SEE

Long-term readers of this blog will remember that after seeing U2 in Europe I was enamored enough of the new visuals for "The Fly" to write "No secret at all," a theological reading of the song's new live presentation on the Vertigo Tour in light of previous presentations. I split it into 3 parts for length: 1, 2, 3. Since at that point no video was easily available, I narrated most of the visuals in the final post.

I was delighted to discover today a clip of the song from a late 1st-leg indoor Vertigo show. It isn't quite the later Europe version yet and suffers from not having that gigantic overwhelming screen; however, it still gives a very good sense of the general flow of the last 2 minutes of the visuals. This video of "The Fly" runs from the moment when the agenda of Them begins to be exposed, through the revelation of the secret of "giving in to love" and the urging to "reclaim your space... inside of you... you never knew... it is there... you will win," on to the final moment when the opening warnings begin to work backwards: "SEE/I DON'T WANT TO...." and "LETTERS BECOME WORDS BECOME SENTENCES BECOME LIES BECOME YOU." Go watch it right now. Hurray for YouTube and atu2 for posting this.

"Crumbs From Your Table" at OWU 3/2

News on an upcoming March 2 lecture by Steve Stockman at Ohio Wesleyan. A previous version of the same lecture is here.

ONE Budget Committee Sign-on Letter

For any American readers who are not members of the ONE campaign and thus may not get the notice, there is a sign-on letter at the ONE site asking the leaders of the House and Senate Budget Committees to fund President's Bush's full budget request for International Affairs. When I signed Thursday night, signatures were coming in at the rate of about 25 a minute.

samaritanity: "they say they want the Kingdom..."

Seth at samaritanity has some thoughts about U2's live shows and all the recent faith-oriented coverage of the band. Thanks for the plug for Get Up Off Your Knees, Seth!

U2 lecture

For anyone in the Boston or lower NH area, I'll be speaking at Christ Church S. Hamilton Mon evening the 27th at 7:30. After a brief introduction to U2's career, we'll be looking at how U2 treat themes of theodicy, idolatry, and eschatology, followed by Q&A. Feel free to email for further information.

Occasio: My Drive with Bono

A Fuller Seminary student (DMin in Missional Leadership) and teacher at Fresno Pacific University posts some reflections on a selection of U2 songs, missional theology, and how culture shapes faith.

The Worx Group Blog: U2: World's Biggest Band... and Smartest Brand?

Thought I'd link this commentary on U2's image and promotional strategy from the Worx Group, a marketing communications company. They recommend "a commitment to evolving your brand while remaining true to its core competencies," something the church all too often treats as an either-or.

Fixing a hole

I have no idea how this happened, but a post in which I linked to an essay about "Where the Streets Have No Name" on CADRE Comments vanished into thin air. So I'm relinking it.

Thanks for the link U2Achtung

Un grand bonjour aux forumiens de U2Achtung. Merci pour le lien!

Link-age

I got an email from Trent at Staring at the Son wanting to make sure our readers were aware of his site. His comments have also inspired me to redo my "U2 and God" links, which are largely to articles featuring Christian writing about U2; I hadn't substantially updated that section since about 2004. (Everything now over there has been previously blogged about, I believe.)

Almost heaven, West by God Virginia loves U2

I used to live in West Virginia, where religion writing has a particular tone. A big U2 fan at the Bluefield Daily Telegraph tries it out on U2. The article is a quilt of quotes and stories from recent interviews and events, thoughtfully arranged for a specific audience, interspersed with apologia. (I'm guessing the author doesn't know the historical reference of the fish in the sand image though.)

"Thank you for preaching to all the people who will never listen to me."

An incredible coup from Scott Calhoun at @U2: pastor and theologian Eugene Peterson talks about U2 and his reactions to some of their work. Read it immediately.

ACU February Lectureship

Abilene Christian University presents its 88th Annual Bible Lectureship on February 19-22, 2006. The Gospel and Culture track will include a coffeehouse session (see sidebar) called "From Rage to Ecstacy: U2 and the Psalms" by Gregory Stevenson, who is also known as a Buffy scholar (there's a review of his book here).

all right, all right....

I've actually been telling people who've emailed me material that sorry, there'll be no more posts on the aftermath of last week's prayer breakfast; but I've changed my mind for the sole reason that I don't think anyplace else has collected references in the blogosphere all that well. So I will send you, after all, to Jay Swartzendruber's remarks which have a lot of material from the meeting after the breakfast, also covered by Kim Lawton in an "unplugged" web supplement to PBS Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. David sent me a link to his related post about grace, and I also was interested to notice a not-too-unrelated speaking venue coming up on the calendar (hat tip to ktrayn78). Many many bloggers have reposted DATA's or Sojourners' prepared text, and there are also discussions of one sort or another going on, including at least one started by a Get Up Off Your Knees contributor. These are all links for the sake of documentation, not endorsements.

Bono Waxes 'Prophetic' : "The church is leading."

CT has an article up called Bono Waxes 'Prophetic' (I'm presuming that's not what GetReligion - who used one for their report on the topic - would call a sneer quote). This blog does try to cover issues of economic justice, so I'm linking it (even though there isn't much about U2's art) for the idea that Isaiah 58 is "absolutely the prophetic utterance of this moment in time... What it really suggests is that if we do God's business, God will be more in ours. To use the colloquial, it's God watching our back." I also got a kick out of Charles Wesley's hymnody getting a big nod from Bono; I've long thought the Wesleys were one of the very best analogs to U2 theologically and artistically.

"not only cries out against injustice, but also dares to imagine an alternative"

I'm always happy to get emails pointing out some article I may not have seen, so thanks to Steve Harmon for letting me know about his "U2: Unexpected Prophets" (PDF), found in the "Singing Our Lives" issue of Christian Reflection, a publication of the Baylor University Center for Christian Ethics. Steve's article considers U2's work under the rubrics of "Grounded Implicitly in Worship," "Steeped in the Biblical Story," "Portraying the Triune God," "Sharing Christian Hope," "Basing Salvation in Grace," and "Calling for Prophetic Social Engagement"; of course, you know I'm going to nod at the 4th section, where the observation is made that "a tension between the already and the not yet... is the key theological concept for understanding the spiritual significance of U2's music." I blogged about a previous U2 analysis by the same author here, and he helped us all out with some patristics vocabulary in a comment to this post. The article is kind enough to cite Get Up Off Your Knees (which got a little bump in sales with all the Bono National Prayer Breakfast stuff yesterday; thanks, folks) as a recommended book.

There is also an accompanying lesson plan (also PDF) including Bible conections, a cool reading from Augustine, discussion questions, and a closing hymn.

Last Bono at the National Prayer Breakfast post I hope

All this National Prayer Breakfast stuff is a bit off-topic for a book blog (although welcome to all of you visiting from the Washington Post and other such sites), but I'm intrigued by the fact that MSNBC actually is now running a live vote on whether the USA should do what Bono suggested in the piece of his sermon that some homiletics folks would call the "application." (It was nothing new, of course; two million Americans have already signed on to the idea.) If only more homilies were taken so seriously.

[Update: I don't know about a transcript, but full video and audio of Bono's address at the National Prayer Breakfast is here.]

[Another update: the text of Bono's address at the National Prayer Breakfast is now available here as prepared for delivery (i.e. without the ad libs.)]

addendum

BTW I probably should have said this in yesterday's post -- the National Prayer Breakfast is broadcast on C-SPAN II, and is being streamed on the C-SPAN website.

National Prayer Breakfast 2006

I wasn't going to post this since I couldn't find any references to it anywhere else and thought it might not be public, but now that I have: I was interviewed today for an article in connection with the National Prayer Breakfast tomorrow in Washington DC, at which I was told Bono is the keynote speaker. (For our non-USA readers, this annual breakfast is not an official event, but is put on by the Fellowship Foundation, an evangelical Christian group. It sometimes raises controversy. This year, according to the press, King Abdullah II of Jordan is speaking at the lunch afterwards.)