrong’s house in the Oakland hills. (Don’t worry about me until I start camping outside wearing black eyeliner.) And I can say, having dined at the Hometown Buffet in Pinole, California, where Armstrong grew up, it is not exactly “hell.” It is working class, and is “blind from refinery sun,” thanks to the Chevron plant in Richmond. With lines like, “My name is no one the long lost son/Born on the 4th of July/Raised in an era of heroes and cons/ That left me for dead or alive,” the point of the album seems to be the conflicted feeling of being in a country currently defined by its warring tendencies toward unlimited opportunity and profound inequality.

Along the way we’re introduced to the characters Gloria and Christian, whom I suppose we can assume are the guy and girl on the album cover making out on top of a car while a city burns behind them. Gloria is described variously as “the sinner on all the saints,” “the last American girl,” and “sister of grace,” a kind of punk non-virgin Mary. Of the “Gloria” tracks, the best is track four, which starts with a pretty piano and strings intro, before moving into its up-tempo pop chorus of “Gloria, viva la Gloria!” which sounds suspiciously like “All of Me”

Christian apparently has some mental health issues, as expressed in “Before the Lobotomy,” which starts with a “Stairway to Heaven”-style acoustic guitar intro, and then accelerates into a kind of power-pop guitar chord song with some hints of reggae. Another punk epic, it also has a Queen-style modulation ending. “Christian’s Inferno” mixes pop punk with eerie Black Sabbath dissonance.

For those who haven’t been able to discern more than “Do you know your enemy, rah-oh!” in Green Day’s repetitive radio single, some of the words say, “Violence is an energy/ Against the enemy,” and “Silence is the enemy/Against your urgency/So rally up the demons of your soul.” The “enemy” of the song is complacency.

Act II, “Charlatans and Saints” is about religion and mental illness, or religion as mental illness.

“East Jesus Nowhere” is a militant bit of Gary Glitter stadium rock that criticizes America’s military-religious complex with a chorus of “A fire burns today/Of blasphemy and genocide/The sirens of decay/Will infiltrate the faith fanatics.” Part gospel revival, part Nuremburg rally, it’s angry ground first plowed in the title track of American Idiot.

But in the next track, the band moves in a new direction that surprises and delights: Klezmer. Yes, punk Klezmer. Ironically titled, “Peacemaker,” the song is about wasting those who disagree with you. “With God as my witness/The infidels are gonna pay.” Instead of “Hava Nagila,” the chorus is “Vendetta, sweet vendetta.” This song of the gleeful assassin is probably the catchiest on the album. They revisit this Klezmer revival in the final “Gloria” song, “Viva la Gloria? (Little Girl)”

Other highlights of Act II include “Murder City” and “Restless Heart Syndrome.” “Murder City” is about the riots following the New Year’s Day death of Oscar Grant, an African-American man shot in the back by a white police officer in an Oakland subway station. Its repeated line, “desperate but not hopeless,” tries to strike an optimistic note in the face of meaningless violence. “Restless Heart Syndrome” brings back the piano and strings used effectively earlier in the album. A song about mental illness and medication, its chromatic line, acoustic guitar, and echo effects have a bleary 70’s pop sound. It’s a solid piece of composition and orchestration that proves the band’s chops as songwriters.

The third act starts with a driving punk sound and some songs that could come straight off a standard Green Day album. “21 Guns,” the album’s second single, is a good ballad with Beatles-style background harmonies, but clearly an attempt to cash in on the success of “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.”  Sung sweetly by Armstrong, almost like a lullaby, it’s not so much about making peace as giving up—a kind of peace anyway if you don’t have much control over outcomes.

The album finale starts with a reprise of the “Song of the Century” hymn, followed by “American Eulogy” a rollicking two-part punk epic that features back-and-forth between Armstrong and bassist Mark Dirnt. The final song “See the Light,” has U2-like open fifths that fade out ethereally. The whole album is pretty dark if you just read the lyrics, but somehow Green Day and Billie Joe are always able to play their odes to angst with a twist of irony and humor, rather than a punk sneer.

Some of the song conceits are a little silly coming from a group of nearly middle-aged men. “Before the Lobotomy” is a ridiculous title for musicians old enough to realize lobotomies don’t happen anymore. (Just as “Boulevard of Broken Dreams,” was way too trite a title for a good song with a cool Smiths-style beginning.) Sometimes the adolescent rage the band holds onto, must even somehow nurture considering their current wealth and success, comes off like the kid at school who pens bleeding clichés in his black notebook and complains that nobody understands his poetry.

And maybe this is why, as creative and genre-challenging as Idiot and Breakdown are, I’d like to see Green Day go someplace new on their next release. The youthful rage of Gen X is well documented in film, song, and software. But what’s it like for us X-ers as we slack our way into middle age, raising kids while we still have our body piercings and tattoos? How do we take responsibility for the institutions – government, religion, family – that failed us so miserably? What happens when mortality stops being a fashion we wear like a black leather jacket and starts to become reality? By expanding their sound, and simply persisting, Green Day has earned the right to count themselves among the voices of a generation. Now the generation is waiting to hear what they have to say about where we are now, and where we’re going.