Ps Lawrence showed us a Bill Hybels interview with Bono on Sunday, and there was a clip where Bono was speaking at a National Prayer Broadcast in Washington. I mean, I knew Bono is special and he's been doing many wonderful things in recent years, and was a Time magazine Person of the Year. But now I'm beginning to see where his passion stems from.
And it's not just Bono (who is the frontman of the Irish band U2) alone but the story of the band itself is special. So when I saw Walk On - The Spiritual Journey of U2 at Tecman yesterday, I grabbed it. I wanted to know their story and be encouraged, even inspired.
The author is Steve Stockman, a Presbyterian minister. Here are some excerpts from the book:
As the band was just starting off many years ago, Bono wrote the following words to his father, who has now passed away: "[God] gives us our strength and a joy that does not depend on drink or drugs. This strength will, I believe, be the quality that will take us to the top of the music business. I hope our lives will be a testament to the people who follow us, and to the music business where never before have so many lost and sorrowful people gathered in one place pretending they're having a good time. It is our ambition to make more than good music."And it appears that U2 is very much the head, and not the tail, in the music business.
[...] many talented musicians are steered into a gospel band scenario, going from church to church singing cliche-driven songs with limited content. The audience members are almost exclusively Christian, and, as the majority of them already assented to the beliefs being preached from the stage, the cliches are wasted. A safe Christian industry ghetto is created with pop stars and record companies. There is a magazine, Contemporary Christian Music, which has become the label for the entire industry - an industry that is always in danger of ending up culturally irrelevant. When Jesus told His disciples they were the light of the world, where did He want them to shine (Matt. 5:14)? As more beams of light that make the light shine blindingly bright upon itself, or as strobes of illumination flashing radical alternative lifestyles across the darkness? Do you blame the dark for being dark, or the light for not shining?While there is a place in the Church where Christian musicians are needed to serve, the question here is why aren't more of them going out of the Church?
For many years the band members said that their faith - not their rock 'n' roll lifestyle - was the real rebellion. In 1983, Bono told Rolling Stone: "I think that, ultimately, the group is toltally rebellious because of our stance against what people accept as rebellion. The whole thing about rock stars driving cars into swimming pools - that's not rebellion ... Rebellion starts at home, in your heart, in your refusal to compromise your beliefs and your values. I'm not interested in politics like people fighting back with sticks and stones, but in the politics of love." For this band, it was more rebellious to be reading Bibles in the back of the tour bus than it was to be doing drugs - a perspective on Christianity that was not a cultural norm.
From the foreword by Steve Beard:
When I saw U2 during their Elevation tour, I was amazed at how often I felt the presence of God in the arena. [...] The culmination of the evening was the final encore. After thanking "the Almighty" numerous times, Bono began singing "hallelujah" over and over and over again. This rather contagious melody and message rang throughout the audience's soul. Soon, it seemed as though all sixteen-thousand fans in the arena were singing the song with Bono. This one word: hallelujah - praise ye the Lord. With that, they walked off the stage.
