DATA report: worth a read

Now online: the DATA Report summarizing where the G8 are in keeping their promises from Gleneagles last summer on trade, debt cancellation, development aid, and HIV/AIDS. You can look specifically at what each country has followed through on in each area and what remains to be done, as well as see what kinds of better monitoring and evaluation DATA is calling for. There's both highly detailed policy wonk stuff, and executive summaries in several languages. (If you missed Bono summarizing the DATA report on CNN and would like to see it, you can view the interview with Soledad O'Brien here.)

We say a prayer and make a toast.

I'm preaching a stewardship sermon on Sunday, and there's something about this post from (BLOG) RED that communicates what real stewardship is all about.

AMG Publishers : Breakaway to Freedom

Coming this fall from AMG Publishers: a new women's Bible study curriculum on Galatians which has 6 sessions using the music of "secular artists": Kelly Clarkson, U2, Chris Martin, Avril Lavigne, and Tim McGraw.

Nidus 2006 - August 4-6

Just found this one in the "drafts" list: Thanks to Mike for giving me a heads-up that one of our Get Up Off Your Knees contributors, Brian Walsh, is speaking on "U2 and Empire" this summer at Nidus 2006 ("Three days to express faith, celebrate through arts, and seek justice to stop AIDS"), doubtless drawing on his Colossians Remixed book.

Ah, the media

I recently had a contact from a reporter working on a story about the idea that one particular church had created a brand new trend by using U2 in worship recently, and the reporter wanted to know why other churches were not as innovative. I told the reporter that a very wide variety of denominations /groups had been using U2 liturgically for years, and that representing it as innovative, new, or denominationally specific was so off base as to be comical.

The reporter then asked me whether any other popular music had "made inroads" into churches, or if this new trend was unique to U2. I replied that there were not any unusual inroads being made; all sorts of spiritually-themed music and other media had been used by all sorts of churches for ages. But U2, I said, had long been an "obvious no-brainer" to work with, in part simply because they were so universally known.

The reporter wrote a story about how one particular church had created a brand new trend by using U2 in worship, and mentioned that other churches were not so innovative. [bangs head on wall]

for American readers

ONE has a petition up asking the USA, as we go into the July 15 G8 meeting in Russia, to recommit to our promises of more and better international assistance, debt cancellation and trade justice from last year's G8. Good chance to check out their new site too.

Falsani interview

Angela Pancella interviews Cathleen Falsani for Thunderstruck. Some interesting stuff about religion writing, her participation in the Heart of America tour, and looking for God in "the unlikely places, the counterintuitive places."

The Golden Age of the Superhero

Greg give us a post that's sort of about superhero movies, but also about "the transparency of the veil between high and low culture."

They're doing my job for me: putting the children off God.

Yeah, I know the column-inch-to-member ratio is already way off and I probably shouldn't be inflating it further, but: in solidarity with any readers following the Episcopal Church's General Convention these next two weeks, here's my very favorite phone moment from the ZooTV era: MacPhisto calls the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Background for anyone not familiar with U2 characters: he's the devil, and speaks from the point of view of the devil. Think Screwtape.
Background for anyone not familiar with Anglican church politics: at the time of this recording the Church of England had a relatively new leader who had made public his support for women in the priesthood.

The Great Poets and Their Theology (Augustus Strong)

I had to kind of smile at the opening of this description of a book first published in 1897. You thought writing about theological themes in the arts was a new thing?

Prince: all the contradictions intact

I remember a late-80s interview in which Bono said "I feel closer to Prince than you might think," or something like that. The always-thoughtful Camassia reflects here on Prince, U2, and how the two have related to the church and reflected the culture. Excerpt: "It’s strange for me to remember that back in the ’80s, Prince probably sang about God more often and more explicitly than any other top-40 act. Even U2 were somewhat veiled in their religious references back then, at least with their radio singles. But while Bono has been building bridges with American Christendom, Prince seems determined to be the red-headed stepchild..."

Occasio: Noreena, Bono and Economic Activism in Africa

More Isaiah 58 stuff: Tim at Occasio points us to the documentary Noreena's Agenda: The New Activism, which can be viewed online. It highlights Noreena Hertz's work as an economist and activist; if you've missed hearing about her over the past couple years, you can read the first chapter of her The Debt Threat posted here. I viewed the Bono interview portion a few months ago but didn't remember that there was an entire film coming out.

[Edit: While I was linking Tim, I should have linked his description of this evening. And some churchy people fault U2 fandom for creating an ethos of passive non-participation!)

A vintage YouTube find

Off topic, but a public service: I'll bet the vast majority of our readers have never seen a live video performance of 2 out of 3 of these songs from the October era. Gloria / A Celebration (!) / Rejoice.

U2 and Philosophy (Popular Culture and Philosophy): Books: Mark Wrathall

The Mark Wrathall-edited essay collection U2 and Philosophy from Open Court is now out. I haven't seen it yet, but expect I'll enjoy giving it a look.

PBS FRONTLINE: the age of aids website

Whether or not you saw the show, this interview with Bono is worth a read. However, the truly unique U2 thing PBS brings to the table on this web page is the actual correspondence between Bono and Jesse Helms in PDF. But there are so many more reasons to take a look. If you've been baffled by acronyms like PEPFAR, there's a helpful explanation of the different players in the quest to fund the fight against Global AIDS, as well as an interview with Dr. Richard Feachem, executive director of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

By the way, I was more or less stunned to learn from the (RED) Independent that the administrative overhead of the Global Fund is a mere 1.4 per cent, with everything else going to the actual indigenous programs (for a not-quite-fair comparison, at Amnesty International 73% of what comes in is left after in-house costs; at Oxfam 75%; at World Vision 87%.)

Not the only one

At least one person thinks that when it came time for N.T. Wright to title the central section of what reviewers keep calling his bid to write the Mere Christianity of our generation with Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense (although Wright himself has said that his primer "resembles Lewis’ in the way that his golf game resembles Tiger Woods',") Bishop Wright decided to see if he could slip a U2 reference past us.