The good folks over at The Promontory Arts & Faith Conversation Forum are having a fascinating discussion about The Joshua Tree. It happens that Jeffrey Overstreet, who is the film critic for Christianity Today, is a mod on that board, and he advances a reading of the ever-elusive, cryptic, and strangely compelling "With Or Without You" I have never heard.

If Reblogger comments weren't still down, you could tell me what you think of it.

Another reprint of the preaching U2 article today, in the Dallas-Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

Aha. All these hits all of a sudden must be from the links on Christianity Today's Weblog and on Thunderstruck. Thanks, guys.

BTW: so sorry Reblogger comments are down just now when many of you are joining us having read the Inquirer profile of my co-editor Raewynne, or its reprint in Indiana. I can't do anything about it, unfortunately.

I've now read the JRS article on Jeremiah, ATYCLB, and Aung San Suu Kyi. My first comment: in case you were wondering, this article is not at all the kind of work you will find in Get Up Off Your Knees.

Second, it is a good example of two things: 1) finding interesting Biblical connections with something in the corpus of U2's music and 2) working with them rather naively and clumsily.

You can say reading Aung San Suu Kyi's situation through the lens of Jeremiah's story is illuminating. You can say reading ATYCLB through the lens of Jeremiah's story is illuminating. You can point to ways that U2 seem to resonate with (and draw attention to other people who resonate with) some of the Biblical themes given prominence in Jeremiah. You can even get all those voices in the same room (metaphorically) and see what they sound like put next to each other.

But what you just can't do is what this article does: argue from some ways in which two unrelated stories illuminate one another to Bono's having consciously intended to link them -- at least, not unless Bono has told you in an interview why he wrote what he did. (And, if Into the Heart is any indication, probably not even then!)

So to my mind, the article makes a completely inappropriate leap in trying to convince us that U2 (whom it refers to throughout as "Bono") made a conscious parallel between Jeremiah and Aung San Suu Kyi and threaded Jeremiah references throughout ATYCLB because "Jeremiah spoke words of comfort that modern day victims of injustice need to hear," and in order to "elevate [her] to the status of prophet" and equate repressive governments with the "unrepentant establishment which opposed Jeremiah." Maybe that was part of what was going on -- though I doubt it; surely there are more obvious parallels for justice-seekers who kept working in prison and more obvious sources for promises of comfort -- but it is very very far from exhausting the themes even of the one song "Walk On."

Once again, I'll hop up on my soapbox about the futility of looking for The Meaning of U2 lyrics. There is not one meaning to any work of art, especially songs as allusive and interactive as U2's. Point out quotes, point out echoes, point out people who think or write in the same way, point out experiences the band have said shaped a piece of music, but don't try and tell us the one thing your finger is aimed at just now is all there is.

My other soapbox: there are 4 people in this band.

Things I like about the article: the way he points out the band's particular gift for holding together prayer and activism; the cute little J33:3 story; those "in a hole" citations.

By the way Remember Aung San Suu Kyi and the more than 100 members and supporters of the National League for Democracy who are missing and/or injured after a violent incident last May.

Raewynne was interviewed about the "preaching U2" book this morning (afternoon their time) on Dublin's Spin 103.8 radio. In the extremely unlikely event anyone has access to that audio, let me know; I'd love to post it here.

The Philly Inquirer story is the top link on @U2 right now. We're also on U2 Page. {Later additions: and U2 Guatemala (under "noticias") and Interference.}

Wish they'd mentioned a few more of the denominations that are represented in the book, but overall it's a nice piece on Raewynne, who was, after all the topic of the article. To those who have found this blog because of the Inquirer profile, we're extremely sorry you can't order the book yet.

Another interesting link on @U2 today -- The Prophet Jeremiah, Aung San Suu Kyi, and U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind: On Listening to Bono's Jeremiad. I haven't read it yet, but enjoy....

Here's the article profiling Raewynne, with several mentions of the book, the adult spirituality program on U2 therein, and on preaching pop culture in general.

This is old news, but Eugene Peterson, who wrote the forward to our U2 sermons book (Bono is a big fan of his Bible version), gave a keynote at the Presbyterian Church USA General Assembly this summer, and it's written up here. I love this, as part of a comment from him about how the Bible is "not an encyclopedia," but a story which we "can only enter by being submissive":

Peterson said the most frequent complaint he hears about The Message, his translation of the Bible into contemporary English, is that there are no verse numbers. �People say, �How can I study this? I don�t know where I am.��
That�s the point, he tries to explain to these critics. �You�re out of control.�

Amusingly, a new version has just come out. It has verse numbers. Religious people just hate to be out of control.

The end of RQ, which I discovered a couple weeks ago, is a real loss to thoughtful, outside-the-box, provocative Christian writing. Andy Crouch, Bill Haley, et al.: thanks for a great run. When I asked our contributors to suggest publications that might write well about this U2 book, more of them named RQ than any other journal.

Today is the anniversary of my Baptism. I tell you this because I still have no book news.

Raewynne is getting profiled by the Philadelphia Inquirer, who are also going to include material on the Get Up Off Your Knees book. If the article is available online, I'll link it here when it appears.

After church today, a husband and wife who are about to be received into the church and have their baby baptized were hanging around waiting for me, and when I got to them the husband asked what kind of music I listened to. I told him everything, but I was a big U2 fan, and he said "Oh, great; then you'll love this, it's also alternative--" and pressed a CD into my hand. It was by the band Live, a current song titled "Heaven," and they'd burned it for me because they wanted me to hear it.

I played it a few times in my car on the way over to do a hospital call. The lyrics are not at all theologically complicated, but talk on a popular level about the idea that intellectual "evidence" against God pales next to intuitive experience of God in nature and people. It's a little individualistic and fideistic, but sincere in its intention and preach-able, with care.

However, I came home and looked up the video (on the VH-1 top 20 currently) and it just blew me away. I have no idea how conscious they were of the images they were using, but the confluence of Baptism/leap of faith/savior imagery is unbelievable. I was crying by the end. You could even preach it as a summary of salvation history. If you happen to be a preacher and work with contemporary videos in worship, I highly recommend watching it (scroll until you find the title, then click on the little TV.) It seems pretty obvious that I should try to use it in some way at this couple's baby's baptism...

Today, in some western Christian traditions, is a day that is in some way dedicated to Mary. It's Assumption for Roman Catholics, St. Mary the Virgin for me; I thought a version of this day was also in the pan-Protestant Revised Common Lectionary as well, but now I can't find it, so perhaps it isn't (anybody know?)

Anyway, to get somewhere close to the main topic, here is my question: U2 is a band that clearly loves and respects women, that enjoys playing with female images for God, that has often worked with "mother" issues, and that comes from a heavily Roman Catholic country. Why is it that Mary almost never shows up in their work?

At the moment all I can think of is "looking for Jesus and his mother" from Zooropa, and the little statue from The Edge's gear on the last tour (I'd show you a picture if I had one, but I don't. If someone wants to tell me where one can be found on the web, I'll link to it.) And some might include the rosary the Pope gave Bono, I suppose.
{Edit: thanks to an anonymous commentator for telling me about one more: a recording of Bono reciting Yeats' "Mother of God" on a benefit CD.}

By the way, I don't have an answer to this question, in case you were hoping I'd give you one.

Thanks to The Corner for the link.

Shameless self-promotion: looks like someone at U2 Fansites found this and put us in; I've updated the listing a tad now. If you like us, you could go click on some stars.

I've seen a couple places in the fandom recently links to the listing for U2 on a site I don't want to promote. Its aim is to dig up dirt on artists in the Christian music industry, as well as spiritually thoughtful mainstream bands, in order to prove that all of them are evil, twisted corrupters of pure young minds. I've also noticed, in my referrer logs, some evidence of people searching for ugly "facts" about the people in U2 and their families.

All that would bother me a lot anyway. But it does especially when I'm wrapped up in a book project which takes a diametrically opposed perspective. We have been so careful throughout work on Get Up Off Your Knees -- from the very first call for submissions through the editing process and onward -- to be clear with everyone that our professional interest as theologians and homileticians was not in the band as people, and most of all not in their personal lives or convictions or lack of same. All that stuff is just out of bounds for this project, and should be. These sermons are about, as someone who got a preview put it to me recently, "the Big Ideas," and how particular works of art -- U2 lyrics, in this case, but it could be any artist -- illuminate or question those ideas.

I wonder if the people behind sites like that would argue the same way for other artistic genres? Say, that a conscientious person of faith shouldn't, for example, find spiritual benefit in the "Hymn to St. Cecelia" by Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden, or play off it to make a point in a sermon? Or is the hatred and fear really all just about rock 'n' roll?

It sort of inspires despair when I see this blood-lust for "dirt" ....and even more when I get afraid that some people might think a book of U2 sermons would have anything in common with it.


Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

Gentle Reader: If you have room for an extra prayer, thought, or whatever you do, now would be a really good time to offer one for the next steps in this book project.

Well, all right then. As yet untitled "Spirituality of U2" schtick coming up October 21st here. (Yes, that's the establishment that was used in Cheers.) O God please let the book be out by then. Requirements for this Theology on Tap thing basically boil down to: 1) must mention U2 in the title and 2) no altar call.

Actually, the latter was mostly us making a joke based on the setting (a pub). But later on I decided if you were going to do an altar call at a U2-related Christian church event, wearing a Mirrorball Man outfit would probably be an absolute requirement.

I got a message on the church answering machine this evening from a parish in Boston, saying, "Hey! We'd like to hire you this fall to come do your 'Spirituality of U2' schtick for us!" Well, I'd love to. But I don't at this point have a "Spirituality of U2" schtick.

To do list: Prepare "Spirituality of U2" schtick.

Psalm parallelism in U2 lyrics

Since I posted that thing on Wednesday about Psalm parallelism, it has been a topic of conversation around here. "We should write examples down!" said my beloved eventually - sorry, but in this house, we're actually interested in arcane topics like U2 and Psalm parallelism, and I even had the excuse that I hadn't refreshed my memory on Hebrew poetic forms in some years. I gave up on anything like a comprehensive list immediately, but... lots of CDs spread out on the bed and many hits on the Bible Gateway later, results exist which are... still way too long to post on a blog.