Dylan's Theme Time Radio Hour this week

I don't have satellite radio, but I'm guessing our readers who do would enjoy hearing Bob Dylan's current "Theme Time Radio Hour," whose theme is the Bible and which had this playlist. The show, for any who may not know, purports to highlight items from Dylan's personal record collection. It aired yesterday and there are two or three rebroadcasts over the weekend.

theotherblog: Musical odyssey: The eschatology of U2

Drew from theotherblog has recently begun a multipost series on the eschatology of U2. Treated so far: Boy and October.

"Had some of the things that have come out of you ever been a surprise to you?"

Maybe U2 fans will get a break, now that people have a nice cultural excuse to stop misquoting Bono on spiritual issues and misquote Bob Dylan for awhile instead. (Excuse for U2 content: Bono interviews Dylan, 1984.)

Hours of fun.

I have been trying to come up with an appropriate theologically-themed quip about this mindbendingly mood-shifting cover of Vertigo from "gangly crooner" Nathanial Willemse, a contestant on Australian Idol.

catapult magazine: Brian Walsh

I missed this at the time but: Our contributor Brian Walsh wrote the foreword to Rob Vagacs' Religious Nuts Political Fanatics. A few months ago Catapult printed it as "A light shines." It does a great job of narrating the liturgical process of a U2 show and its effects from the inside, and anyone who has seen U2 with their heart open to the Spirit will recognize the experience. Excerpt:

"Can you go to a U2 concert while [baby] Hannah is just blocks away in the critical care unit? Does that make any sense at all? The initial answer was, no. No, it didn’t make sense to go to a concert this week. So we all started to make arrangements to sell our tickets. ...One of my students took me aside after class and encouraged me to go to the concert. 'This could be the most healing thing you can do all week,' he suggested. And then another friend said, 'Good liturgy doesn’t come to town very often. The least you can do is be there.' And so Sylvia and I went to hear U2 while our beloved Hannah was on life support just up the road. Could this rock band minister to us while we were accompanying Henry and Sarah in the shadow of the valley of death? Dare we even hope for such a thing from a rock concert? From the first song to the last, the answer was clearly, yes."

Scottish Baptist College course

Nice to note that Get Up Off Your Knees is being used in a course on "Creative Homiletics" at the Scottish Baptist College.

U2 and the Bible comment

I suppose anybody who both listens to U2 and reads the Bible has the experience of hearing something read in Scripture and suddenly associating it with a U2 lyric. This happened to me in a prayer group this morning when someone read Job 5:18 - For he wounds, but he also binds up; he injures, but his hands also heal.

When I was suggesting Scripture citations for @U2's "Drawing their fish in the sand" back in 2001, I knew something needed to be cited for the end of "Exit" ("Saw the hands that build can also pull down/ The hands of love,") but I wasn't all that committed to the verses I actually submitted (Jer 1:10 and 31:28). Even though the language there was quite close to the lyric (closer than the Job 5 language, other than the "also" and the link to "healing hands" earlier in U2's text,) I thought the Jeremiah context just had the wrong vibe for it to be the only direct source. The dark, "What kind of God is this?" vibe of Job, shadowed by death, is much closer to the vibe of "Exit." (Although I have an idiosyncratic reading of "Exit," I don't think my idiosyncracies affect that point.)

So do I want to point to Job 5:17 instead? Not really, because that alone doesn't do the job either. This is a great illustration of how it's often unfruitful to try and claim U2 are quoting particular Bible verses, rather than generally using language that is shaped by Scriptural turns of phrase and by a Biblical worldview. When I think of that line in "Exit," I want Job and Jeremiah... and probably several other verses I haven't yet noticed that lay out the experience of a human grappling with God's frightening freedom and with the uncontrollable mix of good and evil in our world. In other words, I want art and not prooftexting.

Sudden Thoughts and Second Thoughts

An essay from last month on a blog called Sudden Thoughts and Second Thoughts, introducing U2's work to assist classroom religion teachers (specifically Roman Catholic, but it could be any context) who may want to use it in class. This is a chronological presentation.

We interrupt on-topic posts for gushing about the "Personal Charts Calculator"

Oh my gosh, coolest thing ever: u2-vertigo-tour.com will generate a list of every U2 song or cover you've ever heard live, in order of frequency, if you check off exactly which shows you were at.

My list of 58 songs: Vertigo, Bullet The Blue Sky, I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For, Pride (In The Name Of Love), Sunday Bloody Sunday, Where The Streets Have No Name, Beautiful Day, Elevation, One, With Or Without You, City Of Blinding Lights, Love And Peace Or Else, Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, All Because Of You, Miracle Drug, New Year's Day, Yahweh, The Electric Co., 40, I Will Follow, Miss Sarajevo, Running To Stand Still, Stuck In A Moment You Can't Get Out Of, Bad, Out Of Control, The Fly, Until The End Of The World, Zoo Station, Crumbs From Your Table, The First Time, Who's Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses, Fast Cars, Kite, MLK, Mysterious Ways, New York, Original Of The Species, Please, The Ocean, Walk On, What's Going On, All I Want Is You, Angel Of Harlem, Exit, Gloria, Help, Helter Skelter, In God's Country, Instant Karma, Norwegian Wood, One Tree Hill, Party Girl, Slow Dancing, Spanish Eyes, The Unforgettable Fire, Trip Through Your Wires, Wild Honey.

What blows me away even more is the snippets. Yes, they tell you what you've heard snippeted. Among my 41 were:

· Happy Birthday (3 times)
· Dirty Water (2 times)
· Many Rivers To Cross (2 times)
· Rain (2 times)
· Rock The Casbah (2 times)
· Rockaway Beach (2 times)
· See Me, Feel Me (2 times)
· Send In The Clowns (2 times)
· She's A Mystery To Me (2 times)
· Amazing Grace (1 time)
· Behind Blue Eyes (1 time)
· Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home) (1 time)
· Fool To Cry (1 time)
· In The Garden (1 time)
· Jingle Bells (1 time)
· Psalm 116 (1 time) Um, that's not exactly a song, but I am pretty impressed that they correctly noted that it was indeed omitted from the intro to "Streets" at one of the Elevation shows I was at.
· Take Me To The River (1 time)
· The Battle Hymn Of The Republic (1 time)
· We Wish You A Merry Christmas (1 time)

TOO. COOL.

Prophetic Experience vs. Prophetic Meaning

Playing catchup with something I happened on awhile back: the blog Padre Complex writes a reflection in response to Everyday Guy's post about "Bullet the Blue Sky" as his first experience of the prophetic.

for the Love....

Nice to see that Tim's course questions got picked up on the "spirituality and ethics" blog of a writer from the Mobile Press-Register.

Willow Creek article

Sherry of @U2 has a pretty thorough writeup, with several quotes, of Bono's talk with Bill Hybels at the Leadership Summit. (She doesn't include the one that's being cut by some media to make it say something completely different, which I blogged about below, but there are plenty of others.)

Tim wants to thank all of you for your input on the questions about his course. I asked him if he had a final one to wrap up with and he basically said he'd like to hear more people answer Tyler's over at his blog, about which U2 songs have had a personal spiritual impact on you. So head over there if you'd like to weigh in on that one, and thanks again for participating.

Ah, the media, part 2

Observation of the day: most Christian news sources (not individual bloggers) I have seen are truncating this quote from Bono's speech / interview with Bill Hybels at Willow Creek Leadership Summit: "Second only to personal redemption and salvation the main thrust of the Scriptures is to meet Christ in working with the poor" to make it appear that Bono said only "The main thrust of the Scriptures is to meet Christ in working with the poor."

I don't fault secular media for not grasping the theology and cutting the "boring salvation part," but I would expect Christian media to be fair and take note of what's obviously a careful theological distinction being made. And of all people I would expect evangelicals who chose to report on that moment in the talk to announce with enthusiasm that Bono told an audience of 70,000 pastors and leaders salvation was more important than social justice. Yet no one seems to be reporting the full quote. What's with that?

Codex: Biblical Studies :My Top 12 Spiritually Significant U2 Songs

Tyler, who's been commenting very helpfully on Tim's questions, does a post of his own: "songs from the U2 corpus that have been the most spiritually significant in my Christian walk." It's not an abstract list of God-themed stuff, but an invitation to reflect personally on what U2 songs God has most used in your life. Maybe some of you will want to weigh in?

And as for the post immediately below this: is there really nobody who has anything to say about some cultural or social issue U2 have entered into dialogue with?

Let's plan a course! #4

The U2 Sermons blog continues to help gather input for Tim Neufeld, professor of Contemporary Christian Ministries at Fresno Pacific University, as he plans a fall course entitled, "Theology, Culture and U2." Here's another question: What examples stand out to you of how U2 have connected faith with cultural issues and trends around them, or fostered dialogue between Christian ideas and culture?

[edit: Hmmm. Is that an unusually tricky question, or something?]

question 3 still more than open

Lots of room for many more comments (which don't have to be as long as some of ours!) on the third question helping Tim plan his undergraduate course on U2 (not to mention the previous 2 questions.) Come on down and weigh in with your top few U2 lyric themes.

Bono and Bill Hybels interview today: "Thy Kingdom come...on earth"

Here are three folks who have just live-blogged Bono's session at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit. Anyone who's heard him speak will recognize several of the lines, but it's interesting to see the attendees' reactions.

sixty4three by Ryan Day (notes and quotes)
Tony Morgan Live (prose writeup)
Random Thoughts and Associations by Charlie Dean (bullet points and quotes)
[edit: Here's one more, from Geoff Gottlieb (a detailed running commentary including Hybels' response]
[edit #2: and yet one more, from Jeremy Del Rio; fairly detailed notes.]

Let's plan a course! #3

If you're either a Bill Hybels or U2 fan and have landed here in search of reports on Bono's speech (interview really) at the Willow Creek Leadership Summit, you've come at a great time, because we're in the middle of a project that gives readers a chance to share your opinion and perhaps help shape how U2's work gets presented in one Christian setting. Commenters on this blog are currently giving a little help with Fresno Pacific professor Tim Neufeld's planning for his upcoming "Theology, Culture and U2" course.

Here's today's question, running across their whole career.

What to you are some of the defining motifs that have repeatedly surfaced over the years in U2’s artistic output? (If you have time, you could expand by also telling us where you see them surfacing.)

Earlier threads of questions from Tim are still open for comment:
If you were to pick one of U2's albums that you thought focused on a particular issue...
and
How would you organize a multi-session course of the kind Tim is teaching...
It's fine to post your agreement or disagreement with suggestions made by others, as well.

Clarion: Journal of Spirituality and Justice: Bono, Coupland, and the Word Made Flesh

Some great answers coming in on the first two questions below! On an unrelated note, here's a relatively recent interview with Steve Stockman from Clarion.

Let's plan a course! #2

The comment thread is definitely still open on the first Fresno Pacific U2-course-construction topic about what you think the themes of the various U2 albums are, or what question each poses. (Not a single album earlier than Joshua Tree has had a theme posted for it yet; plenty of room!) So even if you answered already, feel free to go back and give it another whirl or respond to a previous comment.

Here's a second question, a more general one. If you were teaching a multi-session course of the kind Tim is, studying U2 theologically and culturally, would you present the band's work in chronological order, or some other way? Why?

Let's plan a course!

Tim Neufeld, professor of Contemporary Christian Ministries at Fresno Pacific University, is developing a new course entitled, "Theology, Culture and U2." (Tim also wants us to know that he's "a worship pastor at his church, where he routinely uses U2 related material and stylings, and an avid reader of the U2 Sermons blog.") I've linked some of his writing on the band before, so you may recognize his site.

As Tim readies the outline for his course this fall he is asking for help from you, other U2 Sermons readers, "to narrow down the vast array of possible topics and themes." He's sent me some questions on which he would love to hear wider reactions, kindly allowing me to reshape a bit for the blog, and I thought I'd post one at a time and give readers a chance to tell him how you'd respond.

So, here's a question for your comments to start: If you were to pick one of U2's albums that you thought focused on a particular theological issue, which album would you pick and how would you describe the theological issue it covers? (Now, if you opt for one of U2's shorter album titles you could conceivably answer that in 2 words, but if you'd like to write about why, that would of course also be welcome.)

[Edit: hey come on, folks, a couple hundred of you have seen this by now. Typing two words isn't that hard! I know it's the dog days of summer, but let's help a guy out here...]

The Kindlings Muse: Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog

I was interested to discover that Dick Staub has turned the audio interview I did with him about our book, a short version of which appeared in Christianity Today, into four podcasts and is currently distributing them. Thanks Dick!

Buffalo News - Spirited sounds

Gotta hat-tip the @U2 mailing list here since I wouldn't have found this without them. Jeff Miers, the pop critic for the Buffalo News, writes a column on successful meldings of spirituality and rock 'n' roll, by which he sort of seems to mean CCM but not strictly CCM. Thus, King's X, Newsboys, Switchfoot, and U2 are his only candidates, which is a bit odd, but he admirably has U2 represented by not just the usual-suspect October, but also by Pop ("startlingly confrontational religious lyrics.")

I had to smile at Miers' description of "Gloria" -- Bono "begs some spiritual force to 'loosen my lips.'" In a song that locates its "you" in a verse from Colossians and cobbles together its chorus out of incipits from the Gregorian psalter (I owe that insight to Angela Pancella) is it really that hard to figure out whom "O Lord" is addressed to?

To make a more generic comment, I'm also quite struck by the beginning of the piece, which gives a frightening window into a set of (common? yikes!) assumptions about the interface of Christian experience and the intellect/body politic. I know not all our readers are followers of Jesus, but for those who are, can you imagine thinking of that experience in the way this paragraph does?
Rock music has always been best when dedicated to ideas of individualism, the questioning of authority, the marriage of the intellectual, spiritual and physical, and the positing of new notions concerning freedom and responsibility. That's why the concept of Christian rock is troubling for so many. Rock music has so long been the voice of the exile that to see it joining a club with predescribed notions of morality and spirituality seems deeply contradictory.

OK, I'll spot him "individualism." But the rest of that... whoa. The marriage of the intellectual, spiritual, and physical... questioning established authority... and positing new notions about freedom and responsibility -- wait, don't those things all form a significant part of what Kingdom life is and what discipleship is training us for? Doesn't it all tie in, for example, with what U2 are trying to do, and motivate audiences to do, specifically by integrating their Christian faith with their lyrics? The voice of the exile - isn't that pretty much a main Biblical metaphor for where believers are and what our call is? A club with predescribed notions of morality and spirituality - isn't what that idea is really "deeply contradictory" to the experience of grace, of being set free by Jesus?

And I can't end without citing what, from a Christian point of view, is the theologically subtle ZooTV slogan, "RELIGION IS A CLUB." Sure, religion is a club. But neither Jesus nor grace is religion. That's kind of the point.

Caritas redux

If you visited the post on Greg's blog about U2's Most Spiritual Album before the comment thread began, you might enjoy a stop back, particularly Chip's comments about "War."

Caritas: U2's Most Spiritual Album

Nice piece on "October" from Greg at Caritas, who was not, as he puts it, "late to the U2 party."

"All Because of You": Discover, Discern, Decide

The Center for Parent/Youth Understanding spotlights "All Because of You" by U2 in a "3-D Review" designed for parents and teenagers to discuss together. Their Discernment step ("How does [the work under consideration] stand in light of the biblical message/ worldview?") is a snap in this case, it seems: "This song clearly portrays a biblically accurate depiction of the relationship between creation and its Creator... the term 'I Am' connects the singer’s revelation to the Hebrew name that God used to reveal himself [in] Exodus 3:14. ...The band also recognizes the fingerprint of God in the created order around us in the lines, 'I saw you in the curve of the moon, In the shadow cast across my room.' ... [and] recognizes the vanity of self-reliance when compared to reliance on God."

And I have to smile at this comment from the "Decide" step: "Much of what passes for worship music today seems to 'weaken' God by bringing Him down to our level. This song recognizes our reliance on a Creator who is transcendent, omniscient and omnipotent."

They're also right on this less theological point IMHO: "The video doesn’t add much to the meaning of the song."

"Guggi, Bono and the Brethren"

David Williamson cites a weekend milestone in the life of a Dublin landmark and ferrets out its truly arcane U2 historical connection.

[Edit: OK, I learned something here. Readers may recognize this Bono quote which is in rotation on @U2: "While I do think religion is often an obstacle to God, I do also find comfort in it on occasions -- whether it's a mass around the corner from where we live, or a Protestant Gospel Hall I might find on the road." Whenever this quote came up, I would glance at it and think "'Gospel Hall'?? Who says 'Gospel Hall'??" I'm embarrassed not to have known that it's the Brethren who say "Gospel Hall", and for good reasons. ]

bloggedy blog: albums that changed our lives

Andrew at bloggedy blog is doing a series on 100 albums that changed his life with an accompanying podcast. He's invited some other bloggers to join in the fun with shorter lists of our top 10 personal life-changers, and mine is posted today.

Trade talks collapse

"This was neither desirable nor inevitable. It could so easily have been avoided."

Caritas: Christians of the Caribbean

Nice post on the popular culture and theology front from Greg at Caritas: "why some Christians feel the need to co-opt every successful film for Christianity."

Late Night Writing from coffeehouse junkie

Happened on this one by chance: an essay from the literary magazine "Blue Sky Asheville," which I'm linking as much because it's a nice piece of writing as because there's some U2 content.
Excerpt: "It's difficult explaining to my children why I go to church because sometimes I just don't want to go. Why should I force them to do something I don’t want to do? Yet, I remind them to brush their teeth and wash their hands and eat wholesome organic foods and vegetables. Should I make them go to church? After all, Christianity is fubar. It’s like an auto that is well beyond an oil change and the engine has locked up but the gears are still hammering away as if it will still move forward another inch."

ONE on the G8

You can read the ONE Campaign's reaction to the G8 summit's statement here.

Review from @U2

@U2 takes a brief look at the Vagacs and Scharen books, interestingly describing their comparative level of generality exactly backwards from the way most everyone else I've seen has. I haven't seen any reviews yet of the other "spirited" U2 book from this year, U2 and Philosophy edited by Mark Wrathall (and have not in fact seen that book itself.) Can anybody point me to some?

LIVE 8 - make promises happen

If you like, you can send a post-it note to the G8.

Occasio: Where is the Love?

Tim at Occasio blogs on the news from the Middle East: "two brothers at war.... The goal is shalom -- not merely the absence of conflict."

Flickr Photo

Hey look, it's a monk hawking our book!

update to the Fr. Rutten post

Thanks to Matt for pointing out that there's a set of two more articles, one on the Psalms as political acts and another on U2 lyrics with spiritual themes (some interesting choices), to go along with the post I did below about the Roman Catholic priest who's been teaching on U2.

Where It's Rock That Usually Rules

Is it not interesting, and kind of indicative, that when the (presumably fairly secular-minded) author of a NY Times article on pastor and podcaster Rob Bell's speaking tour needs a phrase to characterize the vocal tone of a finite human being seeking to put into words the numinous, he settles on comparing it to "the awed enthusiasm of someone describing a U2 concert"?

Catholic priest sings praises of Irish group

Too bad this guy was only ordained last year - we could have used a few more Roman Catholic preachers in Get Up Off Your Knees.

"Farcical Western society" indeed

@U2 has a news story up today in which I'm quoted. I'm highly ambivalent about the overall news that the piece reports - the public availability of CDs of a seminar three members of U2 gave to an audience of Christian musicians in early 1981. I initially was unsure about participating in the article even to the extent of giving a comment, since I think there are many ways a general listener could misunderstand or misuse this recording; and to me as a pastor, the Dream Depot argument that the band is too famous now to be hurt by its release misses the more human reality that famous people are still people. As I said in the interview, I am very glad nobody is selling a CD of me at 20 talking about what God has shown me about his call on my life.

However, on the other hand, like it or not, the CD is for sale. People are going to get a hold of it. Reactions are going to come. And I can't think of very many writers I'd rather see out in front of the situation than Scott Calhoun.

WTO talks fail to make breakthrough

This probably ought to be read in tandem with the DATA Report I just linked:
"Developing countries placed the blame for the standoff squarely on the EU and the United States, saying that those wealthy nations were pursuing their own interests and ignoring measures that would alleviate poverty. As the mainstay of many poor and developing countries, farm trade has been the biggest stumbling block to the talks. Poorer nations face steep tariffs on their exports to several rich nations. Those costs are compounded by subsidies paid to farmers in wealthy countries, which encourage excess production and lead to a swamped market."

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.

Easter-to-Pentecost goal achieved!

Some people were feeling generous over the (USA) Memorial Day holiday weekend!
From the GlobalGiving site for our AIDS Education for Students in Cameroon project:
This project is now in implementation and no longer available for funding. Received funds will be used to accomplish concrete objectives as indicated in the project's "Activities" section. Updates will be posted under the "Progress Report" tab as they become available. Donors' contributions and pledges to this project totaled $1,553. The original project funding goal was $1,000.

Congratulations to the iEARN-SchoolNet-Cameroon program, to us (as well as anyone unaffiliated with us who also made up part of this wonderful total)... and thanks to all of you who contributed.

Visnja Cogan has a suggestion for preachers: don't mention reality

I'm linking this because the reviewer's reaction made me laugh: the Irish Independent (registration required) discusses the new U2, An Irish Phenomenon by Croatian-French author/fan Visnja Cogan, opining that most of the book is "dangerous territory with pitfalls of pretension cropping up with every paragraph." But here's my favorite comment in the article: "From a fanatical fan's point of view perhaps some of this quest is fascinating but in the section on spirituality she states: 'What bothers me, however, is the use of U2 songs in sermons as U2 have never tried to convert anyone and they have never preached to anyone.' What! Did she ever see Rattle and Hum with that hectoring egomaniac drawling in his ludicrous John Wayne accent and spouting off about whatever 'issue' came into his head?"

Cogan walks right into that one; but joking aside, just based on the one sentence quoted, it's a bit harrowing to imagine what kind of results would come of her principle being applied universally -- a sort of rigid cultural isolation of believers, in which no Christian homiletical work was permitted to interact with any art, writing, film, music, theatre, or cultural product that wasn't already explicitly "trying to convert." Imagine having to live with that kind of repression!

Who's got $2 for Africa?

About a week remains in this U2 blog's Easter-to-Pentecost campaign for an AIDS education program in Africa. Since last Sunday our project's total at GlobalGiving has mounted to $998. If you haven't given yet, your $2 (well, you might want to give $5, you know, with bank fees and not looking cheap and all) can get kids and teachers in Cameroon to their goal of $1000.

dallasobserver.com | News | The End Is Near

I missed this at the time, but here's a piece on dispensationalism at Dallas Theological Seminary which leads with a scene of Associate Professor of Theological Studies Glenn Kreider using U2 in class (followed by a pretty forced transition into the article's real topic).

Sausalito Presbyterian Church U2 event

Playing catch-up... Formatting issues make this U2 church presentation by a UCC pastor serving a PCUSA congregation in California a tad tough to read, but since it deals with a lot of U2 lyrics, I thought I'd throw it in here anyway. (Just a reminder, by the way, of something I've said before -- when I link something it doesn't mean I agree with everything in it.) Although it is listed as one, the piece doesn't seem to be a sermon -- more of an introduction to a huge list of songs used in worship: "Where the Streets Have No Name," "Yahweh," "If God Will Send His Angels," "City Of Blinding Lights," "Beautiful Day," and more. I suppose one reason I've missed noticing this one for several months is that unfortunately the name of the band is spelled incorrectly throughout.

The Observer | World | With Bono the preacher man on his mission to Africa

I'm not trying to provide thorough coverage of the Africa trip currently involving Bono, Bobby Shriver, Richard Meacham of the Global Fund, Brian Williams of NBC Nightly News, executives of corporations working with (RED), etc - others are doing that much better. But I thought our readers might especially appreciate this Observer article: "I prophesy that this jewel of a kingdom is soon to become a giant...."

Repost of the original Easter-to-Pentecost challenge: Ending June 4

With all the Bono in Africa converage, the NBC Nightly News, the ONE viewing parties, and so on, I thought I'd repost our own Africa project:

I've become pretty enthusiastic about the GlobalGiving site, which offers a very direct way to make donations to projects in the developing world that, in essence, help work towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. You can search for projects that need funding by theme or region, and you can even email the actual people running them in Asia or Africa or Central America or wherever. Here's a BBC article about the concept.

My suggestion is that we do a little experiment during the Easter season, and spread some Resurrection life by seeing how far our little U2 Sermons community can get towards funding a Global Giving project in Africa. I've chosen an AIDS education program in Cameroon whose focus is training teachers to use computers to deliver information on HIV-AIDS -- in part because their entire goal is only $1000, and in part because if you're reading this you have access to a computer and know how to use it, unlike 90% of high school students in Cameroon.

Update with 2 weeks left to go: Several donations came in the first week, with a few additional ones since then. The total on the project site as of Friday was $783 (of course this may not be all from U2 Sermons), which leaves $217 to achieve the schools' goal. Click through and check it out; you can enter your own choice of amount and give by credit card or Paypal.

For all those who still think ONE's a charity campaign

"It is even better than donating because when people work, and they can buy their own food and take themselves to the clinics, then it means they are doing it themselves and they are not just receiving food parcels."

Another brief piece on Rwanda is here.

It took them 10 years to get from Psalms to Ecclesiastes, and it's only one book

Check out this long and thoughtful reflection on The Challenge of Ecclesiastes by David Peebles Williamson, interacting with a number of Scriptural passages as well as with Albert Camus, Stanley Hauerwas, "I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For," St. Jerome, and a lecture by Nick Cave. Thanks David for pointing me to your piece.
Excerpt: [The cry of Koheleth] is the equivalent of a Hollywood ending where the hero is about to passionately embrace the heroine he has rescued from certain peril. She falls into his grasp, the music swells, he leans forward, and then turns to the camera and says: 'This is all pretty pointless, isn’t it?'

Right down whose center?

On the WNYC show today, it seemed to me we got to hear a lot more of Joe Levy and host John Schaefer than of Chris Scharen - it was a generalist round-up of the concept that U2 have a Christian grounding with a few examples ("40," "Mysterious Ways," "Still Haven't Found," "Crumbs,") but still an enjoyable listen in which they did let Chris get some good words in edgewise. The thing that struck me the most was John Shaefer's characterizing Christians who condemn U2 as (roughly) "people who are right down the center of mainstream Christianity." This was one of a few remarks illustrating the assumption that U2 are beloved not so much by actual committed Christians as by, I dunno, a sort of fringe subgroup of unorthodox believers who are ill at ease with church. Um... hello?

Independent RED edition

It'll only be online for a couple days, and you've probably heard about it elsewhere, but let me particularly recommend reading, in the Bono-edited RED edition of the Independent, some of the kind of stuff that would probably never get printed otherwise:, e.g. A conversation with Tony Blair and Gordon Brown about trade and the followup to the G8, EU subsidies deny Africa's farmers of their livelihood on how dumping of subsidised produce in African countries is forcing local producers out of business, The woman who has the power to change Africa which introduces Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Finance Minister of Nigeria and her crusade against corruption, and International Development Secretary talks about the first day of his trip to Uganda , which covers the Lord's Resistance Army situation. And after all that reading, one might ask: so why doesn't news like this seem to get covered in Western papers?

There is also the excellent editorial I am a witness. What can I do?

WNYC 5/17

Chris of One Step Closer will be on WNYC from 2-3 tomorrow afternoon, May 17, to talk about his book with John Schaefer. They stream live online.

[Edit: Chris has just given the update that he'll be joined by Joe Levy of Rolling Stone, who will advance a "decidedly different" view than Chris', on the show.]

AIDS education - a U2 blog project through GlobalGiving

Between now and June 4 (Pentecost), this blog is urging all readers to make a donation to an AIDS education program in Africa we've selected to support through the very cool GlobalGiving site. If you haven't given yet, there's still about $320 to go towards what I thought was a pretty modest goal of $1000, which goes to kids and their teachers in Cameroon. Click through to the site and read about their goal to use computers in the classroom to help stem the tide of HIV-AIDS infection, and then put something in the donation box -- even if it has to be as little as $10 or $20.

Sheila Walsh, ONE, and Women of Faith

I don't often report news about the people who make up U2, but since I do track ONE campaign stuff and had already linked to a post reflecting on hearing Bono in Dallas from another blogger, why not....
I don't know much about the organization Women of Faith, but here's one of their leaders, Sheila Walsh, quoting Isaiah 58 and promoting the ONE campaign after meeting with Bono in the company of Women of Faith's president Mary Graham and Chuck Swindoll's sister Lucy Swindoll. Photos are here.

Larry James' Urban Daily: Bono: Prophet to the World

The President and CEO for Central Dallas Ministries, a human and community development nonprofit with a focus on economic and social justice blogs about hearing Bono this week in Dallas.

Faith and Theology: Travelling outside karma: U2's Grace

Thanks to Ben for letting me know about the reflection on U2's "Grace," and more specifically on its guitar line, that he just posted. Coolest sentence in the thing, IMHO: "Even when Bono begins for a moment to lapse into a kind of vocal works-righteousness, with his too-strenuous repetition of the final line, the guitar riff continues undisturbed, so that the small vocal flaw is sublated and transformed, caught up and carried on the gentle rhythms of grace." Also, here's one for our readers; a commenter asks in response to Ben's words: What do Bono and Barth have in common?

Orthodox Church in America - retreat curriculum

Through a very random google, I ran into an outline for a 2002 youth retreat drawing on U2's "Walk On" (and other musical material that was popular at the time) from the Orthodox Church in America. Sadly no sermons from the Orthodox tradition were submitted for Get Up Off Your Knees, so I'm always pleased to be able to highlight Orthodox sites reflecting on the band's work.

GlobalGiving AIDS project

A little under a month remains in this U2 blog's campaign to support an AIDS education program in Africa. Readers, if you haven't given yet, there's still about $350 to go towards the goal of $1000 we want to reach for kids and teachers in Cameroon this Easter season. Any amount, even something as little as $10, can make a difference.

READ THIS IF:Your favorite song about heaven is NOT "I Can Only Imagine"

The unique and ever-prolix Fresno Dave is thinking about "Where the Streets Have No Name." Kudos to him for finding that MercyMe clip, as middling as the performance is, because I have to admit its introduction made me stand up and raise my palms to the ceiling. Thanks also, Dave, for the kind words about my writing.

If you don't like $14.95 for the six-session one in our book you could buy this....

Westminster John Knox Press, the publishing house of the Presbyterian Church (USA) have put out a new one-session $5.00 study guide called "The Music and Message of U2" by Jim Coons and Greg Cootsona. Product details here. Hat tip to Michael.

[Edit: one of the folks involved wrote and asked if I would also link the blog related to their overall "Thoughtful Christian" project, so here it is.]

Christ's Church of the Valley U2 wrapup

Some of you may remember the church in Arizona that had a U2 ticket giveaway as an outreach last year, a program that elicited eyerolls from some and applause from others. Here's their internal report on how it went, where you can also read comments left at their website. Hat tip to M2.

nevermind the bricolage: MP536: The Spiritual Journey of U2

Another perspective on the Fuller Seminary U2 class, chronologically so far: startup /
Boy / War / Unforgettable Fire / Live Aid

Easter Season week 3 - Africa challenge

During the great 50 days of Easter, U2 Sermons is celebrating the power of the risen Christ to change lives by supporting an AIDS education program in Cameroon whose focus is training teachers to use computers to deliver information on HIV-AIDS. 97% of teachers in Cameroon do not have any computer skills, and 90% of students graduate from high school without ever having seen or touched a computer in the classroom. We did fine with donations the first week, but not so well the second week. The great thing about this project (other than that it's through the cool hands-on GlobalGiving site) is that their goal is only $1000: if half of our daily readers gave $10, we'd be there in a heartbeat.

NPR : Sunday Sermons, No Longer Unplugged

From our homiletics and pop culture department: I missed this at the time, but during Holy Week NPR actually managed to run a fairly reasonable story on normal clergy using the kind of normal media normal people are familiar with in normal sermons for normal congregations of normal people who are normally familiar with normal media.

TheBolgBlog: MP536: The Spiritual Journey of U2

Ryan Bolger gives an update on how his co-taught MP536: The Spiritual Journey of U2 mission class has been going at Fuller Theological Seminary.

"United 93" -- "See you for a swim"

I was quoting another blogger's earlier post about "One Tree Hill" when I said "It takes an unusual consciousness to garner comfort from apocalyptic imagery...." Well, check out this sidebar to a United 93-related interview with a California man who lost his wife and the couple's unborn child on that flight. It ends up dipping into that kind of comfort-via-eschatology by way of answering why "One Tree Hill" turned up once (only) on the Vertigo tour, in U2's Oakland concert last November. (Hat tip to scatter o' light.)

Caritas: U2 and Lament

I posted some weeks ago a description by an audience member of Greg Stevenson's recent U2 presentation at Abilene Christian University. Well, Greg, who has a lot to say in the overall field of religion and popular culture (here's his book on Buffy), is now blogging and offers two related posts himself, focusing on one of the more popular topics among people who write on the Christian perspective in U2's work -- U2 and Lament, and Lament part 2.

Easter season, week 2

A reminder that during the Easter season we're trying to spread some Resurrection life through Global Giving by seeing how far our little U2 Sermons community can get towards funding one of their Africa projects, an AIDS education program in Cameroon whose focus is training teachers to use computers to deliver information on HIV-AIDS. (Some donors are leaving a comment on the original post after they have given.)

I'm happy to say that after our first week, the Cameroon project now has less than $400 of its desired $1000 funding left to go.

wandering church: U2 and hebrews

Playing catch-up: Isaac at blip reflects on "I Still Haven't Found," wondering if years of listening to it "predisposed me to the Epistle to the Hebrews."

prayerbookproject: the church has left the building

If nothing else, Worshiping with Benedict, Wesley and Bono: Exploring Ancient Future Liturgies is a great title for a workshop.

sydneyanglicans.net: Grace vs Karma

Nothing too new in this reflection plus review of Bono on Bono from Greg Clarke of the Centre for Apologetic Scholarship and Education (CASE) in New South Wales... but since it mentions Get Up Off Your Knees, why not link it?

Grace Notes: U2 and liturgy

A thoughtful post on U2 and liturgical planning from one of our contributors.

Easter week update

Happy Easter Monday. Just to say, the link to the AIDS education program in Cameroon in yesterday's challenge post is now working.

GlobalGiving - an Easter Season challenge

Christ is risen! Easter is here, and there are 50 days -- great ones, according to liturgists -- until Pentecost. I want to propose that we celebrate it together in a particular way. I've become pretty enthusiastic about the GlobalGiving site, which offers a very direct way to make donations to projects in the developing world that, in essence, help work towards the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals. You can search for projects that need funding by theme or region, and you can even email the actual people running them in Asia or Africa or Central America or wherever. Here's a BBC article about the concept.

My suggestion is that we do a little experiment during the Easter season, and spread some Resurrection life by seeing how far our little U2 Sermons community can get towards funding a Global Giving project in Africa. I've chosen an AIDS education program in Cameroon whose focus is training teachers to use computers to deliver information on HIV-AIDS -- in part because their entire goal is only $1000, and in part because if you're reading this you have access to a computer and know how to use it, unlike 90% of high school students in Cameroon.

U2 Sermons gets in the neighborhood of 150-200 hits a weekday; we could make a significant impact or even enable the iEARN-SchoolNet-Cameroon folks to reach their $1000 goal. I've already given a first donation to start us off. Click through and check it out; you can enter your own choice of amount and give by credit card or Paypal. If you're willing to leave a comment here (even anonymously) we could track how many have taken part. Happy Easter!

when the soul wants, the soul waits

And while we wait: 2006 Amnesty International Easter Action

Good Friday: what once was hurt, what once was friction, what left a mark...

I've linked many examples of a wide variety of different kinds of church service using U2 in Christian worship over the years, and for today here's yet another: the Seabreeze Church band in Huntington Beach CA covers "Grace." It's much less ambient than the U2 version. (The sermons are online as well but not cross-indexed to the music that went with them.) This church, of Southern Baptist parentage, seems to have a live music repertoire that also incorporates Coldplay and others, as seen here.

[Edit: title fixed; wasn't awake yet!]

"It takes an unusual consciousness to garner comfort from apocalyptic imagery..."

This post from a general blog about which I know nothing (I've only very briefly skimmed anything but the post I just linked) reflects on a couple of songs about reactions in the face of mortality, "Closer To The Light" by Bruce Cockburn, and "One Tree Hill" by U2. I love the story about the elderly man in the writer's church around the time Joshua Tree was released.

Via Crucis Grid Blog: the Way of the Cross online

Today the U2 Sermons blog for the book Get Up Off Your Knees is particiating in the Via Crucis Grid Blog - a global, multi-site, media-rich, thoroughly ecumenical walk through Holy Week.

Quae maerébat, et dolébat,
Pia Mater, dum vidébat
Nati poenas inclyti.

Quis est homo, qui non fleret,
Matrem Christi si vidéret
In tanto supplicio?

The Fourth Station: Jesus Meets His Blessed
Mother
am I still your son
You know I've waited for so long to hear you say so


(Youtube, which is hosting the above media, has inconveniently closed for part of the day this station has to be posted, to work on their site. If you're here and it's not running yet, you could visit again later.)

previous station: Jean, Maggie, PmPilgrim
next station: Preston, Annie, Elena, Martha2, PmPilgrim, Only Wonder Understands, Jimmy
whole schedule here

One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic

A student at Covenant Seminary in St. Louis -- site of previous U2 and Christian faith-related audio talks by Ned O'Gorman and Nathan Tiemeyer -- preaches on unity using John 17 and the U2 song "One."

Bread for the World Offering of Letters

This has probably been up for ages, but I was on the Bread for the World site recently and discovered a "Message from Bono" promoting their 2006 Offering of Letters. (Are you asking: What offering of letters?)

"one but not the same"

A reader has motivated me to clarify something. I'm sure many of you who visit here are aware of this, since I've hammered on it ad infinitum, so I ask your patience. But for those who may have gotten the wrong impression: Get Up Off Your Knees represents the work of laypeople and clergy from many, many Christian denominations, ranging from Roman Catholic to Presbyterian, from Church of Christ to Anglican, from evangelical to mainline, from liberal to conservative. It seeks to honor and draw on the work Christian leaders from diverse perspectives all over the English-speaking world were doing in using U2 in liturgy and worship for decades, long before Raewynne and I thought of putting a collection together documenting one aspect of that longstanding work. Anyone who links Get Up Off Your Knees with the idea of cheerleading for any particular denominational perspective, or, God forbid, recruiting new members for any particular institutional church, has missed the point.

Angels, Cowboys, and Christians

Readers interested in U2's artistic collaborators may have already seen this Wim Wenders profile and retrospective at Christianity Today Movies, but there's a much fuller version of it at Looking Closer (which also links a great interview of Wenders from Image journal where among many other things he discusses how his angel films transformed his spiritual life, and his eventual movement from Catholic to Protestant Christianity.)
A Wenders quote from the Looking Closer version of the piece: "It’s the nature of Christianity that it needs to work through conviction, and because of the way you approach it, and not by trying to become a missionary through your work."