"...a lyric ran through my head..."

Get Up Off Your Knees contributor Mike at Things of Infinite Importance writes about his most recent trip to Africa and what it's like to observe the Confirmation of kids who are under a death sentence purely because of geography.

ONE from Religious News Service

The Religious News Service does their part with a story on ONE, reprinted here in The Baptist Standard.

notes from a truth-seeker - U2 Live in Seattle

Rachelle of notes from a truth seeker, urban abbess of Monkfish Abbey, lets her husband make a guest post about having seen U2 live in Seattle. Theology, merch, political rants: sounds like U2 to me.

[EDIT: Seattle-related addition. For those who are asking, "Who is Steven Reynolds of World Vision?" (the guy "One" was dedicated to, who Bono said was the source of his passion for Africa), he's the same guy who wrote these, and in the Kentucky one he relates the backstory, dating to Ethiopia in 1985. I had the pleasure of hearing him speak on AIDS in Africa at Soulfest last summer.]

radio rebellion: U2 in Worship...the obvious question

Now here's a really on-topic post for this blog! Chris over at radio rebellion is doing a sermon series on the fruit of the Spirit, and he wants to use some U2 media with it. With his permission, then: What suggestions do our readers have for this worthy endeavor?

A few that immediately come to mind for me:
Joy: the U2 visual surely most used in churches, "Streets" from the Boston DVD; or perhaps "Elevation" from Slane (live video).
Faithfulness: "A Man and A Woman" (no video) or "I Will Follow" (from Boston or anywhere else as video)
Self-Control: If you've got a really really cool church, "If You Wear that Velvet Dress" from Pop. Probably nobody has a church that cool, in which case I'll nominate "Vertigo." (video or not)
Love: Totally depends where you're going with it. Could be anything from "Pride" to "All I Want is You." "When Love Comes to Town" might be a nice blank slate for a preacher, since love is depicted as life-changing but never actually defined.

If I were doing this I would also probably do something I don't do much, which is quote the actual people in U2, rather than just their lyrics -- because there are some excellent fruit of the Spirit quotes that come immediately to mind.

Grab bag of articles

Jim Wallis of Sojourners and Richard E. Stearns of World Vision piggyback on U2's Seattle dates to publish an editorial on the goals of the ONE Campaign such as debt relief, fair trade, and extending medical and information technology to Africa. Nice article; pity the Seattle editors can't spell "U2." Incidentally, if you are in the USA and support Make Poverty History, but weren't following what happened at the G-7 last weekend on debt cancellation, some people are emailing Treasury Secretary Snow about it this week. A longer article, US, Europe Spar on African Aid, gives more background. [Edit: and if you are Canadian (while I know you guys have other political issues to think about at the moment too), some people are calling Paul Martin's office about his reneging on the promise to get to 0.7% ODA, as well.)]

On a less serious note, hat tip to Bob for sending along this article: Pope Requests Audience with Bono.

A nod to the online world out there

Back when U2 Sermons was a baby blog, I used to thank nearly everyone who linked us. Nowadays, that's not feasible. So how about a housekeeping post featuring some hitherto unacknowledged folks (i.e., if I'm sure I've mentioned you already, you're not going to show up here). I assume it's obvious this is not a blanket endorsement of any of these blogs, which I would not have the time to read thoroughly if there were 48 hours in a day. While all are apparently interested in U2, some of them I'm guessing wouldn't be interested in each other. Further, you might be interested in them, or you might not; I might, I might not; who knows. At any rate, thank you to:
:::post-protestant thoughts:::, notes from the front lines, roblog, ...looking to the Light..., Disaster Area, Andy & Shona's Blog, Uncle Plastic, emergent layer, Hi-Speed Soul, Touching Ground Zero, Cheaper Than Therapy, Calvin College Student Activities Office weblog, Life of Turner, Perfect Blue Buildings, Gideon Strauss, Donn's Center of the Universe, Planet Telex, Dismantle, Roland Allen, Ragamuffin Ramblings, ::frazzle dazzle me::, The Buck Stops Here, Simon Sarmiento's Journal, feminary, Speakergeek, Existential Punk,odyssey, Emerging Question, ZkyWords, Ordinary Community, and Waving or Drowning?

Not your money: your voice.

200,000 Americans have signed the ONE declaration in the past four weeks. I wonder if this fact will give any pause to USA bloggers asserting that, while other nations may warm to the Global Call to Action against Poverty, Americans will simply never support development initiatives that include government spending as one aspect of their strategy?
Probably not.
Anyway, if you haven't seen Bishop Griswold and the Rev. Robertson back to back yet, you can now watch the full ONE ad here.

Surprise: It's an actual post mentioning preaching technique.

Last Sunday I preached a guest sermon in which I probably set myself too many tasks. One of them was that I felt I needed to at least namecheck U2, since I had been invited as co-editor of Get Up Off Your Knees. Among many others was, at a transitional moment, briefly bringing the Atonement into people's heads before leading into something related to it (an appeal grounded in 1 Peter's treatment of "enduring unjust suffering"). I found an easy way to do both of these at once by quoting from the new Bono: In Conversation book. Here's (close to) what I said:
I'm going to be talking a little in the adult ed time about some work I've done on the spirituality of the band U2, and I've been reading a new book which is an extended conversation a French secularist had with U2's frontman Bono. And at one point Bono is trying to explain the Atonement to this French secularist and talking about what the Cross means to him, and he explains that the world and human religions operate on the principle that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. And he gives a nice precis of how the action of your sin should lead to the reaction of God's judgment, but on the Cross "love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions - which," he adds, "in my case is very good news indeed." Mine too.

(Sorry about all those and's, but, you know, ORAL STYLE.) At one service "trying to explain the Atonement to this French secularist" got a laugh; I'm not positive but I think I may have expanded on it a bit in response. Oh, how I wish I had had access then to this interview, posted on @U2 the very next morning, in which Michka Assayas, the French secularist in question, says of the effect of working through these conversations: "I've made the journey from fear to faith myself." Whatever he meant, it would have been fun to throw that in.

Incidentally, I more or less agree with the same @U2 staffer's words in this piece, perhaps especially if you're interested in U2's Christian underpinnings, about which Bono is extraordinarily candid on a personal level throughout In Conversation: "My review, in brief: Go buy this book right now." A mainstream media review is here.

U2WeblogPT: "40"

Any of our readers who speak Portuguese may enjoy this reflection on "40". I was touched to be included (along with "all Christians") in the "dedication" of the piece, whose author says he is an agnostic.

While I'm talking about non-Anglophone U2 fans, it's always interesting to find one's posts being discussed in Swedish, a language for which machine translation leaves more than usual to be desired. And, finally, a big Grazie mille to my new Italian friend who came up with Paris U2 tickets for me.

Bono, Blake, and biblical utopianism

Anu at u2opian wrote recently to share a post he made about the new version of "Where the Streets Have No Name." The connection with Blake is interesting, although I don't know enough about Blake to assess how unique or significant such a connection might be. However, I like the Hobson quote a lot.

One semi-tangential thing I will comment on, because I was discussing it with a friend already.... It's bothering me a bit that people these days tend to say "Streets" is about "heaven," in the popular-piety sense of an idealized afterlife. I don't remember the song being so exclusively associated with that notion before the heavily Christian reading of it, inserting "new Jerusalem" Biblical quotes and a Eucharistic introduction, that U2 gave on the Elevation tour. I think (and here I agree, I suspect, with Anu) that to say "Streets" is about "heaven" in that very limited and popular-piety sense sells a spacious song way short. But it's a very different matter to view that song as expounding Jesus' much richer, more complex, and more paradoxical proclamation of the Kingdom of God. That has room for both what people loved about the song on the Elevation tour (the manifestation/ecstatic experience of the Kingdom now), and for what concertgoers are wrestling with about the Africa version (the not-yet demand that the Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.)

BTW, while I recommend taking a look at Anu's reading of it, speaking from my personal perspective as a believer, "Streets" is the opposite of "utopian"; it's reality therapy. Which is why I cringe to see its vision relegated to pie in the sky when you die.

What is security?

Still catching up on things: Interesting to see that the 2005 Fraser Valley Arts and Peace Festival in BC included a workshop called "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb: U2 and the Culture of Fear" by Trinity Western University professor Peg Peters.

Caught up in the rapture: it's a U2 reference, not a Left Behind one

One of those internet collisions....Just after I'd mentioned her here, Camassia shares her thoughts on the book for which this blog is a shameless promotion ploy. In addition to comments on sermons by Steve Stockman and Brian Walsh, she includes some persuasive reflection on why "Sunday Bloody Sunday" needs to be read in the context of the entire War album.

"Somethin' wrong with Jesus?" "Jesus is all right."

Hat tip to the always thoughtful and articulate Camassia for pointing me to this Transfiguration sermon from "blip", using the most-preached-on U2 song in the catalog.

Notes on a Physician's Life - Earnest & Enthusiastic

Here's an interesting U2-related post, as useful to religious professionals as to medical ones, about why it's good to love your work, even when colleagues "seem cynical and weary."

For anyone in the Boston area

I will be giving a half-hour adult education session on U2 and religion at a congregation on the North Shore of Boston next Sunday morning, April 17, as well as preaching the morning services. If you're interested, email me for details.

21st Century Reformation: Did I forget to Mention I saw U2 last Weekend - Review

A California pastor takes his church's worship band on a continuing education event. Read about it at 21st Century Reformation.

CCM Magazine U2 review

This is one of those "catching up on old stories" posts. Here's CCM Magazine reviewing How to Dismantle. Some truth in this closing comment: "If U2's career is like a journey of faith, the band's early albums contained the enthusiasm and certainty of a new convert; Achtung Baby, Zooropa and Pop were the questioning and rebellious teenage years and with All That You Can't Leave Behind and (even more so) How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, U2 is showcasing both its musical and spiritual maturity." Even more truth in the opening salvo: "Can you name a recording artist who has inspired Christian music's top acts as much as Bono and his band U2? Good luck."

Minor landmark

This is just a small thank you to all the readers of this odd, narrow-topic U2 blog, which today made it to 70,000 hits. (Our 70,000th page view was from Thailand, incidentally.) If only that many people had bought the book, think how happy TASO would be. And I know, it's small potatoes in the real internet world, but still....

Should have waited a day to post about Make Poverty History

It seems another ad specifically promoting the American segment of Make Poverty History, which you can't see online as far as I can tell, will begin airing in the USA on ABC and MTV on Sunday, featuring celebrities and religious leaders. The AP put out a story on the launch, featuring Bono and Brad Pitt, and I can't overstate my delight at reading that two of the religious leaders who will "complete each other's sentences" are "evangelist Pat Robertson and the Rev. Frank Griswold, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church in the United States." This is not a debate on the merits of either of those gentlemen, but right now, it's really hard to imagine two people less likely to appear in the same sentence, much less the same endorsement campaign.

I'm going to give a few more references on all this, since I've had some emails asking me to (one saying "you've got to link Bono's TED speech! I finally get it!") -- and also since often when I post something U2-related on the topic, I get responses that make it clear many people aren't aware of the basic outlines of the issue and think it's a charity fundraiser, or some kind of slanted criticism of their particular government. I expect the questions will only increase as more people see the Vertigo Tour, so maybe this will be helpful.

Background: 191 countries pledged in 2000 to meet by 2015 something called the Millennium Development Goals, which if you click and read them, are not at all pie-in-the-sky idealism, but have targets that are measurable, pragmatic, and obviously achievable. The human realities of the facts behind these targets are very hard for us in the West to wrap our minds around, as is the way they together create what Jeff Sachs calls "a poverty trap" which prevents nations from "getting onto the first rung of the development ladder." The statistics make us glaze over, or the images turn into a sort of tragic Spielberg movie in our minds, and we shift our generosity and attention to something easier for us to imagine, like a natural disaster.

Anyway, one among a huge number of steps on the way to those targets is that high-income nations have set the benchmark of raising their annual aid to 0.7 percent of GNP of each donor country; very few nations have yet done so. There is a good Q&A on the Millennium Project site that will help you learn about the key issue of trade, the perennial suspicion that aid might be wasted, and the particular challenge of sub-Saharan Africa.

We're five years in, and this year is the review year; September is the MDG review meeting (July is the debt meeting). The resources are there, the know-how is there, but progress is such that there's no way the goals will be met by 2015, especially in Africa, unless some major political will gets mobilized. Perhaps obviously, that mobilization is what's going on with the text-to-UNITE thing at U2 concerts. Why 2005? will tell you more about why there is an international campaign to muster that political will this year. The New York Times also published a great editorial on why now is the time; you can read it here (PDF).

There are obvious resonances to tenets of Judaism and Christianity here, although as with the Civil Rights struggle in the USA, obviously many people who have no spiritual convictions grasp the moral force of the argument anyway. Nevertheless, it's no surprise that faith-based organizations were among the first to embrace campaigning on the Goals -- building on the Jubilee movement -- and many of the ONE Campaign's founders are Christian groups. One key evangelical coalition is the Micah Challenge. You you can see a very long list of organizations who are working alongside each other here, and among them, of course, is DATA, the lobbying group founded by Bono.

Here are several ways you can get involved. ONE will gladly sell you a ONE Campaign white wristband (go here if you're outside the USA). And again, Americans can sign the ONE declaration, which is what that video this post started with is promoting.

Crumbs from your table

This piece on the OOZE reflects on U2's (so far unperfomed) "Crumbs from Your Table" as both a personal and political message. Hat tip to The Alternative Hymnal for linking it.

2005: MAKE HISTORY

Over the coming months, millions of people will see and hear this Make Poverty History video in cinemas, at concerts, on the radio, and online. Watch it here: "We don't want your cash, we do want your voice and support."

30 questions for those who have ears to hear

I mentioned recently that the "Gospel and pop culture" quiz writer Sol O. Mann had kindly given me a preview of his 2005 U2 quiz, just in time for the Vertigo Tour. Well, it's up in full now at CanadianChristianity.com, and even if the quiz didn't link this blog directly I could have figured out it was online by the search terms I'm seeing this morning, as people go out looking for answers. If you despair after awhile, though, the answers are in fact at the bottom of the quiz, copiously commented and documented... and incidentally, they're followed by perhaps the most exhaustive collection of links on U2 and religion, God, Christianity, etc. that I've ever seen.

U2 au stade de France !

Franco-American multi-cultural-Christian-community-outside-Paris planter Jonathan honors today in a particularly sadistic way. You need some French to get it (explanation in the first comment). Incidentally... I am still looking for tickets to this concert.

[Edit: oh, and there's also this, which could have been funnier.]