"We're bigger than Jesus now." John Lennon's words -- spoken 43 years ago Wednesday, in an interview with the Evening Standard -- about the Beatles are among the most controversial in rock 'n' roll history.

"Christianity will go," he said. "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."

When the quote was taken out of context by an American teen magazine five months later, Lennon was crucified in America. A documentary, 'Inside John Lennon,' takes a look at the furor, recapturing the time with both news footage and interviews. In his own words, a young Lennon can be seen apologizing, saying, "We meant more to kids than Jesus did, or religion at that time. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down ... I just said what I said and it was wrong or it was taken wrong and now it's all this."

The most revealing insight into the controversy comes from Lennon's own words, as he offers a chilling account of facing his critics in America. "I was terrified," he admits. "One night on a show in the South somewhere somebody let off a firecracker when we're onstage, and there'd been threats to shoot us, and every one of us look at each other cause each we thought it was the other that had been shot. It was that bad. I don't know how I did it. That was the last tour."