{"id":72795,"date":"2018-07-11T12:02:36","date_gmt":"2018-07-11T16:02:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=72795"},"modified":"2018-07-11T06:03:40","modified_gmt":"2018-07-11T10:03:40","slug":"npr-inspired-by-the-beatles-love-gospel-submarine-churches-bucked-tradition","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kendallharmon.net\/?p=72795","title":{"rendered":"(NPR) Inspired By The Beatles’ Love Gospel, ‘Submarine Churches’ Bucked Tradition"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the phantasmagorically weird Beatles film\u00a0Yellow Submarine<\/a>\u00a0premiered 50 years ago, its psychedelic colors and peace-and-love sensibility quickly influenced fashion, graphic design, animation and music.<\/p>\n

But the 1968 movie also influenced organized religion \u2014 a fact lost in the hubbub over the release of a restored and remastered version in American theaters on July 8.<\/p>\n

Not long after the British-made film landed in the United States, “submarine churches” attracted urban, young people. They adopted the outline of a\u00a0yellow submarine with a small cross<\/a>\u00a0on its periscope as their symbol and displayed it alongside peace signs, flowers and other popular emblems of the 1960s.<\/p>\n

There were enough of the churches a year after the film’s release that they operated The Submarine Church Press, which published a national directory of 40 such churches, most with mainline Protestant or Catholic roots, and held a three-day “rap session,” or conference, in Kansas City, Mo. Attendees came from New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, St. Louis and Akron, Ohio.<\/p>\n

“In the Beatles’ movie, the submarine was the place where they loved each other in a groovy way and got strength to do battle with the Blue Meanies,” Rev. Tony Nugent, a former co-pastor of a submarine church in Berkeley, Calif.,\u00a0told The New York Times in 1970<\/a>. “It also shows that a church has to have flexibility and maneuverability.”<\/p>\n

Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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From @NPR<\/a> Religion: "Inspired By The Beatles' Love Gospel, 'Submarine Churches' Bucked Tradition" #beatles<\/a>https:\/\/t.co\/GS1e7mFSVQ<\/a> pic.twitter.com\/1SSkyvg08J<\/a><\/p>\n

— Yale ISM (@yaleism) July 10, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n