As the names of those lost on Sept. 11 scrolled up a towering
screen, the singer kept reciting a verse from Psalm 51, in which King
David pleaded for God’s mercy.
“Oh Lord, open my lips,” he said, “that my mouth shall show forth thy
praise.” Then the music rose in a crescendo, soaring into U2’s vision
of a new heaven and earth, of a city “where there’s no sorrow and no
shame, where the streets have no name.”
This didn’t happen in a safe Christian sanctuary. This happened at
halftime of Super Bowl XXXVI, in front of 131 million or so viewers
around the world. But anyone who felt blindsided by this display of
prayer hasn’t listened carefully to this band’s music, said the Rev.
Steve Stockman, author of Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2 and
Presbyterian chaplain of Queen’s University in Belfast, Northern
Ireland.
“I think they have been clear ? for nearly25 years now ? about the
role Christian faith plays in their music. They’re not hiding
anything,” he said. “At the same time, they have always left big
spiritual questions hanging out there ? unanswered. That is an
interesting way to talk about art and that’s an interesting way to
live out your faith, especially when you’re trying to do it in front
of millions of people.”
Stockman has never met the band. Still, there is no shortage of
quotable material since Bono, in particular, has never been able to
keep his mouth shut when it comes to sin, grace, temptation,
damnation, salvation and revelation. Two others ? drummer Larry
Mullen Jr., and guitarist Dave “The Edge” Evans ? have long
identified themselves as Christians. Bassist Adam Clayton remains a
spiritual free agent.
The key, said Stockman, is that U2 emerged in Dublin, Ireland, in a
culturally Catholic land in which it was impossible to be sucked into
an evangelical subculture of “Christian radio” and “Christian music.”
The tiny number of Protestants prevented the creation of
a “Christian” marketplace. Thus, U2 plunged into real rock ‘n’ roll
because that was the only game in town. The band didn’t collide
with “Contemporary Christian Music” until its first American tours.
While secular scribes rarely ridicule the band’s faith,
the “Christian press and Christians in general have been the
doubters,” keen to “denounce the band’s Christian members as lost,”
noted Stockman. Many have heaped “condemnation on their lifestyles,
which include smoking cigars, drinking Jack Daniels and using
language that is not common currency at Southern Baptist conventions.”
It also helps to know that Bono has always had a love-hate
relationship with rock stardom. In the early days, other Christians
said the band should break up or flee into “Christian rock,” arguing
that fame always corrupts. The members of U2 decided otherwise, and,
early on, Bono began speaking out about his faith and his doubts, his
joys, and his failures.
“I don’t believe in preaching at people,” he told me, during a 1982
interview. A constant theme in his music, he added, is the soul-
spinning confusion that results when spirituality, sensuality, ego
and sin form a potion that is both intoxicating and toxic. “The truth
is that we are all sinners. I always include myself in the ‘we.’ …
I’m not telling everybody that I have the answers. I’m trying to get
across the difficulty that I have being what I am.”
Bono took this inner conflict on stage during the media-drenched Zoo
TV shows of the mid-1990s. The key moment was when the singer morphed
into a devilish alter ego named Mister MacPhisto, who wore a
glittering gold Las Vegas lounge suit and cheesy red horns.
Night after night, Bono would pull some girl out of the audience to
join in his “Elvis-devil dance.” Stockman’s book includes a
fascinating account of what happened one night in Wales, when one of
these dance partners had an agenda of her own.
“Are you still a believer?”, she asked. “If so, what are you doing
dressed up as the devil?”
Their voices hidden by the music, Bono gave her a serious
answer. “Have you read The Screwtape Letters, a book by C.S. Lewis
that a lot of intense Christians are plugged into? They are letters
from the devil. That’s where I got the whole philosophy of mock-the-
devil-and-he-will-flee-from-you,” said Bono.
Yes, the girl said, she had read The Screwtape Letters. She
understood that Lewis had turned sin inside out in order to make a
case for faith.
“Then you know what I am doing,” said Bono.
But no matter what happens on stage, plenty of believers remain
convinced that Bono’s devil suit was highly appropriate. While the
singer and his band mates have made some mistakes, Stockman said he
is convinced that the controversies that continually swirl around U2
are actually evidence of deeper divisions among believers.
U2 is attacking, in word and deed, the modern church’s retreat from
art and popular culture.
The church “has put a spiritual hierarchy on jobs,” said
Stockman. “Ministers and missionaries are on top, then perhaps
doctors and nurses come next and so on to the bottom, where artists
appear. Artists of whatever kind have to compromise everything to
entertain. Art is fluffy froth that is no good in the Kingdom of God.
What nonsense.”
By Terry Mattingly, associate professor of mass media and religion at
Palm Beach Atlantic College.
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