I am continually amazed by the powerful lyrics and incredible music that U2 continues to produce — but even more, I am impressed by Bono’s powerful imprint on the social hierarchy of the world, and his persistence.

Before I launch into my own explanation of my love for U2’s faith-filled music — check out a few other sites, or come back up here to click on them after you’ve read further!

u2sermons blog
A site devoted to referencing articles about faith, social justice and U2.

@U2 website
A site that has listed Bono’s references to the bible in his songs — very cool… Here is a quote the site has posted, in the words of Bono, from “U2 at the End of the World”:

Maybe we just have to sort of draw our fish in the sand. It’s there for people who are interested. It shouldn’t be there for people who aren’t.

A story on beliefnet.com about Bono’s faith and social justice:

In his debt-relief efforts, Bono did not travel the typical celebrity route of writing out checks or performing benefit concerts. Instead, he was meeting incessantly with politicians, bureaucrats, and world leaders–often behind the scenes–to lobby for legislation.

In their latest album, U2 has exposed their progressive faith in a time when Christianity is thought by most to be a political tool of only the right. Along with good, hard-driving beats that are typical of U2, love songs, and a song Bono wrote for his father, these are gospel songs for a new era.

But this time is different than the time of the ‘true’ gospel song’s prevalence. The ‘mainstream’ has to be ‘tricked’ into listening to the gospel. Bono and U2 are masters of trickery, and unlike many other Christian bands — don’t have any agenda except for the message itself. They are not trying to save souls. They are trying to give the world their message. And we will hear it if we listen. I am so happy that the record has been so successful, because it means that social justice is finding its voice everywhere, through the Billboard charts, into the ears of everybody.

Here are some of my favorite words from this new album, and a few quotes from Bono about a couple of them. Please, if you haven’t heard the album, don’t be turned off by the mainstream media’s coverage of U2, by their pop teenage appeal, or by the often raucous sound of some of their tunes. Rather, be amazed by it and pray that this message they have planted will sit in the hearts of mainstream religious folk everywhere, and grow to an understanding about poverty, war and the world we live in.

From the song Miracle Drug:

God I need your help tonight
Beneath the noise
Below the din
I hear a voice
It’s whispering
In science and in medicine
I was a stranger
You took me in

From Love and Peace or Else:

Lay down your treasure
Lay it down now brother
You don’t have time
For a jealous lover

As you enter this life
I pray you depart
With a wrinkled face
And a brand new heart…

Lay down
Lay down your guns
All your daughters of Zion
All your Abraham sons…

Bono, about Vertigo (from the u2.com website):

These are nervous times, they really are, you turn on the news, you think ‘Wow, who’s next? My brother, my sister, my uncle, my aunt …nervous times.’
‘It’s a dizzy feeling, vertigo, a sort of sick feeling, when you get up to the top of something and there’s only one way to go - that’s not a dictionary definition, that’s mine. And in my head I create a club, called Vertigo, with all these people in it, and the music is just not the music you want to hear, the people are not the people you want to be with. And then you just see somebody, she’s got a cross round her neck, and you kind of focus on it because you can’t focus on anything else, and you find a little, tiny, fragment of salvation there.’

From All Because of You:
“I was born a child of grace
Nothing else about the place
Everything was ugly but your beautiful face
It left me no illusion

I saw you in the curve of the moon
In the shadow cast across my room
You heard me in my tune
When I just heard confusion

From Crumbs from Your Table:

Where you live should not decide
Whether you live or whether you die…

Bono, about Sometimes You Can’t Make it on your Own (from the u2.com website):

I sang ‘Sometimes You Can’t Make it On Your Own’ at my father’s funeral. He was a very tough, old boot of a guy, Irish, Dub, north side of Dublin, very cynical about the world and the people in it, you know, but very charming, and funny with it.
‘His whole thing was, ‘Don’t dream - to dream is to be disappointed’. That was really what I think was his advice to me. He didn’t speak it in those words, but that’s what he meant, and of course that’s really a recipe for megalomania isn’t it? I mean I was only ever interested in big ideas, and not so much dreaming but putting dreams into action, doing the things that you have in your head has become an important thing for me.

From Yahweh (the closing prayer of the album):

Take these hands
Teach them what to carry
Take these hands
Don’t make a fist (no)
Take this mouth
So quick to criticise
Take this mouth
Give it a kiss…

Yahweh…

This is an incredible album from a deep, intense and musical group of men that really grasp to understand the world around them, as a place of love, as a place of struggle, and a place of God. Please buy this album anywhere you can get your hands on it. And check out the websites at the top of this blog entry. You will be happy you did!