A Communist Song at a Christian Funeral

Here’s a strange thing to do at a church-going Christian’s funeral service: sing a song that begins “imagine there’s no heaven,” which later adds “and no religion too.” Or sing “imagine there’s no countries,” when the deceased is someone who served her country all her life. Yet that’s what Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks did at Rosalynn Carter’s funeral:

The song was written by John Lennon and is, in his words, “virtually the Communist Manifesto.”

Whose idea was this and what were they thinking?