Love For a Cross-eyed Culture: “God Part II”

A reader sent in a link to a piece by Rich Wagner called "Love For a Cross-eyed Culture: Unplugging U2’s 'God Part II.'" This turns out to be one in a series of recent mini-essays using U2 lyrics as a resource to illustrate Christian teachings, similar to what one would find in a devotional book. Playing with U2's complexity and ambiguity is not a high value here; making connections with specific doctrines and Bible verses is. As I look over these posts, I realize Rich and I had an email conversation, way back in spring '06, about his interest in using U2 songs in this way; he has published a book called Gospel Unplugged, which treats CCM lyrics in the same devotional mode.

[update for readers who enjoyed this link: Rich emailed 12/29 to say there are more devotions quoting U2 to come on his blog in the next weeks.]

Like a Song: Mercy

A Christmas edition of @u@'s Like a Song reflects on "Mercy," an unreleased track, as a sort of conversation reparing the relationship between the narrator and "you."

Occasio: "20th anniversary: my first U2 concert"

Over a month late on this one, but Tim from Occasio and Fresno Pacific blogs about his first U2 concert in November 1987, after he was introduced to the band by a student in a Young Life ministry he was leading. ("Gary had begun a journey with God through U2. I had begun a journey with U2 through God.") Tim is, incidentally, among those privileged few who saw the Daltons!

All the things that keep us here in the mysterious distance

Through a roundabout trip through a series of links it recently came to my attention that U2's "A Man and A Woman" has a chapter in the 2007 book That Crazy Little Thing Called Love: The Soundtrack of Marriage, Sex, and Faith by Jud Wilhite of Central Christian Church in Las Vegas. The book as a whole is based around the Song of Solomon and ties different phases of relationships in with examples from popular music (sample of other chapter titles: "R-E-S-P-E-C-T," "Tell Her About It," "I'm Too Sexy," "Wonderful Tonight," "Hit Me With Your Best Shot.") In searching through it online (I haven't seen a hard copy) it seems as if the song mentions are all rather brief and superficial, but I can't remember seeing writing on "A Man and A Woman" anywhere else, so I thought it merited a link.

They're singing deck the halls....

Your blog host appears in the new episode of the Nuclearity podcast (beginning around 18:00) along with a wide cast of characters (Linford Detweiler, Dick Staub, Kelly Monroe Kullberg, Mark Pinsky, and others). What are we all talking about? The spiritual and artistic influence of the Peanuts Christmas special, "A Charlie Brown Christmas." Check it out!

Another theological take on "Wave of Sorrow"

Some reflections by e~mergent kiwi on the Joshua Tree outtake everybody's been blogging/preaching from. This time, we get a chance to read it in tandem with Zephaniah 2. The comment threads also have an interesting discussion which illustrates well how differently various Christians think about the appropriateness of and the implied meaning behind a Christian thinker engaging theologically with secular art (and with contemporary culture in general) in a believing context. Personally, the concept that when a preacher interacts with a work of art in any way s/he is thereby "claiming" the artist has always completely baffled me, but it clearly has power for some folks.

World AIDS Day

Here are World Vision's World AIDS day materials, full of global stories and opportunities to act.