(Friday, March 4, 1966) — In an interview with Maureen Cleave printed today in the London Evening Standard, John Lennon of The Beatles was quoted as saying:

“Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn’t argue with that; I’m right and I will be proved right. We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first – rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It’s them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

The statement, being part of a two page interview, went largely unnoticed in Britain at the time, but when the quote appeared in the American teen magazine Datebook on July 29, 1966, angry reactions flared up from Christian communities.