HelloAngel
ONE love, blood, life
[SIMG]http://forum.interference.com/gallery/data//585/11265onestepcloser-sml.jpg[/SIMG]
By Jennifer B. Kaufman
2006.11
Fans have always seen U2 as much more than a noisy rock 'n' roll band. Christian Scharen, a professor of divinity at Yale University, is no different. Scharen has examined the spiritual side of U2 in his book "One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God" where he takes a complex and thorough look on how U2’s songs relate to scripture, U2’s theological development as they have reached the apex of stardom, and what the modern church can learn from U2 to gain interest from young Christians.
Scharen spoke to Interference.com about his lifelong love of U2, his work as a professor and theologian, and five U2 songs that mean so much to him.
When did you first get into U2 and what about the band and its music made you a lifelong fan?
I first heard U2 in a friend’s college dorm room in the fall of 1985. Until then, my faith and youth culture—including the music I liked—were totally separate. But ironically U2 was introduced to me as a Christian band—something they’ve steered away from despite their spiritually deep songs.
Why do I love the band’s work so much? Obvious answers first. They make great music. They have for three decades and so lots of people just love U2 songs.
But as important as their great music is the fact that their songs are also about something larger. U2 turn their music towards the big questions of life: love and betrayal, hope and despair, war and peace, faith and doubt, and so on. They are a band that wants to change the world, and many of their fans are working for that vision right along with them. This spiritual vision, if you want to call it that, leads fans to speak of seeing a U2 show as "going to church." The band really helped me connect the dots between the music groove I love and a spiritual vision that is so needed today.
On top of their convictions, U2 are fantastic, dynamic performers. They’ve put on creative live shows since they played the Dandelion Market in Dublin in the late 1970s. They’ve literally broken ground in the use of technology for touring. But their tours are not simply rock shows. A U2 show is about taking the audience to another place. They are always about changing the audience, offering a way to transcend one’s individual circumstances and fit into “something more.” That something more has been present in concerts in different ways, usually intertwining religious and political themes. U2 have a vision that holds together fervent belief and openness to the nonbeliever’s doubts. It is a faith that loves the world, but loves God more and so can’t stand to see the world stay the same: full of injustice, violence, and hate.
What inspired you to write “One Step Closer?”
U2’s songs witness to a coherent understanding of the Christian faith that has developed over time. This consistent spiritual message connects with large numbers of spiritually hungry people, myself included. This coherent faith perspective is neither shallow nor blind. It is real. It is willing to seek God through deep engagement with the world. The book both shows what I’ve found in U2’s way of singing and living faith fully engaged in the life of this world and invites others to try out this way of connecting faith and life.
How does U2 influence you as a theologian and a pastor?
They helped me think much more deeply about the divide today between Christians—those U2 have called “squeakers” who are really concerned with profanity and those who worry more about the profanity of 30,000 children dying each day for lack of a dollar a day. It is something I talk about on radio and TV interviews, trying to get the message out to Christians today.
In the book, I compare the theology of glory to the theology of the cross. Bono calls these two orientations to God “karma” and “grace”. I’d say that “squeakers” believe in karma, not Grace. They think the job of Christians is to earn our way into heaven by “getting it right” on earth. That orientation means lots of things including clarity about right and wrong, who is in and who is out, what you should say and not say. It unfortunately ends up looking a lot like the religious leaders Jesus was in conflict with. I think Bono, U2, and Philip Yancey (in "What’s So Amazing About Grace?") are on just the same page here in saying, as I say in my book, that too many Christians think their “good” behavior will earn them passage through the pearly gates of Heaven (U2’s song “Playboy Mansion” is about this, among others). And notice where this view leads: as we mature in faith, we spend more time with other Christians, make up rules about what “Christian behavior is like,” and judge others by how well they follow these rules.
Bono might say that as we mature in faith, we should spend less time with other Christians. Why? So that we can communicate the love of God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, that’s why! If we truly are given the gift of God’s love and forgiveness while we are yet sinners, as St. Paul says in Romans 5:8, then the issue is not how do I behave so that I earn God’s love, but how do I participate in what God is doing in the world because God’s love found me? Well, God has promised a new heaven and a new earth, a place where there is no longer suffering and tears (Isaiah 65, Revelation 21). We experience that “other place” in worship, and then we’re sent out into the world to meet God who is already in the world working to bring this “new” reality to birth. The “religious” people of Jesus’ day, after all, accused him of eating with drunkards and sinners. He did because he knew they were the ones who needed his love. What if we Christians, instead of worrying about who is pure and who is not, worried more about loving regardless? Perhaps this is happening more; the story of Bono’s relationship with Jesse Helms is testimony supporting that conclusion.
How does U2 influence you in a more secular fashion?
OK—true confessions of a theologian. There is no secular if you believe that God is creator of heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them (Psalm 146:6; Acts 14:15). And so I think there is something very important that is said in relation to popular culture when Jesus says that God makes it rain on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5). The other night I watched “Walk the Line” with my wife Sonja. It is a movie about Johnny Cash and June Carter. It is a complex story, including deep suffering, drug addiction, divorce and also great love, repentance, and an experience of healing. Was God only present in Cash’s “gospel songs” or was God somehow present also when Cash sang “Folsom Prison Blues” to a room full of prisoners?
U2 presents us with this challenge. Bono, while meeting with religion reporters after his “homily” at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year, said, “I’m asked, ‘Why doesn’t your music proclaim Christ?’ and my answer is that it does.” He went on say that “creation has its own proclamation of God and I’d like to think our music has the same qualities to it.” Can the Church find a profound enough view of sin to see its own faults, and a profound enough view of grace to see God’s presence working in the world? That is a major question posed by the work of U2. Do they proclaim God only when they sing “Gloria” or “Grace” or do they proclaim God also when they sing, “Desire” and “Discotheque”? If we split it like this, sacred on one side and secular on the other, we risk missing the very human presence in "Gloria" and "Grace", and miss the heavenly resonances in “Desire” and “Discotheque.” U2 has always been about holding the tensions together—earth and heaven, spirituality and sexuality, faith and doubt.
What do your fellow theologians think of you being a fan of U2?
The younger ones all love U2 and are really glad I wrote the book. Older scholars mostly think it is a bit weird—especially at Yale where more “serious” topics are usually the norm. Bono’s star has risen so high on the political side of things that everyone is at least generally curious. But when they do read the book—as my friend Miroslav Volf did, who is one of the world’s most prominent theologians—they discover a band with very sophisticated ideas about theology, faith, art, and culture. Miroslav called Bono “an extraordinary theologian of grace.” Now that’s a great endorsement.
Name one U2 song and how you feel it relates to scripture.
In the week after my daughter Grace was born on Halloween 2000, three friends gave us copies of U2’s recently released album, "All That You Can’t Leave Behind." The last track, a tune entitled “Grace,” both imagines grace as an idea and as “a name for a girl.” It turns out that “Amazing Grace” is Bono’s favorite hymn.
The song takes up a favorite theme of the band, placing grace over against the idea of karma. Karma, as I said earlier, is the age-old idea that a person gets what they deserve. That would leave us all in a bad way. Grace, the core idea at the heart of Jesus and the Christian faith, is the idea that we don’t get what we deserve—we don’t deserve it but we get love, mercy, forgiveness, and a new chance at living. The song ends poetically, even hopefully, without being at all saccharine about it. “What once was hurt / What once was friction / What left a mark / No longer stains / Because Grace makes beauty / Out of ugly things.”
Such a claim does not erase the ugly; rather it claims the promise that because of Christ, God sees differently, and where there is hurt, a mark, a stain, God covers and heals and makes whole. A great embodiment of this idea can be found in the parable of the prodigal son, Luke 15:11-32, which was influential for Philip Yancey’s 1998 book "What’s So Amazing About Grace?"—a book Bono was so excited about he gave it to friends including Noel Gallagher of Oasis.
What could the church learn from U2 and how could they use U2 to get more people through their doors?
I’m nervous about any direct effort of churches to “use” U2 to get people in the door. To start conversations about God and the life of faith, perhaps, would be a good goal. But first of all, U2 could teach the church how to get over “religion.” Nothing has been more harmful to the church’s life than preoccupation with its own purity and self-perpetuation. U2’s ambivalence about traditional Christianity has roots in their experience growing up in a land torn apart by factions defined by religion. The Protestant-Catholic divide cast a long shadow over “religion” in Ireland in a complicated set of ways, and not only in terms of political power (the Church of Ireland, a protestant church tied to the Anglican Communion, is the church of the upper class, as well). So when Bono wonders aloud if “religion is the enemy of God” and suggests “religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building,” the roots of such sentiments are fairly understandable!
The church has to get over its religious bias, in so far as religious identity exists as much to judge and exclude as anything. The absence of that kind of religion in the band is part of why many fans, and the band itself at times, refer to U2 concerts as “going to church.” So much of the church’s energy goes into its own self-perpetuation (check a budget sometime), its buildings, clergy and trappings of holiness. They act as if they’ve got God or the Spirit in a box, and the purpose of Church is to provide people a God-fix. U2 are saying, “No, God is active in the world—in creation, in the work of artists, activists, and everyday people doing as God desires.” The task at church is to learn, be inspired, be forgiven and renewed for our in the world, joining in what God is already doing there. The question is a simple one, and an old one: What if instead of being known for tall steeples and judgmental people, the church was known, as Jesus wanted, by its willingness to love, forgive and do justice?
What are your future plans now that "One Step Closer" is published?
Just now I’m writing a book that will be called something like "Leading Faith as a Way of Life: A Challenge for Pastoral Leadership." It comes out of a project I’ve lead over the past few years at Yale. The main point is to describe the problem with seeing faith as only a “church” thing, disconnected from how we live the rest of the week. In response to this widespread problem, the book shows how their leaders can help churches become busy intersections, empowering people to live faith in all the various spheres of their lives (family, work, school, the arts and so on). This book will be out next spring from Eerdmans Publishing Co.
I am also exploring a follow-up from my work on U2 that I have tentatively called, taking a page from one of my favorite Irish theologians, "Grace Over Karma: Living On Earth, as in Heaven." This book will take the subtext of my book on U2—the difference between what I've called the “theology of glory” and “the theology of the cross”—and show how huge a difference it makes to the honesty and spiritual depth of our faith-life and as a direct consequence, the difference it makes for the good of the world God loves.
How many U2 concerts have you been to and what stands out about them?
I don’t have much street cred here. Some fans have literally seen the band fifty times or even more. When I started this book, I hadn’t ever seen the band live. My editor read an early draft where I recounted the story of how in 1987, my now wife and then girlfriend, Sonja, and I decided to sell our Joshua Tree tour tickets and give the money to the poor. We were inspired by U2’s commitment to justice and couldn’t justify spending the money for the show! After my editor read that story, he said, “Chris, you’ve got to see a U2 show if you are going to do this book.” So I saw them in Boston twice on the Vertigo Tour, once on the first leg and once on the third leg. The second show was especially sweet because Sonja and I took my eight-year-old son Isaiah. He totally loved it and is now taking guitar lessons. A future Edge, perhaps?
If you could listen to only five U2 songs for the rest of your life, what would they be and why?
You’ve got to be kidding. Only five? I just discovered “Are You Going to Wait Forever?” tonight and it rocks, a really positive vibe. It was a B-side for “Vertigo.” I’ve never been much of a single junkie—I buy albums and box sets. So I of course bought the iTunes digital boxset and they had AYGTWF. Lovely. And so many of U2’s songs are amazing. How could I ever choose only five? OK, you asked for it. I’ll do it. I’ve seen some recent lists of top 10 U2 songs. Here’s my top 5, in order.
5. “I Will Follow”/ “Mofo”—Wait, I’ve got two songs here. I love them both and they are deeply connected. These two, perhaps as much as any U2 songs, deal with the death of Bono’s mother, Iris, who died when he was only 14. Also, they both are driving songs musically, even if their styles are not that similar. As well, each has deep spiritual resonance. “I Will Follow” includes snippets from the hymn “Amazing Grace” and Bono has even inserted the phrase “Amazing Grace” into the song live on several occasions. “Mofo” starts with a spiritual search ("looking for to save my soul") and never lets go (have they ever let go of spiritual searching?). Check out the "Hasta la Vista, Baby! Live from Mexico City" recording or video with “Mofo” as the opener and “I Will Follow” directly afterward. Awesome.
4. “Miss Sarajavo”—Well, the story behind this song is just so incredible. I often cry when I listen to it, really. If you don’t know the story, read Bill Flanagan’s version in "Until the End of the World" or watch the documentary on the "Best of 1990-2000" DVD. The depression and yet almost miraculous hope deeply connects to how frustrating it is to see the continued killing between religious faiths, especially the children of Abraham mentioned in this song. The line is, “is there a time for first communion, is there a time for East 17, is there a time to turn to Mecca, is there a time to be a beauty queen.” While the song has almost never been played live, on their Vertigo tour, second leg and on after the terror bombings in London, the band started playing Miss Sarajevo just before the running of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. Here, they changed the line about the 1990s pop band East 17 so that Bono now sings “is there a time for first communion, is there a time for synagogue, is there a time to turn to Mecca, beauty queen before God.” Like so many of their songs, this song is a sort of rock ‘n’ roll prayer.
3. “Wake Up, Dead Man”—I can’t listen to this song very often, and not ever if I’m not free to give myself over to full attention to its intensity. But exactly because it is so profoundly right about our real experience in this broken and messed up world, I could never live without it. It is a lament psalm, and without song songs of lament, I don’t know how we could make it through this life with our eyes and hearts open.
2. “Running to Stand Still”—“This is a Dublin story,” Bono says leading into the song on "Live from the Point Depot." And I love it because it is not their story in the sense that it is not about their own experience with drugs, but shows their incredible capacity to portray the story of others. Bono once said in an interview with the New York Times: “They’re not my stories, but I feel them very deeply.” This story, about inner-city desperation and drug addiction, is just one example among so many that shows their willingness to see and sing about the troubles of this world. And one of my all-time favorite lines is here: “you’ve got to cry without weeping, talk with out speaking, scream without raising your voice.”
1. “Where the Streets Have No Name”—This song is great on the album from 1987, "The Joshua Tree" but it goes beyond great to something else when they play it live. It has many layers, like so many U2 songs. But at its deepest level, I think, it is about communion. U2 say their music is a sacrament, and if that is true, I feel the sacrament most deeply when they play Streets live, with thousands of fans singing at the top of their lungs, and the lights flooding the crowd as brightly as mid-day, and we’re in that moment taken someplace else. Spine-tingling.
To learn more about Christian Scharen and "One Step Closer," please check out his blog.
Many thanks to Scharen and everyone at Brazos Press for their help with this article.
By Jennifer B. Kaufman
2006.11
Fans have always seen U2 as much more than a noisy rock 'n' roll band. Christian Scharen, a professor of divinity at Yale University, is no different. Scharen has examined the spiritual side of U2 in his book "One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God" where he takes a complex and thorough look on how U2’s songs relate to scripture, U2’s theological development as they have reached the apex of stardom, and what the modern church can learn from U2 to gain interest from young Christians.
Scharen spoke to Interference.com about his lifelong love of U2, his work as a professor and theologian, and five U2 songs that mean so much to him.
When did you first get into U2 and what about the band and its music made you a lifelong fan?
I first heard U2 in a friend’s college dorm room in the fall of 1985. Until then, my faith and youth culture—including the music I liked—were totally separate. But ironically U2 was introduced to me as a Christian band—something they’ve steered away from despite their spiritually deep songs.
Why do I love the band’s work so much? Obvious answers first. They make great music. They have for three decades and so lots of people just love U2 songs.
But as important as their great music is the fact that their songs are also about something larger. U2 turn their music towards the big questions of life: love and betrayal, hope and despair, war and peace, faith and doubt, and so on. They are a band that wants to change the world, and many of their fans are working for that vision right along with them. This spiritual vision, if you want to call it that, leads fans to speak of seeing a U2 show as "going to church." The band really helped me connect the dots between the music groove I love and a spiritual vision that is so needed today.
On top of their convictions, U2 are fantastic, dynamic performers. They’ve put on creative live shows since they played the Dandelion Market in Dublin in the late 1970s. They’ve literally broken ground in the use of technology for touring. But their tours are not simply rock shows. A U2 show is about taking the audience to another place. They are always about changing the audience, offering a way to transcend one’s individual circumstances and fit into “something more.” That something more has been present in concerts in different ways, usually intertwining religious and political themes. U2 have a vision that holds together fervent belief and openness to the nonbeliever’s doubts. It is a faith that loves the world, but loves God more and so can’t stand to see the world stay the same: full of injustice, violence, and hate.
What inspired you to write “One Step Closer?”
U2’s songs witness to a coherent understanding of the Christian faith that has developed over time. This consistent spiritual message connects with large numbers of spiritually hungry people, myself included. This coherent faith perspective is neither shallow nor blind. It is real. It is willing to seek God through deep engagement with the world. The book both shows what I’ve found in U2’s way of singing and living faith fully engaged in the life of this world and invites others to try out this way of connecting faith and life.
How does U2 influence you as a theologian and a pastor?
They helped me think much more deeply about the divide today between Christians—those U2 have called “squeakers” who are really concerned with profanity and those who worry more about the profanity of 30,000 children dying each day for lack of a dollar a day. It is something I talk about on radio and TV interviews, trying to get the message out to Christians today.
In the book, I compare the theology of glory to the theology of the cross. Bono calls these two orientations to God “karma” and “grace”. I’d say that “squeakers” believe in karma, not Grace. They think the job of Christians is to earn our way into heaven by “getting it right” on earth. That orientation means lots of things including clarity about right and wrong, who is in and who is out, what you should say and not say. It unfortunately ends up looking a lot like the religious leaders Jesus was in conflict with. I think Bono, U2, and Philip Yancey (in "What’s So Amazing About Grace?") are on just the same page here in saying, as I say in my book, that too many Christians think their “good” behavior will earn them passage through the pearly gates of Heaven (U2’s song “Playboy Mansion” is about this, among others). And notice where this view leads: as we mature in faith, we spend more time with other Christians, make up rules about what “Christian behavior is like,” and judge others by how well they follow these rules.
Bono might say that as we mature in faith, we should spend less time with other Christians. Why? So that we can communicate the love of God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit, that’s why! If we truly are given the gift of God’s love and forgiveness while we are yet sinners, as St. Paul says in Romans 5:8, then the issue is not how do I behave so that I earn God’s love, but how do I participate in what God is doing in the world because God’s love found me? Well, God has promised a new heaven and a new earth, a place where there is no longer suffering and tears (Isaiah 65, Revelation 21). We experience that “other place” in worship, and then we’re sent out into the world to meet God who is already in the world working to bring this “new” reality to birth. The “religious” people of Jesus’ day, after all, accused him of eating with drunkards and sinners. He did because he knew they were the ones who needed his love. What if we Christians, instead of worrying about who is pure and who is not, worried more about loving regardless? Perhaps this is happening more; the story of Bono’s relationship with Jesse Helms is testimony supporting that conclusion.
How does U2 influence you in a more secular fashion?
OK—true confessions of a theologian. There is no secular if you believe that God is creator of heaven and earth, the seas and all that is in them (Psalm 146:6; Acts 14:15). And so I think there is something very important that is said in relation to popular culture when Jesus says that God makes it rain on the just and the unjust (Matthew 5). The other night I watched “Walk the Line” with my wife Sonja. It is a movie about Johnny Cash and June Carter. It is a complex story, including deep suffering, drug addiction, divorce and also great love, repentance, and an experience of healing. Was God only present in Cash’s “gospel songs” or was God somehow present also when Cash sang “Folsom Prison Blues” to a room full of prisoners?
U2 presents us with this challenge. Bono, while meeting with religion reporters after his “homily” at the National Prayer Breakfast earlier this year, said, “I’m asked, ‘Why doesn’t your music proclaim Christ?’ and my answer is that it does.” He went on say that “creation has its own proclamation of God and I’d like to think our music has the same qualities to it.” Can the Church find a profound enough view of sin to see its own faults, and a profound enough view of grace to see God’s presence working in the world? That is a major question posed by the work of U2. Do they proclaim God only when they sing “Gloria” or “Grace” or do they proclaim God also when they sing, “Desire” and “Discotheque”? If we split it like this, sacred on one side and secular on the other, we risk missing the very human presence in "Gloria" and "Grace", and miss the heavenly resonances in “Desire” and “Discotheque.” U2 has always been about holding the tensions together—earth and heaven, spirituality and sexuality, faith and doubt.
What do your fellow theologians think of you being a fan of U2?
The younger ones all love U2 and are really glad I wrote the book. Older scholars mostly think it is a bit weird—especially at Yale where more “serious” topics are usually the norm. Bono’s star has risen so high on the political side of things that everyone is at least generally curious. But when they do read the book—as my friend Miroslav Volf did, who is one of the world’s most prominent theologians—they discover a band with very sophisticated ideas about theology, faith, art, and culture. Miroslav called Bono “an extraordinary theologian of grace.” Now that’s a great endorsement.
Name one U2 song and how you feel it relates to scripture.
In the week after my daughter Grace was born on Halloween 2000, three friends gave us copies of U2’s recently released album, "All That You Can’t Leave Behind." The last track, a tune entitled “Grace,” both imagines grace as an idea and as “a name for a girl.” It turns out that “Amazing Grace” is Bono’s favorite hymn.
The song takes up a favorite theme of the band, placing grace over against the idea of karma. Karma, as I said earlier, is the age-old idea that a person gets what they deserve. That would leave us all in a bad way. Grace, the core idea at the heart of Jesus and the Christian faith, is the idea that we don’t get what we deserve—we don’t deserve it but we get love, mercy, forgiveness, and a new chance at living. The song ends poetically, even hopefully, without being at all saccharine about it. “What once was hurt / What once was friction / What left a mark / No longer stains / Because Grace makes beauty / Out of ugly things.”
Such a claim does not erase the ugly; rather it claims the promise that because of Christ, God sees differently, and where there is hurt, a mark, a stain, God covers and heals and makes whole. A great embodiment of this idea can be found in the parable of the prodigal son, Luke 15:11-32, which was influential for Philip Yancey’s 1998 book "What’s So Amazing About Grace?"—a book Bono was so excited about he gave it to friends including Noel Gallagher of Oasis.
What could the church learn from U2 and how could they use U2 to get more people through their doors?
I’m nervous about any direct effort of churches to “use” U2 to get people in the door. To start conversations about God and the life of faith, perhaps, would be a good goal. But first of all, U2 could teach the church how to get over “religion.” Nothing has been more harmful to the church’s life than preoccupation with its own purity and self-perpetuation. U2’s ambivalence about traditional Christianity has roots in their experience growing up in a land torn apart by factions defined by religion. The Protestant-Catholic divide cast a long shadow over “religion” in Ireland in a complicated set of ways, and not only in terms of political power (the Church of Ireland, a protestant church tied to the Anglican Communion, is the church of the upper class, as well). So when Bono wonders aloud if “religion is the enemy of God” and suggests “religion is what happens when the Spirit has left the building,” the roots of such sentiments are fairly understandable!
The church has to get over its religious bias, in so far as religious identity exists as much to judge and exclude as anything. The absence of that kind of religion in the band is part of why many fans, and the band itself at times, refer to U2 concerts as “going to church.” So much of the church’s energy goes into its own self-perpetuation (check a budget sometime), its buildings, clergy and trappings of holiness. They act as if they’ve got God or the Spirit in a box, and the purpose of Church is to provide people a God-fix. U2 are saying, “No, God is active in the world—in creation, in the work of artists, activists, and everyday people doing as God desires.” The task at church is to learn, be inspired, be forgiven and renewed for our in the world, joining in what God is already doing there. The question is a simple one, and an old one: What if instead of being known for tall steeples and judgmental people, the church was known, as Jesus wanted, by its willingness to love, forgive and do justice?
What are your future plans now that "One Step Closer" is published?
Just now I’m writing a book that will be called something like "Leading Faith as a Way of Life: A Challenge for Pastoral Leadership." It comes out of a project I’ve lead over the past few years at Yale. The main point is to describe the problem with seeing faith as only a “church” thing, disconnected from how we live the rest of the week. In response to this widespread problem, the book shows how their leaders can help churches become busy intersections, empowering people to live faith in all the various spheres of their lives (family, work, school, the arts and so on). This book will be out next spring from Eerdmans Publishing Co.
I am also exploring a follow-up from my work on U2 that I have tentatively called, taking a page from one of my favorite Irish theologians, "Grace Over Karma: Living On Earth, as in Heaven." This book will take the subtext of my book on U2—the difference between what I've called the “theology of glory” and “the theology of the cross”—and show how huge a difference it makes to the honesty and spiritual depth of our faith-life and as a direct consequence, the difference it makes for the good of the world God loves.
How many U2 concerts have you been to and what stands out about them?
I don’t have much street cred here. Some fans have literally seen the band fifty times or even more. When I started this book, I hadn’t ever seen the band live. My editor read an early draft where I recounted the story of how in 1987, my now wife and then girlfriend, Sonja, and I decided to sell our Joshua Tree tour tickets and give the money to the poor. We were inspired by U2’s commitment to justice and couldn’t justify spending the money for the show! After my editor read that story, he said, “Chris, you’ve got to see a U2 show if you are going to do this book.” So I saw them in Boston twice on the Vertigo Tour, once on the first leg and once on the third leg. The second show was especially sweet because Sonja and I took my eight-year-old son Isaiah. He totally loved it and is now taking guitar lessons. A future Edge, perhaps?
If you could listen to only five U2 songs for the rest of your life, what would they be and why?
You’ve got to be kidding. Only five? I just discovered “Are You Going to Wait Forever?” tonight and it rocks, a really positive vibe. It was a B-side for “Vertigo.” I’ve never been much of a single junkie—I buy albums and box sets. So I of course bought the iTunes digital boxset and they had AYGTWF. Lovely. And so many of U2’s songs are amazing. How could I ever choose only five? OK, you asked for it. I’ll do it. I’ve seen some recent lists of top 10 U2 songs. Here’s my top 5, in order.
5. “I Will Follow”/ “Mofo”—Wait, I’ve got two songs here. I love them both and they are deeply connected. These two, perhaps as much as any U2 songs, deal with the death of Bono’s mother, Iris, who died when he was only 14. Also, they both are driving songs musically, even if their styles are not that similar. As well, each has deep spiritual resonance. “I Will Follow” includes snippets from the hymn “Amazing Grace” and Bono has even inserted the phrase “Amazing Grace” into the song live on several occasions. “Mofo” starts with a spiritual search ("looking for to save my soul") and never lets go (have they ever let go of spiritual searching?). Check out the "Hasta la Vista, Baby! Live from Mexico City" recording or video with “Mofo” as the opener and “I Will Follow” directly afterward. Awesome.
4. “Miss Sarajavo”—Well, the story behind this song is just so incredible. I often cry when I listen to it, really. If you don’t know the story, read Bill Flanagan’s version in "Until the End of the World" or watch the documentary on the "Best of 1990-2000" DVD. The depression and yet almost miraculous hope deeply connects to how frustrating it is to see the continued killing between religious faiths, especially the children of Abraham mentioned in this song. The line is, “is there a time for first communion, is there a time for East 17, is there a time to turn to Mecca, is there a time to be a beauty queen.” While the song has almost never been played live, on their Vertigo tour, second leg and on after the terror bombings in London, the band started playing Miss Sarajevo just before the running of the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights. Here, they changed the line about the 1990s pop band East 17 so that Bono now sings “is there a time for first communion, is there a time for synagogue, is there a time to turn to Mecca, beauty queen before God.” Like so many of their songs, this song is a sort of rock ‘n’ roll prayer.
3. “Wake Up, Dead Man”—I can’t listen to this song very often, and not ever if I’m not free to give myself over to full attention to its intensity. But exactly because it is so profoundly right about our real experience in this broken and messed up world, I could never live without it. It is a lament psalm, and without song songs of lament, I don’t know how we could make it through this life with our eyes and hearts open.
2. “Running to Stand Still”—“This is a Dublin story,” Bono says leading into the song on "Live from the Point Depot." And I love it because it is not their story in the sense that it is not about their own experience with drugs, but shows their incredible capacity to portray the story of others. Bono once said in an interview with the New York Times: “They’re not my stories, but I feel them very deeply.” This story, about inner-city desperation and drug addiction, is just one example among so many that shows their willingness to see and sing about the troubles of this world. And one of my all-time favorite lines is here: “you’ve got to cry without weeping, talk with out speaking, scream without raising your voice.”
1. “Where the Streets Have No Name”—This song is great on the album from 1987, "The Joshua Tree" but it goes beyond great to something else when they play it live. It has many layers, like so many U2 songs. But at its deepest level, I think, it is about communion. U2 say their music is a sacrament, and if that is true, I feel the sacrament most deeply when they play Streets live, with thousands of fans singing at the top of their lungs, and the lights flooding the crowd as brightly as mid-day, and we’re in that moment taken someplace else. Spine-tingling.
To learn more about Christian Scharen and "One Step Closer," please check out his blog.
Many thanks to Scharen and everyone at Brazos Press for their help with this article.
