Are the Saints Coming?

Playing catch-up: Rogier Bos, a church planter in Europe, reflects on "The Saints Are Coming" and the renewal, or not, of the church in the 21st century.

When will the stars fall from the sky? When will the moon turn red?

Someone got here recently googling "One Tree Hill Sermon." I doubt they found one, since I didn't when I clicked on it. However, I did find something very close, a (months-old) exegesis of "One Tree Hill" from Café Diem | coffee philosophy. Worth a look for some nice unpacking of the Biblical background to the song.

World Economic Forum

The Davos World Economic Forum Annual Meeting is streaming live this year, so if you'd like to see the panel Delivering on the Promise of Africa which will include Bono, set your clock for 1/26, 18:00 central European time. Description: "In recent years world leaders have agreed to unprecedented commitments for aid and debt relief, while African governments have committed to new standards of governance and transparency. But questions remain as to whether these promises will be met and if Africa can sustain growth and development...."

Nuclearity

I did a phone interview this morning for Nuclearity, who are doing an episode that will cover Bono's activism. I'll post a link to the show when it becomes available.

ONE in Kenya

The ONE Blog is liveblogging from the World Social Forum in Kenya. A great read if you want to know what is going on with local anti-poverty organizations in African countries.

Mattias Thurfjell - teologilänkar

It's always kind of fun to discover yourself linked by a site whose language you don't even speak. Mattias Thurfjell - teologilänkar links U2 Sermons under "Homiletik" (I've got that word figured out at least....)

Theology Culture and U2 course updates

Tim from Fresno Pacific is playing catch up with descriptions of the sessions of his U2 course last semester. First up this weekend is session 5, Innocence and Idealism: Boy, October, War. This session features reflections on songs from U2's first three albums, along with material on U2's formative sense of mission as evidenced in citations from the 1981 Ghettout retreat where Bono, The Edge, and Larry Mullen gave a presentation to a group of Christian musicians.

Second up is, not surprisingly, session 6, Into the Arms of America: Under a Blood Red Sky, Unforgettable Fire, Joshua Tree, highlighting the band's growing love/hate relationship with the USA. Tim reports that "'Bullet' was particularly meaningful because Dr. Mark Baker came into class to discuss his time in Honduras and El Salvador in the mid-80s, and his personal reaction to this song and the band."

As before, presentation notes and PowerPoints are available on Tim's blog.

Feedback request

This blog has just moved over to the new version of Blogger. One feature of the new Blogger is labels, which are like Technorati tags that can help someone searching the blog find posts on a specific topic. I hope, although this seems like an unbelievably daunting task, to go back and label all the old posts back to 2003 to make this blog more useful to readers. However, I want to be systematic about it and not make up labels randomly as I go, because consistency is important.

So one thing I'd love is suggestions of any labels that you'd like to see.

In fact, I'd love ANY kind of help with this, ranging from something as easy as Hey, "Biblical references" would be a good label all the way to something as tough as Hey, I'll send you some suggested labels for all your posts from May through July 2005. (If your real opinion is Eh, who needs labels?, frankly I'd prefer you not share that with me.)

Pursuing God with U2 Bible study

I hear from a reader that Grace Church in Anderson SC is doing the U2 Bible study from our book beginning this month. Thanks folks!

That's a whopping 0.34%

I was pretty surprised to discover in @U2's 2006 Fan Survey that 17 people actually said that Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog was their favorite U2 book (out of 38 possibilities). (I don't remember what I voted for; perhaps Bono: In Conversation?) We beat things like Race of Angels, The U2 Reader, and perhaps most blasphemously, Bill Graham's The Early Years.

update from a reader laboring in the fields

This blog started in mid-2003, and one of the earliest U2-and-theology series I was able to post about took place at the campus ministry at Notre Dame in Oct 2003. Frank Santoni, who worked there at the time, writes to say he has twice repeated a shorter version for the Catholic ministry at SMU, who have also put on a Fair Trade Fashion show featuring Edun clothes. This week, he's speaking on "The Gospel According to Bono" at the Catholic Campus Ministry Association's 2007 National Convention.

Urbana 2006: Drown me out

I don't often do news, but... what other site is going to pick up this one? People who were at Urbana (the annual student convention on world mission by Intervarsity, which was in St. Louis this year) are saying there was a video message from Bono specifically for the 22,000 students at the convention (which had a special HIV/AIDS track). The video isn't available online, but it's mentioned here and referred to in the webcast from their HIV/AIDS evening. (If you visit that site, why not watch the AIDS Beyond the Numbers mini-feature?)

[Update: Here's a post from someone who was there, including a recounting of how the the video ended: "I am not much of a preacher, thanks for listening to me. You know, I'm just a rock star; it's my job to make a bunch of noise. But if you hear me, and if this emergency (HIV/AIDS) calls you to action....then drown me out....drown me out."]