If you know anything about me, you know that I love U2. My love for them started when my older stepbrother had the opportunity to see them in concert at Red Rocks Amphitheater in Colorado - yes, the same concert where parts of Live Under A Blood Red Sky was recorded, as well as the video for Sunday Bloody Sunday.
In the other blog I frequent, Geezerville USA, one of the members there commented on the lack of credible voices in Christendom today, and offered up Bono as perhaps the only one who we really can look to right now. Yes, Bono. I wholeheartedly agree with him. Here's a post from another journal I have concerning Bono, his mission, and what we should be doing:
There are a couple of comments that I just can't stand as a church staff member from members of the congregation.
#1, which will always be #1 in my mind, is some kind of derivative of "I really got a lot out of worship today."
But #2 is right behind #1. It's the statement that you often hear people say as they're leaving your church - "This church just isn't deep enough, and we want to go deeper."
Our staff talked about #2 this week as we are dealing with a couple of our members who are struggling with how "spiritually shallow" our congregation is. The youth minister said something which I'm still thinking about two days later: "You're never gonna go deeper in your faith than when you apply to your life what it says in the Bible."
If so, then U2's Bono is the deepest Christian I know.
Bono isn't just trying to get deeper into the Bible - he's living out what the Bible commands us to do.
'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'
He has founded an organization called DATA, which attempts to get countries to cancel debt that African countries owe, so that those countries can use their own money and resources to take care of their people rather than paying back countries who really don't need the money. (check out the website at www.datadata.org)
He has been involved in Operation Christmas Child, a program of Samaritan's Purse (Billy Graham's son Franklin is founder and president) that delivers Christmas shoeboxes to thousands of kids who usually never receive presents of any kind.
He has become the hands and feet of the AIDS epidemic in Africa, speaking at churches and in front of dignitaries around the world to inform them of the problem and to encourage them to show compassion to the African nations who are struggling under the weight of AIDS.
You may question his music, his interviews, his lifestyle - but never question this:
Bono is a saint.
A saint who is "walking as Jesus did".
And an example of a deep Christian.
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