John Kearney is a retired philosophy professor who taught at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has lived in Waterloo, Iowa for the past six years.

On January 9, 2025, Robert Barron, Roman Catholic Bishop and prelate of the Diocese of Winona-Rochester in Minnesota, posted on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter):

I was watching highlights from President Carter’s funeral service at the National Cathedral in Washington, DC. I found some of the speeches very moving. But I was appalled when two country singers launched into a rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine.”  Under the soaring vault of what I think is still a Christian church, they reverently intoned, “Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try” and “imagine there’s no country; it isn’t hard to do. Nothing to kill or die for, and no religion too.” Vested ministers sat patiently while a hymn to atheistic humanism was sung. This was not only an insult to the memory of a devoutly believing Christian but also an indicator of the spinelessness of too much of established religion in our country.

I respectfully disagree with Bishop Barron’s criticism, especially his claim that “Imagine” is a “hymn to atheistic humanism.”

Barron seems especially concerned with the first four lines of the ballad:

Imagine there’s no heaven

It’s easy if you try

No hell below us

Above us only sky

Do these lines echo a “hymn to atheistic humanism?”

Not necessarily.

The philosophy professor in me views these lines through the prism of an idea called “possible worlds.” Those who champion this concept claim that a “possible world” is simply a complete or total description of the way the actual world could or might have been, could or might be.

On this account it makes perfect sense to conceive or imagine a possible world in which I entered the world five minutes later than my actual birth, or a possible world in which I pursued a PhD in philosophy at Rutgers University rather than Bryn Mawr College, or a possible world in which Kamala Harris won the presidency, or a possible world in which Donald Trump has a gall bladder attack from munching down too many McDonald’s cheeseburgers!

John Lennon’s ballad does not say there “actually” is no heaven or hell. The lyrics merely ask the hearer to “imagine” such a scenario. So, why not simply render “imagine a world where there is no heaven or hell” as “there is a possible world in which there is no heaven or hell?” I personally have no trouble imagining such a possible world, just as I have no trouble imagining a possible world in which there actually is a heaven or hell.

Even the most ardent religious person may, from time to time, wonder whether there actually is a heaven or hell. Those who have experienced the so-called “dark night of the soul” which Christian theologian Peter Enns describes as “a sense of painful alienation and distance from God that causes distress, anxiety, discouragement, despair, and depression,” know this all too well. Enns claims that “all Christians experience this sooner or later—some more intensely than others, some for longer times than others. But the feeling is the same: they lose their sense of closeness to God and conclude that they no longer have faith.”

It strikes me that at least some of the victims of Hurricane Helene in North Carolina and the wildfires in California may very well have experienced a crisis of faith in God. They may have asked themselves, “Where is God in all of this?” They do not feel His presence in their lives. Sure, some do still feel God’s presence and even claim that their faith has been strengthened. But others do not.

Bishop Barron may be placing too much emphasis on the “manifest” or “surface” meaning of the lyrics of “Imagine,” which may suggest an atheist, anti-religious mindset. But I believe there is a “latent” or underlying message the ballad is trying to convey.

I believe Jimmy Carter understood there is more to John Lennon’s ballad than its “manifest” or surface meaning. In a January 10, 2025 essay in The Nation, John Nichols noted that when Carter attended the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival which debuted the documentary, Jimmy Carter Man From Plains, the former president spoke enthusiastically about Lennon’s ballad:

“My favorite is ‘Imagine.’ When I go to a strange country, Cuba and other places, in some of those nations, ‘Imagine’ has become [an unofficial] national anthem. If you go to Havana, for instance, you’ll see a statue of John Lennon,” he said, referencing the memorial in Havana’s Parque John Lennon. “When we go to a folk performance or a symphony concert or to modern American music, they always play ‘Imagine,’ and it’s one of my favorites just personally. If you listen to the lyrics closely, you’ll see that it’s against religion, it’s against national boundaries, it’s against nationalism, it’s against jingoism, but the impact it has on people is profound.

Nichols also observed that “Jimmy Carter was, as his grandson Jason Carter told the mourners at Thursday’s memorial, a practical idealist who “waged peace with love and respect” and who preached “the power of human rights… not just for some people but for all people.” He was, as well, a believer in the power of music who appreciated the global reach, and influence, of a song that concluded with the words, “You may say I’m a dreamer/But I’m not the only one/I hope someday you’ll join us/And the world will live as one.”

Jimmy Carter was a devout Christian. He was a man who believed in the idea that including people of differing points of view can have a powerful and lasting effect on the human psyche. He was a uniter, not a divider. So, while Lennon’s “Imagine’ may, on the surface, appear to be anti-God and anti-religion, I do not believe that is its “latent” or underlying message.

Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood’s rendition of “Imagine” at Jimy Carter’s funeral service was not, as Bishop Barron claims, “an insult to the memory of a devoutly believing Christian.” It was a testimony to Carter’s commitment to including differing voices at the table. We should not forget that President Carter also asked Phyllis Adams to sing “Amazing Grace” at his funeral. Her performance of that hymn was as powerful and significant as Brooks and Yearwood’s rendering of “Imagine” was tenderly thought-provoking.