The World and U2 by Alan McPherson

Author:Alan McPherson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: undefined
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Yet he also invoked traditional Manichaean morality and righteous indignation: “There’s a war going on between good and evil. And millions of children and millions of lives are being lost to greed, to bureaucracy, and to a church that’s been asleep. And it sends me out of my mind with anger.”[101] And, as any good politician, he flattered his audiences: “We’re here largely because politicians have told us people in the Midwest don’t care about issues outside of the US. We believe there’s kind of a moral compass that lives here.”[102]

Pastor Bill Hybels of Willow Creek, a megachurch in suburban Chicago, met with the singer, and “I came away convinced that Bono’s faith is genuine, his vision to relieve the tragic suffering in Africa is God-honoring, and his prophetic challenge to the U.S. church must be taken seriously.”[103]

There were some skeptics among U.S. Christians. Christianity Today, for example, doubted that Bono’s version of Christianity outside organized religion was feasible or desirable. “A Christian’s pleading for social justice without worshiping God regularly within the community of the church is little more than activism for its own sake.” The leading Christian publication did not get “a sense that he felt much respect for the evangelical culture he was lecturing” and in turn lectured Bono on the fact that “Christians were bringing relief to suffering Africans in the same decade that U2 poured millions into its bloated Zoo TV and PopMart tours.”[104]

But many more seemed to respond to Bono’s message. Dan Haseltine from the band Jars of Clay stated that “U2 has been a model of sorts. They have been a good example of people living lives in the reality of the Gospel. Lives that spend more time doing than explaining.” Jars of Clay followed the example, setting up missions to find clean water and clean blood for Africans struggling with HIV and AIDS. Michael W. Smith wrote the song “We Can’t Wait Any Longer,” “inspired by the work with Bono and DATA.” In 2004, several Christian bands issued a collection of U2 covers called In the Name of Love: Artists United for Africa, a fund-raiser for AIDS charities.[105] By 2003, Bono was praising U.S. churches for leading the struggle against AIDS.[106]

By mid-decade, Episcopalian congregations were celebrating “U2charists,” using the band’s music during communion services to talk about global reconciliation, social justice, and caring for one’s neighbors. “Perhaps U2 doesn’t look (or sound) like most Christian musicians,” wrote one Christian author. “But what could be more Christlike than what they do and what they produce?”[107] Another posited that “U2 might be thought of as a sort of ecclesia.”[108] Many others shared T. Bone Burnett’s observation that, with its spiritual cleansing and communal spirit, “a U2 concert is what a church should be.”[109]

Bono’s lobbying with the Vatican and U.S. churches and missionaries also helped move politicians. Bono had long adopted the preaching style of nineteenth-century revivalists, couching his homilies to U.S. politicians as moving forward human agency rather than waiting on divine providence.[110] Two

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