U2 Sermons

10th anniversary repost: the very first post on U2 Sermons, May 9 2003

2013-05-09T13:18:00.000-04:00

A sensible person might have begun this blog last October, when we were first collecting material for a book of U2 sermons, instead of 7 months later when all the submissions were in and we were about to send the manuscript to the publisher. However, things didn't happen that way.

Sitting on my desk right now is a 1" black ring binder, chock full of the text that will become this book. In 6 days, it will all be emailed to Kevin at Cowley and then Get Up Off Your Knees will really take on a life of its own.

What will I (Beth) put here? Status updates, probably. Links to related stuff. Links to press and so on that we get, assuming we get press. Responses to any interesting comments. Blog things.

10th anniversary repost: From August 2007

2013-05-08T13:17:00.000-04:00

Off topic, but perhaps a point of personal pride

The new issue of "Q" features a "Cash for Questions" with the Edge for which readers were invited to submit inquiries. As we say in the southern USA, I'm tickled to discover today that my question was used for the article. And no, I was not the person who asked "what does God look like?" (Nice philosophically sound answer, though.) Mine is about cheese.

10th Anniversary repost: From August 2006

2013-05-07T13:15:00.000-04:00

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?

10th anniversary repost: From October 2005

2013-05-06T13:13:00.000-04:00

8 comments on U2 at Madison Square Garden last night

1) I guess I'll always have the characteristic Boston proprietary attitude to U2, but Madison Square Garden is an amazing venue and beats the Fleet (OK, the Banknorth Garden) hands down as a physical space in which to see this band. WOW.
2) Nice to see Father Abraham has developed some daughters as well as sons in the COEXIST Abrahamic-religions section.
3) Fast Cars! Bono and Edge flamenco! Ask any U2 fan this: "So, did you ever think you would see the Edge flamenco onstage?"
4) Yet another trial balloon for The First Time: "I threw away the key and only grace gave it back to me."
5) I laughed and laughed when the guy who was sitting behind me began top-volume yelling in his gloriously blunt New York manner at people heading down the stairs before the encores: "WHY - ARE - YOU - LEAVING?!! HOW!! CAN!! YOU!! #*$^%ING!!!! LEEAAAVE!!!!??"
6) I've seen Sunday Bloody Sunday so many times it doesn't always have all its power for me, but during it last night Bono pulled a little girl in white onstage, sat down with her on the floor, and made her promise to remember the word COEXIST as she grew up. Not a dry eye in the house. Although God bless that kid, she was probably the only human being there who didn't know that her line was "No More."
7) Very nice to let the sound guy take a bow.
8) Vocatus atque non vocatus Deus aderit.

10th anniversary repost: From January 2004

2013-05-05T13:06:00.000-04:00

Epiphany

[grid blog :: Epiphany]
This is a sort of ad hoc end to the Advent grid blog, which Bob Carlton proposed only yesterday as a way of marking the end of the Christmas season. He writes, "In many traditions, [Jan 6] is the feast of Epiphany, which originated in the Eastern Church, centering upon three mysteries: (1) the incarnation, God's coming to us as Christ (2) the baptism of Jesus in the Jordan river and (3) Jesus' first miracle, the changing of water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Together these portray the way God manifested to the world in Christ." By the way, one of my very favorite hymns is designed around these "manifestation" mysteries plus another, the Transfiguration.

So, the theme is Epiphany, and instead of a song, I have a question. If you were trying to preach these themes using a U2 song, and began to look through texts in search of good Epiphany references, you'd probably notice that most seeming "manifestation" moments are often immediately turned inside out and their meaning revealed as idolatrous. U2 spiritual lyrics, when you read them, are much more likely to lament or denounce a situation that manifests God's absence than they are to celebrate God's presence. And yet, everyone associates U2 with transcendence and joy.

So how is it that a band who provide so many epiphany-experiences to people manage to do so while only very rarely writing, head-on, about unalloyed epiphanies? Talk amongst yourselves.

10th anniversary repost: From November 2003

2013-05-04T13:03:00.000-04:00

Book proofreading update

I feel like my eyes are about to fall out of my head. The ms arrived about lunchtime today, and I have to send it back tomorrow, so I've been proofing almost nonstop. I would like to make these comments:
1) I thought 160 pages seemed short! It's over 200.
2) I like Cowley's font choices, epecially the one for quotes.
3) I don't envy our editor having to make calls about lyric quotes - like, if a text is in lower case in the Pop booklet with no punctuation, does that mean all quotations of it should be in lower case with no punctuation?
4) Italics issues. Lots of italics issues. Must have been some computer glitch.
5) I'm kind of amazed how long the spirituality program appendix is, typeset.
6) Our editor made a really smart and U2-literate addition to the sentence about Zooropa in my essay and I am extremely impressed.
7) Whaddaya say: "beatific vision," or "Beatific Vision"? I can go either way.

10th anniverary repost: From August 2003

2013-05-03T13:01:00.000-04:00

I've seen a couple places in the fandom recently links to the listing for U2 on a site I don't want to promote. Its aim is to dig up dirt on artists in the Christian music industry, as well as spiritually thoughtful mainstream bands, in order to prove that all of them are evil, twisted corrupters of pure young minds. I've also noticed, in my referrer logs, some evidence of people searching for ugly "facts" about the people in U2 and their families.

All that would bother me a lot anyway. But it does especially when I'm wrapped up in a book project which takes a diametrically opposed perspective. We have been so careful throughout work on Get Up Off Your Knees -- from the very first call for submissions through the editing process and onward -- to be clear with everyone that our professional interest as theologians and homileticians was not in the band as people, and most of all not in their personal lives or convictions or lack of same. All that stuff is just out of bounds for this project, and should be. These sermons are about, as someone who got a preview put it to me recently, "the Big Ideas," and how particular works of art -- U2 lyrics, in this case, but it could be any artist -- illuminate or question those ideas.

I wonder if the people behind sites like that would argue the same way for other artistic genres? Say, that a conscientious person of faith shouldn't, for example, find spiritual benefit in the "Hymn to St. Cecelia" by Benjamin Britten and W.H. Auden, or play off it to make a point in a sermon? Or is the hatred and fear really all just about rock 'n' roll?

It sort of inspires despair when I see this blood-lust for "dirt" ....and even more when I get afraid that some people might think a book of U2 sermons would have anything in common with it.

Blessed Cecilia, appear in visions
To all musicians, appear and inspire:
Translated Daughter, come down and startle
Composing mortals with immortal fire.

10th anniversary repost: from May 2003

2013-05-02T12:57:00.000-04:00

I (Beth) have been catching up on some of the articles about The Matrix Reloaded, and doing so has made me think again about the way the press tends to cover any religious leader/organization working with any example of pop culture in worship or education: Minister uses 'Sopranos' to teach religion. Church uses 'Simpsons' to reach youth. So often there's this sort of quaint, human interest tone, following a script that I imagine has been similar since the 60s: Priest wears tie-dye vestments to attract the today generation.

To exaggerate for effect, the script pictures an unchanging thing called "The Church," populated by out-of-touch authority figures who occasionally, amusingly, come across some reference to something the kids out in the real world like. So they trot it out as a recruitment tool, and this fact itself is what is newsworthy. Church tries to seem hip, hee hee.

Well, it hit me with something like horror this morning that -- assuming articles are written in the secular press about Get Up Off Your Knees, or about the concept of U2 sermons -- that script is likely to be layered over some of them. As hard as any of us say "No, this is no gimmick, this is who I am, this is my band, they've been part of my faith life for years," some of the articles will probably boil down to: Church tries to seem hip, hee hee. Oh, God.

10th anniversary

2013-05-01T12:53:00.000-04:00

To my astonishment, this blog is about to celebrate its 10th anniversary. U2 Sermons began on May 9, 2003, as we were in initial stages of completing the manuscript for Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog, only the second book ever to explore the spirituality of the Irish band U2. It's hard to remember this now: the fact of U2's Christian fluency and commitment was rather uncommon to voice explicitly at the time, but soon afterwards books and articles about it became a cottage industry.

I started writing merely as a way to, I hoped, generate some buzz for the book, but the blog turned into a labor of love and a place to track the ongoing dialogue between U2 and theology. Sadly, we lost all our comments in a transition a few years back, but the 10 years of entries themselves are all still available. In honor of the past 10 years, I'll be republishing some older posts over the next several days.

Build another well

2013-04-19T08:31:00.000-04:00

It's time again for the annual African Well Fund "Build a Well for Bono's Birthday" fundraiser. Click through to learn about this year's goals and donate by May 10th.

Shadowy moments

2013-04-14T17:37:00.004-04:00

The new Roman Catholic bishop of Limerick cites Bono at his ordination, because everybody likes to quote that one song.

The Anger Room

2013-03-29T09:54:00.003-04:00

"ON GOOD FRIDAY THE SPEARS WERE REAL." A moving piece from Wesley Hill.

une âme sœur

2013-03-17T12:22:00.001-04:00

HT to Angela for sending along a link to a blog in French on the topic of U2 and religion. Not too many posts there, but worth a look if you're interested in another perspective on the topic.

"If he was singing about God, why was he being so angry about it?"

2013-02-28T10:07:00.001-05:00

Presbyterian pastor and musician Steve Lindsley offers a reflection on what it was like for him to discover U2's War, on the occasion of the album's 30th anniversary.

Coolness and detachment, or heart on the sleeve?

2013-02-25T13:35:00.000-05:00

A piece from the Image Journal blog riffing on "being uncool" as something characteristic of U2 and, perhaps, an indicator of the importance of narrative spiritual nonfiction. HT to our friends at Interference who published an edited version of the piece.

A city lit by....?

2013-02-15T19:26:00.000-05:00

Ian Ryan, the lyrics guru at @U2, has an interesting post up about "Surrender" in which he links it with "City of Blinding Lights." "Surrender" has long been a favorite U2 track of mine, one which I tend to pair in presentations with "Discotheque" as essentially treating the topic of true versus false surrender (in Bono's words, the fact that "there are two roads out of town.") I've also viewed "New York" as a close relative of "Surrender," with all the allurements of the big city treated in perhaps a less stereotypically puritanical way than "Surrender" sees them, but still ceding the field at the end to that still small voice that comes walking by in the cool of the evening, quoting Song of Solomon.

We don't read Sadie's story the same way (I think she triumphantly renounced the hollow superficiality of ordinary being-good life in the classic "there's got to be more than this" narrative, went in search of that something more, tragically ended up on the streets instead, and is now either literally or metaphorically calling the bluff of God/Death on the 48th floor: "Show me reality or I jump.") But who cares.... it really could mean anything; 1983 Bono couldn't write a lyrical story with a logical progression and consistent characters to save his life.

If I am reading correctly it seems to me that Ian hears "it's in the street/ getting under my feet/ it's in the air/ it's everywhere I look for you" as a fairly straightforward statement about looking for God many places (i.e. "I look for you in the street, in the air....") and deciding God can only be found within. I'd be interested to hear if the song sounds that way to others; I'd always assumed that this was a lament about the persistent opposition to the search posed by everything in oneself that blocks one's own yearning for God -- misdirected desire, idols; ultimately, the self-love that has to be died to in a line or two -- and also assumed that the "someday" of that dying to self was a bitter jab at the narrator's own apathy. (Like Augustine: Lord, give me chastity, but not yet.)

Anyway, the notion of taking "Surrender" and "City of Blinding Lights" together to see how U2's view of the city has become more open and subtle is a great idea. I also like how the different kinds of light imagery Ian quotes in his piece, but doesn't discuss, contribute to this contrast. Worth a read, however you interpret "Surrender."

We want to be your band

2013-02-09T17:40:00.000-05:00

Tom Beaudoin reminisces about U2's visit to Fordham in 2009. Wow, was it really that long ago?

U2 Conference #2 coming up

2013-02-04T05:28:00.000-05:00

So, readers, are you planning to be at the 2nd U2 Conference in Cleveland in April? I didn't get my act together to propose a paper this time, but there are several academic sessions of likely interest to readers of this blog:

“U2’s Transformation of the Daily Into the Sublime.” Carol Burg
“Moment of Surrender: Shared Creation in the U2 Live Experience.” Matthew Hamilton
“Transmogrification and Transfiguration in ‘Another Time, Another Place’ and ‘Gloria.’” Paul Harris
"Tearing Down the Walls: U2 and the Irish Desire for Transcendence.” Arlan Hess
“Bono’s Psalter.” Andrew Smith
"Elevation: God on Tour with U2.” Edwin Beckham
“More Than Shopping Our Way to a Cure? The (Perceived) Transgressive Nature of the RED Campaign and Its Affect on U2’s Ethos as Justice Advocates.” Laurie Ann Britt-Smith
“A Communion of Transcendence: U2 and The Eucharist.” Kristen Pungitore and James Menkhaus
“Bono & U2’s Transformation of Celebrity Social Activism Into Social Entrepreneurship and Social Justice.” Jennifer Schaefer
“Into the Half-Light: Ireland as An Archetypal ‘Thin’ Place.” Michael Sullivan
“Transgressing Theology: Locating Jesus in a ‘F—ed-Up World.’” Theodore Tros

.... and others, I'm sure.
Also, spaces are still open for participants in the mainstream track, targeted at fans and a wider audience than just the academic community. Read more here and consider taking part in a panel!

It does matter, after all, which you heard

2013-01-31T11:40:00.003-05:00

There is no direct U2 content in this post from Fare Forward, other than that Bono has done a cover of the song in question, but it may be of interest to readers alert to arts that work with spiritual themes but do not have the goal of making a theological superstructure explicit. The article looks at a truly ham-handed rewrite of lyrics to Leonard Cohen's over-played "Hallelujah" to make it conform to a particular Protestant vision of what David should have thought and done. While graciously appreciating some aspects of the "revised" text, the piece also asks great questions about the merits of reflecting complexity, sexuality, and brokenness in art that has an eye open to God. Excerpt:

God, parts 1, 2, and 3

2013-01-26T15:55:00.004-05:00

Michael Gilmour, who published an article some time ago about U2 and Jeremiah, has an interesting post up at HuffPo comparing U2's 1988 response to John Lennon's "God" to Larry Norman's 1993 response. This is a cool topic to explore. Excerpt:

Lennon subsumes all religion and all religious experience without distinction under that catchall concept he labels God, and blurs sacred texts, practices and beliefs with human celebrity and the accolades afforded to them, whether rock stars (Elvis, Zimmerman [= Dylan], Beatles) or politicians (Hitler, Kennedy). This may explain why U2, rather unexpectedly, does not use the term "God" at all in their song, apart from the title. Bono refuses to group all religion together or mingle sacred language with reverence for renowned individuals. U2's God song offers instead a far more nuanced understanding of the Divine, which includes a theological particularity absent from Lennon's lyrics.

The Unforgettable Tribute

2013-01-21T18:01:00.003-05:00

Fascinating writeup, for today's MLK holiday in the USA, on the making of "Pride."

I've got no home in this world

2012-12-20T14:21:00.001-05:00

In honor of the latest round of pop culture apocalyptic hype around December 21st, Tim Neufeld gives @U2 a list of "Top Ten End of the World Songs."

Dreaming it all up again

2012-11-28T08:40:00.000-05:00

In rummaging through posts I'd made a note of and not followed up on, I found this one from August, about From The Sky Down. A worship leader reflects on looking to the future and letting go of concerns with safety in light of a couple of comments from the film.

Mine was definitely the broken one

2012-11-19T08:36:00.002-05:00

This week's "Off the Record" by Marilynn Maione contains some very interesting comments by Bono on his cover of the Leonard Cohen song "Hallelujah"; they segue into a discussion of performance practice specifically at the transition into "Streets" live. Perhaps of interest to our readers.

"Relating to an Outrageous God"

2012-11-04T21:15:00.003-05:00

A day late and a dollar short on this one, but readers might be interested in knowing that Jack Heaslip, U2's chaplain since their early days, did a day retreat this weekend at Christ Church Episcopal, Greenwich CT USA as part of their Conversations on Courage and Faith series this year (scroll down for description), and also preached and gave a talk at the same parish on Sunday.