The Beatles

In 1957 16-year-old John Lennon met 15-year-old Paul McCartney at a St Peter’s Parish Church party in Woolton, Liverpool. Lennon’s band, The Quarrymen were performing at the do whilst Paul, who was baptized a Roman Catholic but was raised inter-denominationally was attending the function. Impressed by Paul's ability to tune a guitar and by his knowledge of song lyrics, John asked him to join his band as lead guitarist. They renamed themselves The Beatles and with guitarist George Harrison and drummer Ringo Starr , the Fab Four went on to dominate rock music and pop culture in the 1960s.
In 1966 John Lennon commented in an interview with a London newspaper, “I don't know what will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. We're more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me." His comments created some upset in Britain but when a magazine got hold of the article in the United states a few months later there were mass protests from Christians in the Bible Belt area, Beatles records were burnt publicly and some concerts were cancelled. The Vatican also made a public denunciation of Lennon's comments, but in 2008 a Vatican newspaper belatedly forgave the Beatles explaining that he had simply been “showing off.”
In 1970, the same year that the Beatles split up, George Harrison’s My Sweet Lord reached number one in the US and UK pop charts. The song was an attempt to get radio listeners to chant “Hare Krishna” which he believed is a method of becoming one with God. During the late 1960s the four Beatles had shown an interest in Eastern religion and for a period were students of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s Transcendental Meditation movement. Their attraction towards this belief helped make adoption of an Eastern religion a trendy thing among the young.