January 9 was a solemn day for former president Jimmy Carter’s Washington National Cathedral funeral service. Yet for some, the moment was marked with controversy over one of the songs played to honor the former president. Garth Brooks and his wife, Trisha Yearwood, friends of Carter, performed their own rendition of John Lennon’s “Imagine” during the service. The pair also sang the song for Rosalynn Carter’s funeral in 2023, with the song reportedly being one of Jimmy Carter’s favorites.
Yet critics pointed out that some of the song’s lyrics were out of place for a church. The song’s opening lines state, “Imagine there’s no heaven / It’s easy if you try / No Hell below us / Above us, only sky.” Carter was a self-professed born-again Christian who credited his faith for his humanitarian work after his presidency, particularly his work with Habitat for Humanity, although he was criticized for saying “Jesus would approve of gay marriage,” in 2018. Lennon, too, had an ambivalent relationship with faith, having been raised in church but being against organized religion in his later years. He received a huge amount of criticism for stating the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus,” for which he later apologized after the comments led to a boycott. During his apology, he gave his view of God, saying, “I’m not anti-God, anti-Christ or anti-religion. I was not saying we are greater or better. I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky.”
Social media erupted over the song’s use, with media personality Erick Erickson writing, “Having Joe Biden lecture us about what a strong Christian Jimmy Carter was before the crowd sits through ‘Imagine’ with the lyrics ‘Imagine there’s no heaven /It’s easy if you try’ makes me question the authenticity of the assertion.” Another user responded to his post, writing, “Everything about that is just upside down. Add Garth and Trisha, who also profess to be Christians singing it… and it is something even the Simpsons couldn’t have imagined…” Many called the presence of the song at a church “inappropriate.” “Playing those lyrics at any Christian service is very wrong,” wrote another user.