One Step Closer

pointing forward to what's next

2007-09-10T12:00:00.001-04:00

I'm not blogging anymore here. It has served its purpose and I'm on to another book project called Broken Hallelujahs, due out from Brazos Press in 2009. It'll be about pop music and faith, but highlighting how faith connects to pop culture, drawing on lots of pop music examples including Kanye West, Indigo Girls, Dixie Chicks, Leonard Cohen (of course--given the title), Green Day, Miles Davis, and others. I'll be writing the book during 2008, and posting some thoughts on my regular blog here. I hope you'll join in the journey!
Thanks for reading One Step Closer.
Peace,
Chris Scharen

Elevation: Worst U2 Lyric?

2007-05-10T21:39:00.000-04:00

It struck me as ironic to see U2's Elevation appear on a "worst ever lyric" list. Why ironic? Mainly because I'd guess that the lyric is laughed at because it is not understood. First, how it was listed in the poll:

5. U2 - ELEVATION

I’ve got no self control; Been living like a mole now; Going down, excavation; High and high in the sky; You make me feel like I can fly; So high; Elevation

Here is the actual lyric, taken from www.atU2.com:

You elevate my soul
I've lost all self-control
Been living like a mole
Now, going down, excavation
I and I in the sky
You make me feel like I can fly so high
Elevation

Leaving aside the whole song for the moment, let's just look at this segment of the lyric.
First, they've left off the first line and it matters. The verse begins, "You elevate my soul." That is really interesting. Who is "you", the one who "elevates my soul"? Sure, with out this framing first line, the verse loses its orientation and the rest makes far less sense. Anyone with an ounce of U2 sense knows that at least sometimes, the band mean God when they sing "you," which makes more sense than some interpretations (the song is about sex, for instance, which seems silly to me in this case even if U2 often hold the two--spirituality and sexuality--close together). Let's look further, and see if there are reasons to hold on to this first impression.

The "got no self-control, living like a mole, now going down, excavation" could be many things, I'm sure, but the obvious thing to me, given that the song's narrator says, "you elevate my soul" is that the person's soul is low, is down. That may be psychological, as in depression--something that comes up in other songs on the same album (in Beautiful Day, for instance, or even more powerfully in Stuck in a Moment). Or it could be theological, as in "I've fucked up, I'm a sinner, and my soul is in the dirt." Bono, in his book-length interview with Michka Assayas: "God says, 'Look, you cretins, there are certain results to us, to selfishness, and there's mortality as part of your very sinful nature'." Or these two things--the theological and the psychological go together.

If you grant this interpretation, fine, but what is the "High and High" or, in the other version, "I and I". This seems to mostly stump people. But I lived in Kingston, Jamaica for a semester, listened to a serious amount of reggae, including especially Bob Marley, and so I know that Rastafarians speak of Jah, God, as "I & I", so then If the song references this usage, then "I & I, in the sky" would have the same rough equivalent meaning as "you" in the first line of the verse. But would U2 cop a line from Bob Marley? You bet. Many connections here, including sharing the same label for years (Island), Bono and Ali honeymooning in Jamaica, and U2's covers of Marley songs like "Exodus."

So, if it is God (You, I & I, in the sky) who elevates my soul, then no wonder "You make me feel like I can fly so high--Elevation." You might compare it to the new song, Window in the Skies, as in "Love left a window in the sky." Connections are there, I'd say.

And as is often the case, the live performance adds interpretive evidence. Watch Bono on the 2001 Live from Boston DVD when he gets to the bridge in the song--you know, later in the song when he sings, "Love, lift me out of these blues/Won't you tell me something true/
I believe in you/And I’m alone." His hands are in the posture of prayer. Other times, as in the Slane 2001 DVD, Bono lifts his eyes and open hand towards the sky during this section, another bodily posture of prayer.

I don't know. #5 on the "worst lyric ever"? I find it is typically U2--spiritual, clever, deep, and passionate. Plus it rocks live. If you've seen them live you know. If you want a bad U2 lyric, try this one:

"Take this soul/Stranded in some skin and bones/Take this soul and make it sing, sing"

Heresy. Plain and simple. I can hardly stand to listen to it.

Peace,

Chris

2007-05-02T09:33:00.000-04:00

Last Saturday night, in Yale's Woolsey Hall, I attended a performance of Britten's massive and masterful War Requiem. It is, if you've never heard it, a piece that requires two orchestras, three soloists, and multiple choirs. I think they had 400 performers for this performance. I had been reading about it for weeks, listening to the famous 1960s recording on Decca performed by the London Symphony and directed by Britten himself. He wrote it for the consecration of Coventry Cathedral, destroyed by the Luftwaffe during World War II and rebuilt in the 1950s. The fact that the new cathedral was build next to the ruins of the old, intentionally left as a reminder of human horror, inspired Britten to take this opportunity to make a major anti-war statement. It is awesome, in the fullest sense of that overused term. Awful, at times, and yet so beautiful that one cannot look away.

Near the end, an amazing climax when the voices come together in a haunting final section titled: "let us sleep now", I had the strangest feeling, one I've not had since I saw U2 in Boston two years ago. Saying a couple reasons why might both help you understand why this performance and piece is so profound, and at the same time, why I love U2, as well. (Of course, every time I go to Woolsey Hall, I think about U2 because friends who have been in New Haven a long time told me about the show U2 played there in 1983, leg two of the War tour, and Bono's 23 birthday).

1. Incredible imagination.
The War Requiem is masterfully simple, even as it is hugely complex. The basic idea of the piece, for those who don't know it, is to take an ancient form (the mass for the dead) and juxtapose it with the haunting war poems of Wilfred Owen. That simple juxtaposition works to mutually question the claims within each--in one, God's judgment and mercy, and the other, the god-forsaken horror of war. But it goes much deeper. I took along an amazing text to read before the concert by my doctoral mentor, Don Saliers, on "Beauty and Terror," in which he includes this reflection from Mary Mothersill so pertinent to this point: "all persons and some works of art--those to which we pay homage--have souls that are complex, multilayered, and partly hidden. They are not to be taken in at a glance, and long study leaves room for fresh discoveries." Such is the War Requiem.

2. Beauty and terror held together in a statement against war.
To expand on the complexity within a simple overall idea, while making more specific how Britten holds together beauty and terror, let me quote Don's description here of what is perhaps the most haunting section of the Requiem--Offertorium.
"At the point of the offertory, the music retells the story of Abram and Issac. 'So Abram arose, and clave the wood, and went, /And took [Issac] with him, and a knife.' The boy observes the preparations for the sacrifice and asks where the lamb for this offering is. 'Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,/And builded parapets and trenches there, /And stretched forth the knife to slay his son.' A musical shift interposes the voice of a divine messenger who bids Abram: 'Lay not thy hand upon the lad, Neither do anything to him. Behold, A ram...Offer the Ram of Pride instead of him.' The baritone and tenor soloists are joined by a children’s choir. The children begin to sing the ancient Offertorium text from the Latin Mass (Hostias et preces tibit/ Domine laudis offerimus . . . . ['Sacrifices and prayers we offer, Lord, to you with praise...bring them from death to life']. Unlike the biblical ending of the story, there follows a terrifying text, sung by the two soloists: 'But the old man would not so, and slew his son,--And half the seed of Europe, one by one.' In Britten's musical intensification of the unspeakable, the phrase, 'one by one,' is repeated by both soloists in broken musical lines over the children’s prayers."

Britten uses the Children's choir, singing from another location than the main orchestra and soloists, to represent a kind of pure voice, both beautiful to tone and presenting the pious text of the requiem mass, where as the baritone and tenor soloists sing the riveting and horrifying poetry of Owen. The altered ending to the familiar biblical tale alone would only horrible, but it is set against the song of the children singing Hostias et preces &tc.

3. performance that cuts to the deepest level of human life.
In a sense, I've already pointed to his but it has a slightly different cast and that is that the address is so real because it hits our emotions, those things we care most about, and digs there. Saliers: "A person, a community, or a whole society is better known by what is admired, feared, loved, grieved over, and hoped for than through its propositionally stated ideas and beliefs." The first tenor solo begins this, just after the line "Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine"/ "Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord." It begins, "What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifles' rapid fire." The raw grief and terror portrayed in these poems set side by side with great claims of the faith cut deep, asking us what is true, what we feel in our gut, heart, soul.

4. people go for all sorts of reasons, and many don't get it.
Here, I just want to comment on how many people simply got up and left. They just don't get it, aren't drawn into it, don't submit to it in order to hear its message. They just got up and walked out, even just before and even during the incredibly powerful concluding piece, ""Sleep now." What are they thinking?

In a sense it doesn't work to compare one work of Britten to U2's whole career. I'm not saying that. But thematically, these points I've raised fit both in a general way and the case could be made for most of their albums, but I think a better candidate is a show, as I said at the outset. The obvious comparison for incredible imagination is their 1990s tour ZooTV. The anti-war stuff still filtered through, despite the play and irony of the drama and the critique of television and technology that was the main thrust of the concert. Take, for instance, their series of concerts during the tour when they stopped in the middle to hear direct satellite feed from besieged Sarajevo. An awful moment, on most days, when bombs could be heard in the background

But better to take Vertigo, their most recent concert tour, since it was described by some as simple, stripped down, and even predictable (the bane of creative artists' work, that). Vertigo was, as the album it supported (2004's How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb), all of those things I mention above. My concert review gives an "I was there and it went like this" overview, but here I want to highlight briefly, by way of conclusion, why their shows came to mind while the War Requiem was finishing, and therefore, if I may, how thin the line is between so-called "pop culture" and "high culture" (I know those are contested terms, but bear with me for a minute).

1. incredible imagination: the vertigo concert was, as well, simple but complex. The key theme, it seemed, was the issue of growing up, maturity. They made connections to their first album, Boy, which was largely about the adolescent journey from boy to man. Now, having dealt with Bono's father's death, and with a key song early on about Bob Hewson, sung at his funeral, the tenor of the album was of maturity, of feeling grown up. Musically, this played out in creative ways depending on the show--often they played a vertigo/stories for boys sequence, showing how the "hello, hello" in Vertigo picked up that same theme in Stories for Boys from Boy. But there was much more going on, obviously, in the show as a whole, including the powerful religious/political critique section dealing with violence and interreligious conflict (drawing on the COEXIST) symbolism, as well as the often very worshipful encore that regularly featured an acoustic Yahweh and an extended 40 to close. The show was sculpted to do something to the audience, and the complexity was rich and deep.

2. beauty and terror held together: Sunday Bloody Sunday has carried this combination for many years, including the horror of "broken bottles under children's feet/bodies strewn across the dead end street" but setting the violence of this world side by side with the healing promised in God's rejection of violence on Easter sunday and the beauty of that place where we can all be one, where "I wipe your tears away". This song, during Vertigo, led into a chant of "NO MORE" back and forth with the audience, giving way to Bono's description of the COEXIST headband and his middle eastern tinged song prayer to Father Abraham, beseeching him to speak to his sons and tell them no more. It is a really powerful moment, beautiful and terrible at the same time.

3. performance at deepest levels--This is in a sense obvious already from the way that U2 dig into issues of fear, violence, death, family, growing up, etc. that I mention in points 1 & 2. They touch our affections, digging into what matters in life. An obvious example for the Vertigo tour is Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own, a song about Bono's father, Bob Hewson, who died of cancer a few years back. Bono would introduce the song and say how his dad always told him to take the f**king glasses off, and so during the intro he would take his signature glasses off, a powerful symbolic moment that magically allowed 20,000 people into an intimate space where he could sing beautifully about his difficult relationship with his father, and we all are drawn into to thinking about the troubles we have with our own families.

4. people don't get it
yep, at the climax, heading into "40", people were heading out to beat the crowd. What are people thinking, whether it is the War Requiem or a U2 show? It seems like the worst sort of American Individualism as if I'm just consuming this concert, and I'll take it if I like it, or if it fits my schedule, or if I'm not bored, and if something comes up, I'm out of here. I take this up in chapter seven of my new book Faith as a Way of Life and quote C. S. Lewis who says this about faith and art: : “The first demand any work of any art makes upon us is surrender. Look. Listen. Receive. Get yourself out of the way. (There is no good asking first whether the work before you deserves such a surrender, for until you have surrendered you cannot possibly find out.)” (See An Experiment in Criticism, 19). Are we now so into ourselves that we can't actually surrender to anything? It does some subtle violence to the performers, the performance, and to the individuals to simply walk out. Sure, somebody might have had an emergency come up, but not all of them . . . they just wanted to get out quicker. I just wanted to stay. . . both at a U2 show or at the War Requiem.

anon and peace

2007-04-15T14:19:00.000-04:00

I went to St. Louis and I got a bass . . .

So, I went out to St. Louis Thursday last week. I met with leaders in campus ministry at St. Louis University and Washington University in the afternoon before giving a talk at WU in the evening. Jon Dumpys and John Lottes, who are vicar and campus pastor respectively, hosted me for the event. It was an engaged and engaging set of conversations and I'm humbled by the difficulty and necessity of campus ministry today. Wow.

A friend, Deb Bohlmann and her lovely family (husband Michael and teens John, Adam and Miriam, hosted me for the night in Maplewood, a cool community in St. Louis. I didn't know this but John gave up his bed and room for me. They were such a kind and thoughtful bunch, talking about faith and popular music with me, commenting on why church is boring for kids, and waiting up for their dad who was at choir rehearsal (he sings in a great 160 voice barbershop chorus--award-winning!see: http://www.aoh.org/aboutus.html for more about the Ambassadors of Harmony)

Anyway, John had been into playing bass and had given it up a few years ago. I asked him about it because I've been thinking about getting one. So he (with the consent of his mom gave me his bass. I laughed. How great to get a bass broken in by a teen's enthusiasm with Green Day. Of course, when I got home I had to learn a U2 song so after I picked up a Peavey Max 126 amp (the smallest one, LOL), I put on a video of New Year's Day and learned the bass part. We'll see what is next. Any votes?
Enjoy this old video of New Year's Day from just days before the famous Red Rocks concert.

Peace,

Chris

Speaking in Saint Louis Thursday April 12

2007-04-11T22:38:00.000-04:00

Hi, friends. I should have posted this a while ago, I know. But there it is. I'm speaking at Washington University in Saint Louis tomorrow. Here's the blurb. Join us if you can!

Grace Over Karma: The Gospel & U2
Starts at 7:30 PM
Location: Brown Hall, Wash U School of Social Work

Yale University Theologian Dr. Chris Scharen will speak on the intersection between U2's music and Christian theology. All are welcome!

anon, and peace,
Chris

2007-02-12T10:05:00.000-05:00

Obama Declares with U2 Introduction

I'm a fan of Senator Barak Obama and have supported him since his run for the senate in 2004. So I was really excited to see him finally declare that he is running for president. And what was his introduction music? Yup. Our band, U2, singing City of Blinding Lights. Watch the video here, which is one of the only videos that shows the whole introduction. COBL begins at about the 2:00 minute mark.

How cool.

Agape in Milano: Reading "I Will Follow"

2007-01-31T23:06:00.000-05:00

I am a U2 sucker, I guess, because even though I had every song on the U218 album, I still bought it. In large part, I did so because I wanted the DVD of the Milan concert. I was watching it tonight for the second time and I was struck by the end of "I Will Follow" which, mind you, I always read as a song related to grace (with the not so subtle ties to the hymn Amazing Grace in the lyric).

So Bono gets to the end of the song, and I'm sure he's saying Agape (the Greek word for God's self-giving love) and I quick looked up the www.atu2.com/lyrics site knowing they have the lyrics for every publically available version of U2 songs. They had "I'm gonna pay; You walk away; I'm gonna pay" as the last three lines. But that makes no sense. And I listened to it again three times and I'm really sure Bono says, "Agape; You walk away; Agape" as he closes the song.

I'd love to get other's thoughts on this. If he says it, no big surprise, really, but on the other hand, WOW, how rare and beautiful. Agape in the midst of a rock show.

Peace,
Chris

u2charist piece from nightline

2006-12-19T09:57:00.000-05:00

Punk Lament

2006-11-12T07:11:00.000-05:00

I presented to an Old Testament class at City Seminary, New York, last week on U2 and lament. I used the new song they've done with Green Day, The Saints Are Coming. People totally got it as a lament. I really don't think that is what The Skids thought they were doing when they wrote it (I've heard it was a 17 year old's song about his dad) but then when U2 pick it up, it adds layers. Beth, at U2 Sermons, has some thoughtful commentary on the song (scroll down to the post "Rebirth, New Birth".
Anyway, it is now out as a single although irritatingly not on iTunes which is how the Mac world gets their music downloads. So I actually ordered the single, something I've not done since I was a kid.
Peace,
Chris

U2 piece to air on Monday

2006-11-12T07:07:00.000-05:00

I got this yesterday from abc about the piece I've contributed to for nightline. it will now air on my birthday! LOL.
Peace, Chris

From: Melia.J.Patria@abc.com
Subject: U2charist story will now air Monday Nov. 13
Date: November 10, 2006 9:13:01 PM EST
To: Melia.J.Patria@abc.com

Hi there - Just wanted to alert you to a last minute change. The Nightline piece on the U2charist will now air Monday Nov. 13.
Please tune in then! Please accept my apologies for the sudden change in schedule... (such is life in the news business).

Thanks again for all your help and patience,
Melia

in the news

2006-11-06T06:15:00.000-05:00

okay, folks, I've been off the blog for a while, but some updates will be coming over the next few days.

First, I did an interview for USA Today, and was quoted briefly in it. Read it here.

Second, I did an interview for ABC NIGHTLINE and it will supposedly broadcast tonight, at 11:30 p.m. I don't stay up that late, so I'll have to see it another time. I think they post segments online after they air.

My comment on doing interviews is to say how vulnerable it feels when you give them material and then they cut and paste what they want from it for their story. That's the game, though. I want to have a say in the conversation, and that's why I wrote the book.

I also did an interview with Jennifer Kaufman from Interference.com, where she has posted a review of my book.

I'm speaking around a bit and it is making me think more deeply about a number of things. I'll post some on such things later this week.

Peace,
Chris

review in Christian Century

2006-08-27T06:15:00.000-04:00

Since Christian Century did an issue with a cover story on Bono a couple months ago and didn't do anything with my book (rumor was at the time that they might print an excerpt of it), I sort of thought they wouldn't do anything. So imagine my pleasant surprise when the recent issue had a longish review by Century Assistant Editor, Jason Byassee! I'm glad for the review because, unlike many reviews which seem to only get one layer of the book, he got multiple layers. What do I mean by that? Some people have said, "oh, fun book, but no new stuff on U2" as if my point was to dredge up more personal details on the band to sacrifice on the altar of celebrity worship. Not. Others have said they really liked the justaposition of bible verses or genres and songs of U2, and that's great. A few, like my boss Miroslav Volf, have come away thinking how profoundly theological and how smart the band are with their art. Super. I really wanted to portray the richness of their work without writing an esoteric academic book like U2 and Philosophy--interesting for what it is, but only understandable and relevant to a much smaller audience. And Byassee noted, without really getting into it, the core theological agenda of the book which is to try to interpret a coherent religious voice in the band's work along the lines of the theology of the cross, a means of asking how to speak the truth about God, the world, and ourselves. This aspect of the book goes deepest, and helps (I think) make some sense of the divide between Christians--those whose morality focuses more on saying the "f-bomb" and those up in arms about poverty and hunger. I think the divide should be overcome and part of the choice of my publisher was an effort to have the book speak--and get entre into--the world of people whose concern for the manners of the band prevent them from thinking of them as Christian and wholesome for thier souls. Bono's doing his own work in this largely evangelical world these days--including his recent talk at the Leadership Summit. Anyway, here's the review--and thanks, Jason-- I'm honored by your words.

One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God
reviewed by Jason Byassee

One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God
by Christian Scharen
Brazos, 208 pp., $14.99 paperback

Click here to buy from Amazon.com

Reading this book prompted a minor conversion on my part. You can hardly be a member of my generation and not love the rock group U2, but I'd found the enthusiasm about its theological significance annoying. The rush to baptize the band seemed to me a matter of Christians' desperation to be cool. I was happy to turn up the volume when U2 came on—and I didn't need to be told they're "one of us" to do so.

Christian Scharen's book has shown me that those who follow U2 with religious zeal are closer to being correct than I was. U2 has about it more than a religious veneer, Scharen explains. And more than a profound moral seriousness, as is made clear in the band's impassioned singing for peace in Ireland and against nuclear proliferation, its moving praise of Martin Luther King, its work against apartheid and its championing of the poor by way of Jubilee 2000 and the One Campaign. The members of U2 are genuine theologians who have digested the scriptures and reiterate them in their songs in what Scharen describes as iconic fashion. They speak in parables, offering discourse about the soul for those with ears to hear.

Read the rest of the review here.

acrobat

2006-06-29T21:54:00.000-04:00

i am a some-times practitioner of the ancient tradition of fixed-hour prayer. i love its structuring of my day according to foundational things amid all that keeps me busy.

this morning, the gospel text was matthew 13:24-30. it is a kingdom of god parable and here, while a man sows good seed in the field, an enemy comes at night and sows weeds. when asked by the laborers if they should pull out the weeds, the owner says, no, you might pull the wheat out with the weeds. let both grow till harvest time when the weeds shall be burnt and the wheat shall be gathered into my barn.

my work on U2 has caused me to reflect deeply on the divide between evangelical theology and my own Lutheran tradition, and how this ties into the larger politics of the united states historically and at present. one key way this plays out is in our national tendency to think of our own purity versus the evil of others. One hears this in presidential rhetoric now, but it resounds throughout our history. the task here is dividing the world and making sure to be on the side of the pure. how does one do that? define who is on the other side. this has happened time and again to U2 when they do something that doesn't look "squeaky clean" to those interested in purity. for example, when bono dressed up like the devil during the zootv tour. this view is much harder to hold if you are convinced of the seriousness and durability of sin--that is, that no one is pure, and only god can 'cover' our shortcomings with grace. in this view, we all are both pure and evil, saint and sinner. that leads, i might add, to a pretty different understanding of christian community and for that matter of national politics. i think abraham lincoln had that sensibility, and ronald reagan did not. i'd like to write about this in a book sometime, but not now. the basic point of the argument, however, is in what i've written about U2.

anyway. all this came to mind in relation to the text from matthew. one view is that seeds are good people and weeds are bad people and the field is the world. note: even if you adopt this view, we're not charged with the responsibility of sorting out the weeds from the wheat. another view, however, is that the field is each of us. we are all of us made up of weeds and wheat, and the argument is against a sort of ascetic self-examination that tries of its own accord to achieve perfection, purity, outside of god's gracious final purging that as a refiners fire makes us pure.

i truly think this theological distinction is at the heart of a major divide in the american soul, if you want to call it that, and that the difference is important for not just for individual lives or for the church. it is important for our polity, for our common life as a nation, and given our power, for the whole world.

all because of you

2006-06-23T09:48:00.000-04:00

this post is along the lines of what depth I find in U2 and yet didn't get to in my book. all because of you, which is my favorite song on U2's new release, how to dismantle an atomic bomb, only gets a name-check in my book. but it is a rich song, it rocks and i really think of it as a hymn, with a wonderful play on words if you have ears to hear it.

reviewer jeffrey overstreet got it just right here, with one major caveat--he misses the I AM references in John's Gospel--and a couple quibbles intermixed below.

"ALL BECAUSE OF YOU

One of the album's highest highlights, "All Because of You" may be the most confidently performed rock single of U2's career. It has the careening guitar motif of "Even Better Than The Real Thing," and messes it up a bit with some raw Rolling Stones energy [actually, at the concert under the brooklyn bridge, bono shouts 'love song to the who', but similar point--cs]. And here comes Bono's first song of adoration to God, one of several tracks that distinguish this as the band's most blatantly religious album since October [actually, i'd rather say 'praise-oriented', because pop was certainly blatantly religious, but full of lament, irony, prophecy, and doubt--cs].

This is the song in which the Prodigal Son seems to embrace his father at last. He gives credit for anything good in his life to the one who blessed him with life. And in my favorite lyrical trick on the album, (no, not the way Bono rhymes "voice" with "tortoise"), Bono refers to God by the name the Almighty gave himself ... "I AM." It's easy to miss that, but reading the lyrics, you'll see how each verse builds to this chorus:

"All because of you
All because of you
All because of you
I am."

In one sense, he's saying "Because of you, I (Bono) yam what I yam."

In another, he's saying, "Because of you, God (I AM.)"

Take off your shoes, folks. He's on holy ground."

Crumbs from the Table?

2006-06-22T06:11:00.000-04:00

Crumbs from the Table?
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

I'll be posting various notes here about our upcoming conference on wealth and poverty. We of course invited Bono to come, with band members if possible, to sing "Crumbs." That was months ago, and a week or so ago I got an email from DATA in response.

" Hi Christian,
Thank you so much for offering the great opportunity for Bono to join your Sarah Smith Memorial Conference this year. Unfortunately, due to the rescheduling of the tour, his schedule has become unusually hectic. For this reason, he will be unable to join you in New Haven, September 21-22. I see you do have a fabulous line up of speakers though! We think highly of Tony Hall and Andrew Young.

In lieu of his absence, we would like to offer a special faith-based PSA, 6 min.,that has yet to be shown. We are only allowing limited audiences to view this PSA. If interested, let me know and I can send a copy for a private review. The permission would be for a one time usage at the conference.

Let me know if you’re interested in this opportunity and if it would be a fit in your conference.

All the best to you—
Jenny Eaton Dyer
National Faith Outreach Director
DATA"

I have not yet seen the DVD but I'm curious what it is. By the way, if you missed the NBC News broadcasts with Brian Williams and Bono while in Africa, iTunes now has a free 30 minute broadcast available.

+peace

Pope Bono

2006-06-22T06:06:00.000-04:00

pope_bono
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

I found this picture on the web and just thought it was amusing. Is it a critique of Bono? Is it in a way a sort of compliment, sort of like the bono icon? Who knows, but especially if you've seen the picture of JPII with Bono's shades on, this one is not such a stretch.
+peace

2006-06-16T14:02:00.000-04:00

you know, it is incredible how much more there is to this band than i could put in a single book. i was just listening to a online version of "peace on earth" leading into "walk on" from East Rutherford NJ on October 28, 2001. Totally spine-tingeling. wow. I didn't deal with the song "walk on" at all (i only mention the line, 'love is not the easy thing' in the chapter on love). and the power of those post-9/11 shows, this one ending with the bitter honest longing of "peace on earth" but then winding through "walk on" to the ending with wave upon wave of halle, halle, hallelujah--it was a gutsy and totally transcendent moment, even to someone hearing it via mp3 five years later.

and i keep having these experiences. seeing things, or thinking about things that I didn't deal with at all in my book. it is not writers regret, really, but just appreciation for how any portrait can only be one angle of vision and never sum up the subject.

I have to say, however, that on the new U2 iPod video clip there is a sequence of interviews with the band about the song "mofo" and they speak pretty highly of it, with Bono even saying that song somehow "sums him up." I'm glad I did deal at some lenth with that song, although even here, I didn't say nearly all that could be said about that one song. perhaps this is the truth about good art--not only is it multivalent, but it is also somehow inexhaustable, even if one doesn't buy into the postmodern view of the endless deferral of meaning.

ah, friday afternoon musings.

peace,
Chris

fan site review threads begin

2006-06-14T20:36:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted for a while, and its really been because i've been busy with work. But I've begun to see that various fan site forums have begun threads to discuss my book and this is the first substantive comment (from the thread on atu2.com)

"have just finished One Step Closer. would comment as follows:

There are now gazillions of people who LIKE U2 but I've often wondered how many people actually GET them. clearly scharen gets them because this book helped me--a fan since the Live Aid Bad--learn there are more levels to the songs than I knew. For instance, what's the deal w/ all the U2 songs about women that aren't exactly love songs, eg Mysterious Ways? Scharen talks about how the concept of wisdom and the spirit being thought of as feminine, & then the lyrics read more richly. the main insight though is the split btwn a theology of glory ("I'll get to heaven if I live a holy enough life") vs. a theology of the cross, ie accepting your shortcomings as a Christian but in spite of that siding always w/ the poor. The only (tiny) errors: the Streets video was shot in downtown L.A., not the "famously tough neighborhood of south-central. (which doesn't change scharen's point; you wouldn't want to be strolling around downtown w/ a large shoulder bag, either. And while their high school might indeed have been "pleasant" I THINK the actual name was Mount Temple Comprehensive. But, really, if you're spiritually-minded or would like to be, definitely give this a read."

I've said before in this blog that i've made a couple dumb mistakes (including caling their high school both mount temple and mount pleasant, keeping me from pleading ignorance and having to admit carelessness instead. ouch). Those that I find will be corrected in the next printing.

peace, all!

wnyc, 93.9: update!

2006-05-17T06:56:00.000-04:00

wow. it turns out i'm not alone with john schaefer on soundcheck--i'll be joined by one of the senior editors from rolling stone, joe levy. that will be a trip, especially since he has "a decidedly different view"! different than what, i don't know, but i'll find out! and just after us, john is interviewing tom verlaine, former guitar for the band television and a major influence on the style of u2's guitarist, the edge. here is the blurb from the wnyc website:

"Bono: Saint or Singer?
It's no secret that the Bible has been an inspiration for Bono, but is U2 "Christian rock?" Christian Scharen, associate director of the Yale Divinity School and author of "One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God," looks into the biblical and spiritual themes in U2's lyrics. He is joined by Joe Levy, editor of Rolling Stone magazine, who has a decidely different take."

more on this later!
peace,
chris

wnyc, 93.9

2006-05-06T12:48:00.000-04:00

i've done a few a.m. talk radio shows and in two weeks i'll have my first chance to do an f.m. show. this one is a wonderful opportunity--May 17, 2-3 p.m., i'll be on John Schaefer's show called "Soundcheck" on the main New York City public radio station. You can pick up the show on itunes or listen live on the net by going to www.wync.org.

+peace

meet me in D.C. (or Hartford)

2006-05-06T12:34:00.000-04:00

I'm doing a couple of fun events:

Thursday May 11th: a seeking God with U2 night at Trinity Lutheran, Vernon, CT where a friend, Tim Oslovich, is pastor. It is in greater Hartford and everyone is invited. 7:00 p.m.

Saturday May 13th: a book signing at the historic Potter's House Books in Washington D.C. at 2:00 p.m. They are "an ecumenical ministry of hospitality and social justice since 1960." Very cool place.

and then a U2-inspired Eucharist followed by a talk about seeking God with U2 at Lutheran Place Memorial Church also in Washington D.C. Their Vicar, Sarah Scherschligt, will preach and is doing most of the planning with her young adult group. Luther Place is an amazing urban church that gave birth to and still is the home office for the Lutheran Volunteer Corps, a national year-long urban year focused on the practices of simple living, justice, and Christian community. My friend Mike Wilker is executive director.

if you can come, I'd love to meet/see you there!

+Peace

stuck in a moment you can't get out of

2006-04-24T23:58:00.000-04:00

so the other night i had my first live radio interview with paul edwards of wlqv detroit. he has founded the center for the study of god and culture. well, the interview was scheduled for 5:20 and just before five, after I left a meeting with my three colleagues, I walked out of the office and up the hall to use bathroom. by the time i got back a few minutes later, our administrative assistant and all three of my colleagues had left, locking the door behind them. I didn't take my keys, and so I stood for a moment in disbelief. I stepped outside and saw no one. Then, to my relief, I found my colleague Joseph down the hall. AHRG! his key doesn't open our main office suite. so I used his phone to call security. they came, finally, at 5:20 and I said please let me in--i have an phone interview now. no luck. it took them four tries and nearly an hour and a half to get me in. by then, i'd had a fit, calmed down, felt embarassed, frustrated, and helpless. joseph was kind and stayed with me to help keep me calm. I emailed paul edwards as soon as i could expressing how mortified i was at what had happened. he laughed and said it was the best story he'd heard in a long time explaining why he was stood up for an interview. he kindly schedule me the next day, and as i came on the show, he played U2's "stuck in a moment" in my honor.

thanks, paul, for your good humor, and for the pesky questions about my thesis that U2 is the most important band for people of faith today.

+peace, chris

review report, 3

2006-04-11T17:19:00.000-04:00

yes! i'm hoping that people outside the circle of pastors, church insiders, and christian bloggers read and review my book. the first of these, from justin mchenry, is great exactly because from my perspective he comes with openness and curiousity and he 'gets' what i'm trying to say. He says:

"Book Review: One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God

April 10, 2006
Justin McHenry
One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God
Christian Scharen
Book, Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy now from

I've never been a religious person - I wasn't brought up with religion and have only dabbled in church attendance at the behest of my wife. Yet I've always been interested in spirituality, the reaching toward something greater than the world gives us at face value. That interest has led me to various religious texts (including reading the Bible cover to cover, which I can't really recommend). It has also led me toward music groups that strive for something beyond power chords and post-show groupies (not that there's anything wrong with that). Groups like Pearl Jam, R.E.M., and, most of all, U2.

So I was especially interested to read a new book, One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God, by Christian Scharen. A teacher of practical theology at Yale Divinity School and an ordained pastor in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, Scharen knows his Christianity. Perhaps surprisingly, he also knows his U2. And he uses his knowledge of both to explain the "theology of the cross" and how U2 embodies this concept in their music."

read the whole review here.

thanks, justin. honest, generous, and engaging review. i'm grateful.

+peace, cs

reader-response criticism, 2

2006-04-06T09:28:00.000-04:00

mike, who i met at the emergent theological conversation we hosted at yale a cople months ago, has written the best take i've seen on my book thus far. it is perhaps self-serving to link to a post that is so kind, but don't worry, i'll link to the unkind reviews as well when they come. this is from his blog awakening, and it begins this way:

"With the Bricker out of town, I'll take this opportunity to write about my latest favorite book. One Step Closer is really good, and I'm not just saying that because the author went out of his way to befriend me when I was up at Yale, or because he is hospitable and humble and probably really smart. Or, because the book is allowing me to rationalize my acquisition of more music.

Disguised as a piece of fandom, Chris has managed to contain a great survey of Biblical literary genres and a brilliant theological exploration of Martin Luther's theology of the cross. And along the way, he offers some insightful commentary on some great music."

read the rest here.

thanks, mike!
+peace

radio, radio

2006-04-06T09:25:00.000-04:00

starting tomorrow, i'm off on a new (and totally unanticipated) journey into the world of am talk radio. i have about eight interviews over the next month. i'm doing an interview tomorrow on the pat thurston show, ksro sonoma from 4:00-4:30 est and then saturday on the dana sturgeon, kprz san diego from 3:15-400. i think both are listener call in shows. am i allowed to be nervous? well, i am. sonja said i should put together a list of ten talking points so i don't ramble. does she know me or what?
more on this front after the fact.
+peace

reader-response criticism

2006-04-02T20:35:00.000-04:00

In bits and pieces I'm hearing things about how people respond when they read it. A couple friends have said that they found my writing engaging, and that is kind. One thanked me for sharing my passion. One close friend said I'd written a truely evangelical book, and by that I think he meant a book that invites people to a life of faith. If so, good, since that is what I thought I was doing.

On the other hand, it is frustrating to realize after reading and rereading and rereading and having many other people read the manuscript, there are still errors, and some dumb ones. See these comments left on Beth's great "U2 Sermons" blog.

"By the way, about One Step Closer: I received the book from Amazon last week, and inhaled it in about two hours. I enjoyed it, but there were a few odd errors. Why, for example, did the author keep referring to Mount Temple as Mount Pleasant? Minor, but irritating."

Why I wrote Mount Pleasant, I'll never know. I read Mount Temple in every resource I read. Oh, well. What's done is done, and my consolation is Angela Pancella, of another great U2 site, @U2, is going to read the book and tell me where my U2 errors are, and I can incorporate them into reprints. She offered to do it after we met (virtually, online) six months ago, but the final manuscript was already submitted.

Peace,
Chris

confessing obsession with amazon ratings

2006-03-28T11:56:00.000-05:00

while i have not always said everything there is to be said about all aspects of book writing and publishing on this blog (who'd want to read all that anyway?), i have tried to be more transparent about it all than most authors IMHO. Some may not have thought of it, some may not have had a way to do it, and yet some others may have done it better than me and I don't know them to give props. all i can do is try in this way to make the process a bit more human and real.

now that the book has been shipping for a couple weeks, i admit being totally obsessed wiht that obscure item on amazon.com under product details called "amazon.com sales rank" which means, I take it, where your book is in order of bestsellers from all the millions of books they have listed in their inventory.

i went under 2000 yesterday, by far my best day (1,914, actually) and today is listed as 2,500. by way of comparison, my last book (Public Work, Public Worship) never cracked the 100,000 mark, let alone 1000! i know for a fact other authors watch this as well, and I think that it is less an issue of comparing with other (similar) books and more an issue of what my book's "personal best" will be.

i suppose it won't be long till someone reviews it on amazon, as well, and i've never had that happen to something I've written before so of course that makes me nervous. look at what's happening with reviews of brian mclaren's the secret message of jesus--people are trashing it, and some admit to not even reading it.

anyway, just wanted to record something of the odd-ness of this moment when the book goes public and in a sense meets the public critic. i find refuge in w. h. vanstone's reflections about love's endeavour and love's expense--giving our best as an offering, as a gift of praise to God, is our job, and this offering then may be picked up by the Spirit and in mysterious ways move and change people. For this I hope and pray.

+peace

Amazon is shipping

2006-03-21T21:37:00.000-05:00

okay, so now the real distribution begins--amazon is shipping. i presold 4000 copies and so quite a few people (many, i hope, who love me, and some, i hope, who don't know me at all) are finding my book in their mailboxes. i'm really excited for this stage, and i'm doing some speaking events in May, in Hartford CT area and Washington DC area. More on that later. I've not seen a review of the book yet, but hopefully that will come. In the meantime, I'm feel a bit like sending a child off to school--you don't know what sort of report you'll get from the teacher.

Peace, Chris

book party, 2

2006-03-13T18:49:00.000-05:00

so we had the party and we had friends from our neighborhood, from my work, and from sonja's work, and from church. it was lovely to see our community together, and to see people from our various worlds meet and interact. and it was also fun to see many of our 'non-church' friends celebrate my book and buy their copy and engage my thinking. i find this graph from dan kimball so compelling--and his point is, when we become more mature in our faith, and ought to witness to the way of life Jesus invites us to, to those who don't know this way or are skeptical of its value, in fact we mostly hang out with other christians. i'm trying to not do that, and it is challenging to have someone ask, so what does it mean to live as if god exists? and it is a great question to ask!

the longer we're christian
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.
anyhow, the party was a hoot and we raised enough money to sponsor a child through Save the Children for one year. That is what it is all about, after all. Because of how my life has been changed, I become a means of change in the world. channeling god, if you will, to borrow from martin luther's language long before the 1980s new age folks used this!

peace, chris

got it!

2006-03-03T08:01:00.000-05:00

yesterday, i got a box of 50 copies in the mail direct from the printer. fantastic! how fun to see the actual artifact. grace, my five year old daughter, immediately took the book and climbed into our bed to read. She still had it with her this morning when she came down stairs and said, 'I'm on page 34." Did I mention she's five? [to clarify: she's barely reading, and so about all she can do is page through and look for her name. to her credit, however, tonight she found the page where I say three friends gave us U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind the same week she was born because it had the song "grace" on it.] ;-)
+peace

book release party

2006-02-24T13:27:00.000-05:00

book release party
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

here is one version of the invitation to the local new haven book release party we're throwing at our home. we're inviting friends from the neighborhood, friends from work (mine and sonja's) and church. it will be fun. for those whose eyes can't read the invitation text superimposed on the book cover photo, it says:

Please join us!
Book Release Party!

Saturday, March 11th, 7-10 p.m.
72 Alden Avenue
New Haven - 203.389.0496

Wine and Cheese Provided

Please Bring a Dessert To Share.

Donate $15 or more to Save The Children and you will receive a copy of the book.

+peace

spin magazine review: fact checking humor

2006-02-24T10:00:00.000-05:00

so i got an email from kara day, in public relations for brazos/baker books, and it was from spin magazine. apparently they are doing a review of my book for the may issue and so they sent this set of questions under the rubric of fact-checking. how funny, espeically #7. why pick that out?!

peace--cs
_______________________________

Hi Christian,

SPIN Magazine is fact-checking a few things for the review they're
running in their May issue. I just want to run my answers to these
questions by you to make sure everything is accurate. If any of the
"yes" answers need embellishment, please let me know.

Thanks!
Kara

-----Original Message-----
From: Phoebe Reilly [mailto:preilly@spin.com]
Sent: Thursday, February 23, 2006 1:20 PM
To: Kara Day
Subject: One Step Closer/ SPIN

Kara:
I am fact-checking our review of Scharen's U2 book, may I ask you:

1. Can you tell me the full name of the book?

One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God

2. Is Brazos the publisher?

Yes. The full name is Brazos Press.

3. Is Christian Scharen the author, spelled correctly?

Yes.

4. Is the author a Yale Divinity School professor?

Yes.

5. Does the author say in the beginning "the voice of U2 is not
unique" but that it fits "within a longer tradition of Christian
voices that point us to the cross"?

Yes.

6. Does the author find subtext in songs like Gloria and Discotheque?

Yes.

7. Does he reveal an account of disappointment when he sees people
making bongs out of soda cans?

Yes.

Thanks!

Phoebe

sound bites, not blog posts

2006-02-24T09:55:00.000-05:00

my dear wife sonja read my q&a #5 and said, chris, what the media want is a sound bite, not a blog post. hmm. i'd felt like i was writing too much. time to edit before i send in the list of q&a to brazos . . .
+peace

question five

2006-02-23T06:42:00.000-05:00

You can spend the morning with Bono. Where do you take him for coffee & breakfast? What questions do you ask him?

This is such a funny question. One of the dangers of celebrity in our media culture is a sense of inappropriate familiarity with pop stars. Beth Maynard, co-editor of the book Get Up Off Your Knees, a collection of sermons that draw on U2’s work, has pressed me to think about this question more than anyone. We think we know celebrities because we’ve read Time or Rolling Stone, and think we’d pick up like old friends if we got the chance to meet. I think it would be odd to have breakfast because of this dynamic—I’ve read much of what Bono has said in public interviews over a large portion of his life, listened to all his songs, and admired what I know of his personal life. The danger is I’m tempted to think I know him, and likely only know the surface. And he certainly knows nothing about me. So how does one begin in such a setting? What might I say when he has, in a sense, said all he has to say in his endless interviews and speeches (which if you’ve read them all as I have tend to repeat themselves, as one would expect for someone who speaks that much in public)?
But enough hemming and hawing. I’d take Bono to a little hole-in-the-wall all day breakfast place in the East Rock neighborhood of New Haven called The Pantry. The owner loves jazz and has been to jazz festivals the world over. The walls are plastered with posters he’s collected on his journeys. And of course jazz music is always playing. It is at the same time very understated and very cool. The food is really good, and in Connecticut diner fashion, really fast, as well. As for what questions I’d ask Bono? I think I’d start by admitting how I struggle to be a good father and how much I love the challenge anyway, being engaged in the shaping of little lives and yet they’ve been given to me with an unexpected shape already and I am privileged to watch their gifts and personality unfold. It’s not a question, I know, but it is deeply important to me and that’s why I dedicated One Step Closer to my kids—Isaiah and Grace—and to their sponsor sister in Malawi, Rose. So I guess I’d try to be vulnerable, talk about what really matters to me, and see what he says by way of response. After all, he’s a father of four and knows something about it.

question four

2006-02-21T20:20:00.000-05:00

How do you explain the huge and enduring popularity of Bono and U2? After all, they’re relevant as artists and musicians in 2006, thirty years after they began as a band!

Why the fascination with U2? Hmm. Obvious answers first. I think they make great music. They have for three decades, and so lots of people just love U2 songs. Everyone has their favorite, some from the early years, some from the Joshua Tree, some from the experiments of the 1990s, and many from their last couple efforts—2000’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind and 2004’s How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb.

As important as great music is the fact that their songs are also about something larger. This is not the most important thing for everyone, but for many of us it matters that 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.

On top of that, they are fantastic 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. Their Zoo TV tour in the mid-1990s stands as one of the most innovative rock shows in history. Diana Scrimgeour has edited a wonderful coffee table sized retrospective book on this tour history called U2 Show.

And lastly, 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: 2001 concerts with the political song “Walk On” and then a chorus of Hallelujahs, 2005 concerts asking fans to join the One Campaign to make poverty history, or (going back a decade) 1994 concerts with Macphisto dialing up world leaders.

+peace

question three

2006-02-20T05:32:00.000-05:00

from paul, my father-in-law

3. How did you write the book?
Long hours at starbucks in New Haven. Really! I thank them in the acknowledgments. But seriously, My choice to try to show a coherent religious perspective in the band’s work means a couple things. First, it meant that the book was not going to be a chronology (from their first album, Boy, to 2004’s How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb, for instance). That’s been done more than once anyway and isn’t needed. Second, it meant that the book was going to have to have a structure, a framework that helped organize the material. My organizing rubric, then, became scripture and tradition—the two most traditional authorities within the Christian church. Oh, how innovative, you’ll surely say! Well, innovation may be overrated! Bono often comments that he likes to hang out with old people. Why? Perhaps he has a preference for wisdom over mere innovation, for going deep rather than sliding on the surface of things. Not that the band hasn't explored innovation and sliding on the surface of things!

The first section of the book, “Singing Scripture,” is an attempt to point to the ways Scripture speaks of God’s work in and for the world. I move through various voices of Scripture—psalms, wisdom, prophecy, parables, and apocalypse. In each chapter, I first show how these modes refract the light of the faith in unique ways and then show how U2 draw on these modes in their work. The second section of the book, “Singing the Cross,” uses St. Paul’s language to speak about the ways such theological themes as faith, hope, and love, as well as a “now/not yet” dialectic serve as theological grounding points both for the Christian faith and for U2’s songs. In the final section I describe how the core rubric through it all is “Singing the Truth,” and how this intention—rooted in John 8, “you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free”—weaves through both the band’s music and life together.

I hope this will be a book that points to something more lasting than pop music icons. It seems hard to fathom now, with the band well into their third decade and coming off winning 5 Grammy awards this year. But I do hope the book is as effective in doing what I claim U2 do—point beyond themselves to what is truly lasting. Early on in U2’s life, in the early 1980s, Bono wrote a letter to his dad, Bob Hewson, describing how the band aspired to be *more* than a great band. That *more* is faith. And it was, to the end, what Bono’s dad thought was most important about U2.

+peace

question two

2006-02-20T05:27:00.000-05:00

from paul, my father-in-law

why did you write this book?

I made a decision to write a book (and Brazos Press to publish one) that is not in the first instance about the band. It is an invitation to the Christian faith as a way of life. The hook is that I’ve portrayed the Christian faith as seen refracted through the U2. In that sense, it is about U2. I had a hunch that U2, as a band, portray a coherent understanding of the Christian faith that has developed over time but remained consistent enough to connect with large numbers of spiritually hungry young people, myself included. This coherent faith perspective was neither shallow nor blind. It was real in that it was willing to seek God through deep engagement with the world. The book is an effort to portray, in a sense, what I’ve found in U2’s way of singing and living the faith.

+peace

question one

2006-02-19T22:25:00.000-05:00

so question one: desert island - what u2 album would you take? question from bob carlton who blogs at the corner.

well, odd as this may sound, today i think i would take pop. why odd? it was not universally loved and after the relatively slow ticket sales for the Popmart tour, the memories of that album are not stellar in many quarters. As dave marsh wrote in the nation in august 1997, "For any rock music fan opposed to cultural hegemony or self-righteous sanctimony, it is difficult to resist gloating over the fact that U2's Pop album and its ongoing U.S. tour have bombed."

it is also an odd choice because I (and other 1980s U2 fans) fell off the wagon in the 1990s and missed pop the first time around. i bought achtung baby but skipped zooropa and pop, picking up the band with 2000's all that you can't leave behind, then going back and digging deeper into what i missed in the mid to late 1990s.

and what i missed. some reviews even in 1997 knew this album was something special. andrew smith, writing in the march 23 sunday times, said, "After 20 years the Irish quartet have made their first great album." I don't know if I want to go that far--the joshua tree and achtung baby are widely regarded as great albums. but pop is special, nonetheless, and it was only in the writing of my book that i realized how special. i draw on a lot of songs in the book including every album from boy to how to dismantle an atomic bomb. but what surprised me, as i looked back to see how my choices balanced out, was how many songs from pop i had written about as compared to what i thought were my favorite albums (i used as many songs from pop as from the joshua tree and all that you can't leave behind).

and in a sense, pop is more complex than any other album. it includes the sort of 'big anthem' and 'political outcry' type songs of the 1980s (last night on earth, staring at the sun, and please). but it also has the experimental music tied to ironic playful critique of postmodern materialist culture found (in different ways) on achtung baby and zooropa (here, try 'discotheque' or 'last night on earth' or 'mofo'). and they do sexy like they've never done it before even if achtung baby did significantly explore this territory (here, see 'if you wear that velvet dress'). and of course they have, perhaps as much as any album they've ever done, a major holy conversation going on. from the 'knowing there's something more' than erotic love in 'discotheque' to 'looking for baby jesus under the trash' in 'mofo' to the longing portrayed in 'if god will send his angels' to the outright proclamation of salvation by grace alone in 'the playboy mansion', but grace seen through the world's trash, rather than by running away from it. classic U2. and to finish: the album has the most plaintive lament psalm U2 has ever written: "wake up, dead man" and it is an amazing song--so strong that i have never been able to listen to it casually. it pulls me into the most horrifying and yet yearningly hopeful spaces. i especially love the (to my lutheran ears) sacramental allusions at the end (somehow God is present in, with, and under the things of this world):
"Listen to your words they'll tell you what to do
Listen over the rhythm that's confusing you
Listen to the reed in the saxophone
Listen over the hum in the radio
Listen over sounds of blades in rotation
Listen through the traffic and circulation
Listen as hope and peace try to rhyme
Listen over marching bands playing out their time.

perhaps the only thing missing is the sense of being grown up that you begin to see more clearly on their most recent albums. think of 'kite' on all that you can't leave behind or 'sometimes you can't make it on your own' on how to dismantle an atomic bomb. while pop does have 'gone' which i read as a wry commentary on a decade of being a huge commercial success and the critics who want to knock you off the pinacle, it doesn't have the maturity of some later songs (i think) in part because of the combination of bob hewson dying (bon's dad), and the amazing dive into poverty work, but more on that after another question on how the poverty work has changed their music).

this answer was too long. short answer, to the desert island with pop--it is the most complex and satisfying U2 album. there.

+peace

help me with media questions!

2006-02-15T21:01:00.000-05:00

a couple posts ago, buried at the bottom of my post, i asked for help but no one took me up on it. let me ask again. the marketing people at brazos asked me to write myself 10 questions and then answer them, and this will be sent in the media packet to help potential reviewers know what to ask me!

it cracks me up because it would be like, here, ask me my own question. oh, by the way, you already have my answer! well, there must be some way to have fun with it.

post your questions here or email them to me and I'll write the answer here as well.

more review news

2006-02-15T20:58:00.000-05:00

i heard today that christian century is considering doing an excerpt in an upcoming issue rather than a review. i hope so!

a couple days ago i heard from pbs' religion and ethics newsweekly about a show they're planning on bono and U2. nothing specific yet, so we'll see if anything comes of that.

and i heard that spin magazine is doing a review for the may issue.

this is a trip. listen. my first book has not sold 500 since 2001. and my second book has been out since 2004 and sold in the range of 300. no interviews. only about three reviews combined for both books. and they took a combined five years to research and write. of course, one could say that the hard work of doing academic books is the 'homework' one needs to do in order to late write accessible books that are not simplistic. i sure hope i've done that. but the truth is that U2 is so great, with such amazing credibility, that i get a big benefit of the doubt. still, this is a trip.

read the introduction

2006-02-09T22:15:00.000-05:00

dear readers of my blog. the end of waiting is near! in a mere two and a half weeks copies of *one step closer* should be unloading in brazos press' wearhouse. i'm as excited as anyone, or perhaps more so even though i of course know what the book says. it is almost like having a baby--the process leading up to birth is amazing but the all of a sudden there is this 'other thing' that takes on its own life apart from you even if intimately connected to you. so already I've meet cool people and connected with U2 fans around the world, and i hope that the book will facilitate more of that.

the book's near appearance also means that brazos' marketing department is kicking into high gear. I'll be doing a radio show on April 8 (KPRZ San Diego on the Dana Sturgeon Show) and who knows what that will be like! Brazos is also sending my book to lots of media outlets from the local level to the national. That will be interesting--blurbs are one thing and real reviews in newspapers and magazines are another.

I haven't actually done anything on the book at all since October, but now I have to write myself 10 questions and then answer them, and this will be sent in the media packet to help potential reviewers know what to ask me! Hilarious! Here, ask me my own question. Oh, by the way, you already have my answer! Well, there must be some way to have fun with it. Post your questions here or email them to me and I'll write the answer here as well. You can click on the link in the left column to go to my work site, the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, to download the introduction to the book. That may help you come up with a few questions.

Thanks for the help! And go U2--5 for 5 at the Grammys!

Peace

an era of grace: bono at the national prayer breakfast

2006-02-03T08:50:00.000-05:00

i tried posting my own transcriptions of bono's powerful and eloquent speech at the national prayer breakfast but it turns out DATA has posted the speech in full here.

his recommendation that the u.s. tithe its federal budget to the poor is getting quite a bit of press. you can vote here on whether the government should take bono's advice. The stunning thing is that of the 17,548 responses as of my voting, 90% answered, "Yes!"

while people who know bono's public statements over the years won't hear too much new in this talk, its form is fresh and its combination of biography, social commentary, scritpure, and admonition to action is among the most powerful 'homilies' I've ever heard (yes, he used the term himself).

go and as the old prayer says, "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest" this speech so that we all might share in bono's passion to be a means for God to be on the move in the world.

peace

addendum: here is jim wallis' reaction, and it is similar to mine.

Bono's Best Sermon Yet

The National Prayer Breakfast is normally a time for reaffirming spiritual truths and testifying to the power of faith in people's individual lives, but not so much a moment for prophetic and controversial social utterances. There have been exceptions - when Sen. Mark Hatfield spoke courageously about the moral "shame" of the Vietnam War in the presence of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger (I know a lot about that prayer breakfast speech because I helped write it when I was a seminarian in Chicago); when Mother Theresa spoke about the sacredness of life and raised the issue of abortion with the Clintons on hand; and yesterday, when Bono spoke like a modern-day prophet about extreme global poverty and pandemic disease and called upon the American government, with George Bush and Congressional leaders present, to do much more.

The speech was the most explicit about religion and the role of faith that I had ever heard Bono deliver, and his insistence on the biblical requirements of justice and not just charity was reiterated over and over again. In a small session with religious editors afterward, Bono spoke about how the churches had led on the issue of debt cancellation with the Jubilee 2000 campaign, on HIV/AIDS, and now on global poverty reduction. "You're the bigger crowd," he said, "much more than my stadium audiences." He said the church will just hear "fanfare" from musicians.

But Bono is offering far more than fanfare, as his talk demonstrates. To the religious editors he stressed how the justice issue is "really it," and said that the churches had to figure out how to make that clear to people and that "movement is the way" we will finally succeed. Bono said he believed that something is moving now and we have to create the momentum to accomplish our goals. On the way to the car afterward, we spoke together about how really crucial that movement building is, how nothing else will suffice to make the changes in our world that are so vitally and morally necessary, and how the strategy in the religious community is so key. We also talked about the Isaiah 58 passage he had quoted in his speech - that when we respond to the poor as the prophet instructs, "God will cover your back." This is one speech you will want to read and pass on to your friends.

- Jim Wallis

bush listened to bono, but rhetoric is not reality

2006-02-02T12:05:00.000-05:00

president bush had this to say in his 2006 state of the union speech regarding issues of poverty and disease, or more broadly, issues dealt with in the un millennium development goals:

"To overcome dangers in our world, we must also take the offensive by encouraging economic progress, and fighting disease, and spreading hope in hopeless lands. Isolationism would not only tie our hands in fighting enemies, it would keep us from helping our friends in desperate need. We show compassion abroad because Americans believe in the God-given dignity and worth of a villager with HIV/AIDS, or an infant with malaria, or a refugee fleeing genocide, or a young girl sold into slavery. We also show compassion abroad because regions overwhelmed by poverty, corruption, and despair are sources of terrorism, and organized crime, and human trafficking, and the drug trade.

In recent years, you and I have taken unprecedented action to fight AIDS and malaria, expand the education of girls, and reward developing nations that are moving forward with economic and political reform. For people everywhere, the United States is a partner for a better life. Short-changing these efforts would increase the suffering and chaos of our world, undercut our long-term security, and dull the conscience of our country. I urge members of Congress to serve the interests of America by showing the compassion of America."

if bush thought that he could get away without doing A LOT more that the u.s. has done to make such rhetoric a reality, he doesn't now that bono has had his say at the national prayer breakfast in what i think is the most powerful speech he's done on these issues. he thanks the u.s. congress and president bush for what they've done, but said there is bad news in that the scale of the emergency is so much bigger than the scale of the response, and justice demands we do so much more--including a full 1% of the u.s. budget for the world's poor.

see his speech here

in the name of love: king day 2006

2006-01-16T11:28:00.000-05:00

here is a clip from chapter ten of my book, titled "love (not power)", where i discuss u2's song about martin luther king, jr. enjoy!

"Love that gives itself away—divine love, as C.S. Lewis called it—has been the theme of some of U2’s biggest hits. The band’s tribute to non-violence and especially the work of Martin Luther King, Jr. did this first, and perhaps most powerfully. Pride (In The Name of Love) developed, as many songs do for the band, from a sound check before a concert. But musically, the song is rooted in their tour of the Chicago Peace Museum. There, they were deeply moved by the profound story of the American Civil Rights movement and about the life and leadership of Dr. King. As Edge remembers it, “Because of the situation in our country non-violent struggle was such an inspiring concept. Even so, when Bono told me he wanted to write about King, at first I said, ‘Woah, that’s not what we’re about.’ Then he came in and sang the song and it felt right. It was great.”
The song plays off the ways King embodied the self-giving love of Christ. Lines weave back and forth between these two heroes of love: “One man come he to justify / One man to overthrow / In the name of love.” Jesus is the one who offers justification “by his grace as a gift” (Romans 3:24). Martin is the one who struggled to overthrow the system of racism and legal segregation in the American south. Later in the song, another obvious couplet does the same kind of pairing: “One man washed up on an empty beach / One man betrayed with a kiss.” King was, so to speak, washed up on an empty beach by the water of the fire hoses white leaders used to stop the Civil Rights marchers. Jesus’ disciple Judas betrayed him by a kiss in the Garden of Gethsemane (Luke 22:48). And the last verse, all about King, highlights both his murder in Memphis in 1968 and the conclusion of this famous “I Have a Dream” speech given on the Jefferson Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington where he quoted an old spiritual: “Free at last, free at last, thank God Almighty, we’re free at last.” In “Pride,” Bono sings “Early morning, April four / Shot rings out in the Memphis sky. / Free at last, they took your life / They could not take your pride.”
During the Rattle and Hum Joshua Tree (I was wrong!) tour in the late 1980s, the band was campaigning for states to ratify the new Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. While playing in Arizona, the band got into trouble for this advocacy work and received some death threats. As Bono recalls there was one specific threat, “Don’t go ahead with the concert. And, if you do, don’t sing ‘Pride (In the Name of Love,’ because, if you do, I am gonna blow your head off, and you won’t be able to stop this from happening.” The band decided to go ahead with the concert and as well to play “Pride.” Something dramatic did happen, but not what everyone most feared. Bono, again:
I do remember actually, in the middle of ‘Pride,’ thinking, for a second: ‘Gosh! What if somebody was organized, or in the rafters of the building, or somebody, here and there, just had a handgun?’ I just closed my eyes and I sang this middle verse, with my eyes closed, trying to concentrate and forget about this ugliness and just keep close to the beauty that’s suggested in the song. I looked up, at the end of that verse, and Adam was standing in front of me. It was one of those moments where you know what it means to be in a band.
As Jesus said to his disciples, “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love that this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:12-13). The deepest mystery of the faith was, on that night in Arizona, both song and band: Love’s power is its weakness. No, love is not the easy thing. Yet finally it is the only thing that matters."

class on u2 at fuller seminary by ryan bolger and barry taylor

2006-01-10T06:26:00.000-05:00

i heard from a new friend ryan bolger who teaches christianity in contemporary culture at fuller seminary. he's planning a course on u2 for spring quarter at fuller along with popular culture theologian barry taylor and wondered if he could use my book. i didn't know if it would be out, so i emailed brazos and rebecca cooper, managing editor, said it would be in their warehouse (which makes my book a 'ware', right?) by march 1 but not distributed to stores till later in the month. but they can have it for the class. so any of you that are wondering who like me are wondering when you actually get to see the book, this is the latest news.
peace, chris

publisher's weekly review on amazon

2005-12-19T13:56:00.000-05:00

Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Perhaps the most popular and influential rock group to espouse Christian ideals without getting sidelined as "Christian rock" is the Irish band U2. Scharen (a Lutheran pastor and instructor of practical theology at Yale) points to the many biblical, theological and spiritual themes found in U2's lyrics to explain why this band "matters to those seeking God." And he does so elegantly, offering the heartfelt and intelligent musings of a fan while also acknowledging the band's wild and worldly bent. He admits U2's lyrics are multivalent, helping the band to attract both religious and nonreligious fans. Scharen is most impressed with U2's emphasis on "the theology of the cross," a theology that accepts both doubts and faith while emphasizing the victory of God's love over the reality of earthly powers. "Despite worldly trappings of wealth and power, in U2 love does get a chance to speak," says Scharen, who calls on Christians to ask themselves what is keeping U2's "God-hungry" fans outside the church's edges. This book will no doubt appeal to the Christian who is a U2 fan, but its higher purpose is to bring the church and U2 fans from a variety of backgrounds closer together. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

bono, with bill and melinda gates

2005-12-19T05:24:00.000-05:00

bono gates time
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

just when i thought that the brand bono couldn't get any larger, this. and so far the articles seem thoughtful, but i'm not too far into the stories yet.

this is for fr. scully

2005-12-15T16:33:00.000-05:00

i didn't want to watch the vertigo dvd--live from chicago--until after our trip to the boston U2 show (see post below) a couple weeks ago, but now i've had a chance to watch parts of it. it is in a sense not authentic, since they've pasted '40' from the may 9th show to the end of what is mainly a video of the may 10th show. still, it is okay by me because i love shows that end with '40'. but this one ends in a way that about made me fall out of my chair, especially since i wanted to title my book 'icons of the cross'. at the end of '40' when the band begins one by one to walk off stage, bono walks up to the mike, takes off his rosary (given to him by pope john paul II) and hangs it over the mike, saying "this is for father scully of notre dame university" as the camera focuses in on the cross. it turns out that the band has praised father scully for his work before. during the band's concert in 2001 in notre dame, before singing one near the end of the concert bono said:

"Also want to thank those of you that supported us on the Drop the Debt campaign. I noticed that the President of the World Bank Jim Wolfhenson came out on Sept. 12 or maybe Sept. 13 and said you know the roots of this problem are in abject poverty, fanatics live off (this) -- their fuel, fuel for their fanaticism is the abject poverty that they live in, so I put a challenge to us that perhaps the only way to really win this war, really win it, is to try and take away that poverty, that's my prayer. There's a programme here in Notre Dame, I think it's called the Ace Programme, Father Scully's programme, where people give up two years of their life, they go into an area where people can't get to, just kind of teaching, I would call that changing the world..."

that the dvd ends with forty and with the cross and with a reference to a man who founded a program that sends teachers into impoverished areas for two years--that together about sums up the heart of my faith. i got chills each time i watched it.

peace, chris

okay, i have found what i'm looking for

2005-12-07T06:06:00.000-05:00

so i haven't gotten an interview with the band. i was at the most fantastic night with the band and it was all i was looking for and more. yep, this past sunday night in boston was amazing and i didn't need to wait till the third encore (yep, three!) to know it would be amazing--i knew it would be amazing from the moment early on when i heard the familiar but unexpected crash of the edges guitar on 'i will follow'. as we drove up to boston, I thought to myself--the band loves boston, they've been on the road for a year, and they've just had a week's rest. they're going to be frisky tonight. and so it was. the next song after 'i will follow' was one of my all time favorites--i still haven't found what i'm looking for--and i've not heard it live before. it was such a trip to hear bono shout, 'take it to church, now!' all in all, it was an incredible evening. my son, isaiah, was sort of stunned by the whole spectacle it--first the arena with 20,000 fans, and then the lights and the music and his heros just down below. he is learning to play guitar and loves the edge's 'explorer' guitar (the cool 'z' shaped one), and when the band started playing 'i will follow', isaiah tapped me on the shoulder and said, 'dad, dad! the edge has his axe guitar!' with a big smile on his face.

peace

still haven't found what i'm looking for

2005-12-03T05:36:00.000-05:00

i've still by trying to get an interview with the band or any one of them individually. i've sent them all individual letters with copies of the proofs, and worked through any channels i know of people who may have a contact with the band. this whole process is hilarious.

since we're going up to boston and isaiah is coming and i know that the band likes kids, i thought i'd try that angle with their publicist, lori earl. she wins the prize for being the friendliest of all the people either at principle management or at universal music who have in many and various ways said, no, you can't have an interview. here is her note:

Dr. Scharen:
Unfortunately the band's schedule right now is beyond filled so an
interview just isn't possible at this time. Please feel free to stay in
touch and I'll let you know if anything changes in the future. It will
be a memorable night for your son...it definitely was for my two boys.
Best wishes,
Lori Earl

the band have a bit of time off for the holidays before leg four picks up in march. and i know that bono will be in washington for a $95 dollar a seat lecture titled: "the future in front of us: living a more involved life" february 3, so at least he'll be stateside. perhaps then.

the best blurb line of all

2005-12-02T14:56:00.000-05:00

you may remember that i didn't know who charlie peacock was, and brazos asked him for an endorsement of my book. well, mike of the excellent blog waving or drowning gave me a hint and wow, the guy is amazing and i've now just got to read his stuff. his latest book, *new way to be human: a provocative look at what it means to follow jesus*, to my great surprise, is published by random house, inc. i didn't know they did such straight-up confessional stuff. we sure are in a new era.

anyway, charlie gave me a wonderful gift by endorsing my book and what a blurb. my favorite sentence:

"this book is blood and dirt theological analysis of the rock 'n roll anomaly that is U2. read it immediately."

wow. thanks, charlie.

peace

world aids day

2005-12-01T11:50:00.000-05:00

bono and coldplay singer chris martin will join former president of south africa nelson mandela in a world AIDS day podcast, on thursday at one.org, to raise awareness of extreme poverty and HIV/AIDS in the world's poorest countries. This will be the inaugural podcast of ONE, the activist organization whose efforts U2 have been championing throughout its current Vertigo tour. check it out. pray. work.

miroslav's endorsement

2005-11-28T13:19:00.000-05:00

it may be boring to you to keep reading what others are saying about the book without your having access to read the book yourself, and then either agree or diss what these folks are saying. but if you're me, it is a hoot to see how people negotiate this odd genre called "the book blurb." and of course, who wouldn't like to have a group of friends and admired others join together to say nice things about your work? it is not the best book in the world, mind you, but it is fun to hear that others like it. i hope you, o blog reader, will like it too.

here is what my friend and colleague miroslav volf said:

"First you get Bono--a rock star and an activist who turns out to be an extraordinary theologian of grace. And then you get Scharen--a fine theologian and pastor who writes compellingly about the Christian faith with his ear close to the ground. I learned a lot by reading this book."

thanks, miroslav. he's just written a gem of a book himself, just out from zondervan. it's called free of charge and you can get it here.

u2 show sunday, 12/4

2005-11-28T13:13:00.000-05:00

that's right, i'm going with sonja and isaiah, my wife and seven year old son, neither of whom have ever been to a U2 show. it will be a great to share this with them. we're just behind the stage, which while not my favorite spot for sound, gets isaiah closer to his hero, the edge, and that's worth a lot. isaiah just started guitar lessons this fall and has learned twinkle, twinkle, little star. he plays it like it is elevation, however, if you can picture that!

i'm personally interested to see the frisky side of the band now that they are near the end of this year's tour--they've been playing with an increasingly long list of songs to swap in and out of the set list and there have been many changes since last may when i saw them (also in boston). so, more on that, and on what if feels like to see them post-book, next week.

if you are going to the boston show and want to meet and greet, email me!

peace,

amen, baby!

2005-11-16T14:38:00.000-05:00

i was quoted in an article in the florida sun-sentinel and here is the article. it is interesting in that the author, fayola, grew up in a strict moralistic fundamentalist home and she is reacting to that but struggling to find a place within the church. u2 has been a source of help for her in that, and she has turned to church folks and to religious authors who 'get' u2 with hopes that their is another version of christianity that she can connect with that loves the world, too, and doesn't only judge it. the article can sound combative, but i hope my contribution fits the best of its intention.

the best of its intention: that is, to oppose the culture that says you have to have bling to get in to this-worldly mansions, and too many churches that say you have to have spiritual bling (moral superiority) to get in to an other-worldly mansion. the truth is, as bono sings in this fall's vertigo tour version of 'the first time', 'i threw away the key, and only grace could give it back to me.' that is, we all only get into the abundant life god intends for us, here and for eternity, by grace. our fight to either establish ourselves as better economically or spiritually is a dead-end road. literally, a dead-end road, because we lose our lives focusing on our own self-serving lives while others literally die for lack of a piece of bread or a dollar's worth of medicine.

read the article here:

Amen, Baby--Progressive Christians are using the music of U2 to illustrate spiritual teachings.
S. Florida Sun-Sentinel, November 12, 2005
Fayola Shakes

william romanowski blurb

2005-11-16T14:35:00.000-05:00

here is a blurb from william romanowski, a great scholar of theology and popular culture. it is great that he read it and had the motivation to give me his response to the book!

"One Step Closer is an honest, accessible and insightful book that is sure to delight U2 fans and intrigue those curious about a rock and roll band that wants to change the world with song, word and deed. By skillfully drawing on biblical texts and theological tradition to interpret the band's music and activism, Christian Scharen gets at the heart of U2*the Christian vision, prophetic voice and mysterious ways of an incredible rock group."

thanks, bill!

a choice blurb from phyllis tickle

2005-11-08T20:34:00.000-05:00

blurb - One Step Closer - Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God - Scharen

There is in this book a brilliance of insight and a humanness of approach that must make even Bono himself smile. Scharen knows his theology, he knows his culture, and he knows how passionately Bono is singing of them, each to the other. The joy for us as readers on this journey of the mind, however, is that somewhere along the way, we begin to realize that what we are really hearing is snatches and pieces of a great love song between God and our souls.

Phyllis Tickle
The Farm In Lucy
26th Week of Pentecost, 2005

comment on the book award goes to . . .

2005-11-08T15:36:00.000-05:00

one of the funniest things anyone has said about my book arrived in an email yesterday. phyllis tickle, a woman i respect very much, wrote to say she liked the book. i use the prayer book series she edited called the divine hours. she was here last spring for our theology live series and she liked the idea of the book then. i guess she likes how it came out, too. here's what she said:

"This is one hell of a gem of a book, Chris...though I shall try to control myself and refer to it in more dignified language tomorrow when I actually compose the blurb."

ha!! could a person ask for more?

peace,
chris

preaching elevate

2005-11-08T13:40:00.000-05:00

redwood covenant
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

saturday night i'm preaching at elevate: a post-contemporary, loudly-contemplative worship experience. the lead pastor for this service, mark almlie, started this service with seven services in a row focused on the gospel through particular u2 songs. here's what mark put together:

To date, I have chosen these u2 songs to reflect on and put together a sermon around:
1. “40” --dealing with pain and yet feeling hope
2. “grace” --God’s unconditional grace/love for us
3. “vertigo” –wrestling with temptation in our lives
4.“crumbs from your table” --getting out of the pews and helping this world with the social application of the gospel
5.“still haven’t found what I’m looking for” --pressing onward toward the prize that God has called us to
6. “when I look at the world” ??? not sure about this one yet
7.“where the streets have no name” --sojourning through this world on our way to the far country

i'm wrapping up the series with streets and then joining the u2 party church. funny to do it that way; u2 ususually is church. while the elevate service doesn't have a live website yet, but here is the church's main site with a bit of info on the service. anybody in the san francisco bay area is welcome to show up!

it will be fun, for sure, and i'm always very curious about new post-contemporary and other experiemental services. i'll post my sermon and comments about the trip next week.

peace,
chris

interview on the matthew's house project

2005-11-04T11:08:00.000-05:00

zach kincaid, director of the matthew's house project, contacted me for an interview to accompany a couple u2 concert reviews on in their november issue online. they are the innovative people behind narnia on tour.
it starts this way:

One Step Closer
A Conversation with Christian Scharen

Christian Scharen is author of One Step Closer: Why U2 Matters to Those Seeking God. The book releases on Brazos Press this coming spring. Here is a recent discussion I had with Chris, who spends the majority of his time working as the Associate Director for Yale Center for Faith and Culture.

Zach Kincaid: When it comes to U2 there are several books out there already. The infamous one for me is the Relevant Books project of working out press releases to create some capture of biography. Now, no doubt U2 sells and with even an inference of them would certainly lend a hand in moving books. So, your book - the reason I wanted to get in touch is because of my fond respect for Brazos and the work of Rodney Clapp. When I saw this title and explanation I thought this work might stand heads above some of the other pubs on the market. How is your book different and valuable not only because of the pop-icon survey but perhaps for something more lasting?

Christian Scharen: I made a decision to write a book (and Rodney to publish one) that is not in the first instance about the band. It is an invitation to the Christian faith as a way of life. The hook is that I’ve portrayed the Christian faith as seen refracted through the U2. In that sense, it is about U2. I had a hunch that U2, as a band, have a coherent understanding of the Christian faith that has developed over time but remained coherent enough to connect with large numbers of spiritually hungry young people, myself included.

more here

seeking endorsements

2005-11-04T11:01:00.000-05:00

okay, so my first endorsement is fun. then the work. here is what happens. early on, the marketing department asked who I thought might endorse the book. i said some people that i know and that i am drawing on as resources in the book such as:

don saliers (my teacher at emory, and whose daughter emily is an indigo girl)
douglas john hall (the one who taught me the theology of the cross)
miroslav volf (my friend and colleague here at the center for faith & culture)
dorothy bass (another friend who has encouraged me in many ways over the years)

then there are the other people i don't know but my publisher knows or likes or something. brazos sends them all a letter and a copy of the ms. asking them to take a look and if they are willing, offer an endorsement for pr purposes. who knows if i have a hope of getting them to write something, but i'm working to contact people i know who know people on the list to encourage them to take a look at the book.

tony campolo
brian mclaren
bill clinton
jim wallis
bill romanowski
david dark
rob johnston
craig detweiler
mark pinsky
charlie peacock? I don't have a clue! If you know, let me know.
phyllis tickle
eugene peterson

but what if they do look at the book? frankly, it is humbling and scary. not only i worry that u2 won't like the book and u2 fans will find all manner of errors of fact and interpretation, now these amazing people all get the chance to say 'this guy stinks!' well, i hope not, but when i let my irrational fears play out, isn't that the normal thing to feel? it is like getting a job at yale, and thinking, opps, someone slipped up in the hiring process and i sure hope they don't find out.

it is at this point when i need to remember w.a. vanstone's advice about preaching (that applies also to book writing) from his lovely little volume, love's endeavour, love's expense: the response of being to the love of god. there he speaks of the sermon as offering. "if the sermon was intended as offering, and if it was the best of which the preacher was capable, then in the offering of it, its purpose was achieved and its work completed." in that sense, i can let go of the book, giving it over to wend its way through the lives of all those it touches.

flush from the first endorsement

2005-10-25T11:52:00.000-04:00

i'm so delighted to have my friend tony jones write the first endorsement i've seen of the book. here it is, and props to tony and the folks connected to emergent with whom i share so much common ground.

"Many of us in the emerging generation of young Christians have grown up with U2 -- that is, we've grown as they've grown. We've gone with these four band members through stages of lament, protest, cynicism, and hope. In charting the stages of theological development of U2, Chris Scharen's One Step Closer is an unparalleled resource. Not only is it beautifully written and deeply insightful, it mines gems from U2's lyrics, music, and concerts that I had never seen or heard, even though I've followed the band for years. But, most importantly, this book shines a spotlight on the Kingdom of God through the prism of the world's biggest rock band. Don't miss this book!"

Tony Jones is the national coordinator of Emergent (www.emergentvillage.com) and the author of The Sacred Way

Rodney's lovely response

2005-10-25T11:35:00.000-04:00

I've got a lovely editor at Brazos. I partly felt I could vent and be honest because he would respond with kind firmness, letting me know what is worth worrying about and what I ought to just take a chill-pill about, and that is just what he did. Here is his note and my reply.

Rodney,

Your points are well-taken and I thought you would have fair and calm responses to my venting. Thanks for your charitable reading of my concerns, taking seriously what ought to be taken seriously, and pushing back at me those things that are just authorial anxiety.

I'm grateful to be working with you.

+Peace,

Chris

Chris, thanks for your note.

I'm sorry that the blurb mentions St. Francis, who does not end up in the
final draft of the book. And that the wording about "Irish backgrounds" sounds
off. I'm passing your comments along to our marketing and publicity department
so that they'll be aware and make appropriate adjustments on further publicity.

In fairness, we certainly do want to lead with U2 in presenting the book--that's what will draw attention and interest, especially with the book's intended readership. And the publicity does quote your lines about delving deeper into the Christian tradition, via a particular slant. Even academic readers will be drawn--at least initially--more by the U2 angle than the theology of the cross. The publicity is trying to get them through the portal, then into the substance of the book which includes and goes deeper than U2.

I'd ask to you to consider that you're (as the book's author, and understandably) reading and scrutinizing the material much more closely and sensitively than most any other reader. Few other viewers of the material are likely to be concerned or put off from the book itself.

Thanks for letting me know your concerns. I will pass them on to marketing/publicity with reference to further work.

Warmly,
Rodney

advertising car wreck

2005-10-20T16:51:00.000-04:00

I finally pushed back today on the way the book is being marketed. It is frustrating to pour effort into something and then have so little control over how it is presented to the world--the cover, title, and blurb that describes the book to the world were not at all my choice. Here's the letter to my editor--more when he responds.
Peace,
Chris

October 20
Dear Rodney,

Sorry to grouch, when overall I'm delighted by the work Brazos is doing with me on the U2 book. The page proofs look just fantastic.

Still, I need to vent, and hear your response. I just got the AAR mailing from Brazos and read the blurb about my book, and geez, it is sensational and only partly representative of what I wrote, in the book, or even in the Brazos title questionnaire intended for public relations planning. I felt uneasy when I saw the posting on the web and in the Baker catalog, but I didn't say anything figuring it was already out there and I should just bite my tongue. But perhaps other pr can be changed if I speak up now.

I don't know why this happened, but if you take a minute to look at it, I construe the book differently than the blurbs put out thus far. Fundamentally, the book is about the Christian faith seen through U2, not about U2. I think it is fine to play off U2's reputation, and Bono's especially, but I wish that the blurbs said more clearly that the book seeks to portray a particular (and I think needed) interpretation of the Christian faith that looks at the world and speaks the truth about what it sees: faith and doubt, despair and hope, suffering and love. Saying things like "Bono and the other band members are marked by the Christian faith of their Irish backgrounds" sounds nice, but given the actual history of the band, is a loaded and quite ironic statement. In no simply way can one say they embody some "faith of their Irish backgrounds" not all of which were Christian, and not all Irish! The statement makes me and Brazos look like our elevators don't quite reach the top floor, if you know what I mean. And the stuff on King David, St. Francis of Assisi (with Assisi misspelled!) etc. was cut early on, and I never mention it in the title questionnaire. They must have gotten that from the original proposal back in January!

Anyway, here are the blurbs and what I wrote below. I think we could do better speaking about how the book lifts up a vision of the faith that seekers yearning for a more authentic expression of faith find in U2's music. Let me know what you think. Thanks for hearing me out, and for responding forthrightly as you always do.

Peace,
Chris

Brazos website, print catalog description: U2 is widely hailed as the greatest rock and roll band in the world, and lead singer Bono is often seen in the media touting humanitarian goals. Now Christian Scharen provides a thoughtful look at the driving force behind the band.

Bono and other band members are marked by the Christian faith of their Irish backgrounds. Scharen reflects on how U2 "fits within the longer Christian tradition of voices that point us to the cross, to Jesus, and to the power of God's ways in the world." He explores the music's honest spiritual questioning, making comparisons to figures such as King David, St. Francis of Assissi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Dorothy Day.

AAR mailing: U2 is widely hailed as the greatest rock and roll band in the world, and lead singer Bono is often seen in the media touting humanitarian goals. Now Christian Scharen, director of the Yale Center for Faith and Culture, provides a thoughtful look at the driving force behind the band.

Bono and other band members are marked by the Christian faith of their Irish backgrounds. Scharen reflects on how U2 "fits within the longer Christian tradition of voices that point us to the cross, to Jesus, and to the power of God's ways in the world." He explores the music's honest spiritual questioning, making comparisons to figures such as King David, St. Francis of Assissi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and Dorothy Day.

What I said, word for word in my Brazos marketing title questionnaire: This book that helps introduce readers to a minor key from the Christian Tradition—what I call the “theology of the cross”—that helps make deeper sense of U2’s spiritual voice. It is a tradition that looks at the world and speaks the truth about what it sees: faith and doubt, despair and hope, suffering and love.

U2’s spirituality, centered in faithful seeking after God, fits spiritual yearnings of many today U2 has evolved over time, but has been remarkably consistent both in the way their music and their actions and advocacy point to their Christian faith. The theology of the cross—a tradition of reflection central to the Christian faith—offers the most compelling means to interpret U2’s spiritual tradition. Delving more deeply into interpreting the music and life of U2 will push one both towards deeper understanding God and the journey of faithful living in and for the world.
My book is not primarily a chronological account or an account about the band. Rather, it is a systematic accounting of the Christian tradition as seen through the witness of U2, drawing out how they interpret and sing Scripture and the theological traditions of the Christian faith. And it is a book that invites readers on a spiritual journey deeper into the Christian faith as given witness to by U2.

Bono and Pope John Paul II

2005-10-18T15:54:00.000-04:00

Bono and Pope John Paul II
Originally uploaded by atu2.

i just love this photo, and it is the flip side of the rosary that is almost always seen around bono's neck since this famous meeting as part of the jubilee 2000 campaign. the photo was confiscated by the vatican but has now finally come out in a polish book about the pope.

:-)

Chris

contacting the band, try 3

2005-10-07T15:19:00.000-04:00

i sent letters, emails, and even called U2's management offices in NYC and with Universal Music in the spring trying to see if I could get a personal interview. no dice then.

so then as I finished the draft of the manuscript I send the band a copy (this was july) hoping I might have a chance to get a response or even a brief interview this fall while they are in the new york-boston area. their management office said, and I quote, the band is on world tour through the end of the year and not reading mail.

so, being thick-headed and at the same time faithful (i've adopted the persistent widow from Luke 18 as a model), i'm trying again now that I have page proofs. i'm sending a copy of the page proof copy, spiral bound from kinkos, to each of the members: bono, edge, larry, and adam, via their management office in new york. here is the letter to the edge, which gives you a feel for what i'm writingt but each letter is different obviously. i'm also writing cover letters to keryn kaplan, head of principle management nyc.

October 6, 2005

The Edge
C/O Principle Management
250 West 57th Street, Suite 2120
New York, NY 10107

Dear Edge,

First I just want to thank you for years of great art--studio and live--and for inspiration in life. I've been a fan a long time and appreciate so much the work you've done together. Isaiah, my son, especially loves you and has begun guitar lessons this fall in an effort to become a rock star, too. His name is Isaiah, and he is 7, and he even has a orange cap that fits his head like your black one fits yours. He's coming with us to the 12/4 show in Boston--his first U2 show!

I hope I can appeal to your curiosity to take a look at the book I’ve written on U2 and how your work as a band might help people seeking God but nervous about Christianity. I’d obviously just love to give you a copy, and it is in page-proof form now so I thought I’d send it. If you like it and are willing to give the book an endorsement, of course I’d love that, too. And while I’m being bold, I’d love to have a chance to talk about your reactions to the book, questions of theology and art, etc. while you are in New England this fall.

On that last one, I’ll adopt the persistent widow from Luke18 as my patron saint! My cause is certainly less important than many pressing on your schedule although I do hope that my project can shine a bit more light in a world too often shrouded in darkness of injustice and violence.

The book for young people dealing with the spiritual depth of U2’s music. The aim is to introduce those who don’t know the Bible or the Christian tradition to a version of the faith I think resonates with U2’s music and commitments. The publisher, Brazos Press, is an intentionally post-denominational press trying to reach spiritually searching people with a vision of the Christian tradition alive.

Here’s the skinny on who I am. I am a professor at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, U.S.A. where I help lead the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. We do some cool things, and I’ve enclosed a couple brochures for you to look over. We’re dedicating a major conference in September 21-22, 2006 to the theme “Crumbs from the Table? The Creation of Wealth and the Persistence of Poverty.” and we’d very much like to invite you to attend--perhaps you could even play 'crumbs' to kick off the conference!

Thank you for all you are and do to inspire the rest of us to live faithfully and well, and blessings to you, your band members, and your whole crew as you carry on with the Vertigo tour.

Peace to you,

Chris Scharen

page proofs 2

2005-10-04T20:22:00.000-04:00

intro p1
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

here is the first page of the introduction. so what happens now is I have three weeks to read the ms. to check for spelling and grammer mistakes and beg for any last minute changes. at the same time, i submit the ms. to Universal Music for permission to quote U2 lyrics (supposedly hard to get permission and then expensive even when you do--more on that later). and lastly, it is time to call up favors to get friends and much admired people to do blurbs for the book. this is so much fun--its like doing the nursery before a child is born!
peace,
chris

page proofs 1

2005-10-04T20:18:00.000-04:00

titlepage
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

nice to finally see the layout. i got the page proofs from rebecca cooper, the managing editor, yesterday. it looks nice, i think, and it turned out longer than I thought it would--203pp. without acknowledgements, so perhaps it will be 205 or so. Hmm. It was originally supposed to be 120pp. ;-]

here is a look at the title page to see the style:

crumbs from your table live, 2

2005-09-26T06:05:00.000-04:00

again, last night, u2 played their song 'crumbs from your table' and it occurred to me that I ought to post on where they played it, as it makes a difference--placement is part of interpretation and meaning as the flow of the concert (like worship) has kinds of meaning and emotion as it rolls along. both nights, it has come during the final encore section between two songs of direct address to (on one interpretation) god--all because of you (I AM, who is God, Yahweh) and of course, Yahweh. In between these two songs about who we are because of and before God, they insert Crumbs, a song with considerably more tension between who we are called to be by God and who we are. This is the rubric of saint and sinner, of the tension between I've found, and I still haven't found, what I'm looking for. I love it and can't wait to see them play again later this fall in hartford.
Peace,
Chris

25.09.2005
It's Sunday, Must Be Milwaukee .
Here's what they played tonight. Report on the way.

City of Blinding Lights
Vertigo
Elevation
Cry / Electric Co.
The Ocean
Still Haven’t Found
Beautiful Day
Miracle Drug
Sometimes You Can’t Make it on Your Own
Love and Peace or Else
Sunday Bloody Sunday
Bullet The Blue Sky
Miss Sarajevo
Pride in the Name of Love
Where the Streets Have No Name
One

First Time
Wild Horses
With or Without You

All Because of You
Crumbs From Your Table
Yahweh
40

crumbs from the table live!

2005-09-25T15:54:00.000-04:00

i'm so excited to hear that u2 has finally played "crumbs from your table." this song is one of the most powerful on 2004's how to dismantle an atomic bomb and one of their most pointed spiritual-political songs as well. not to mention great grinding rock and roll! descriptions of the concert here and here.

and here is a part of chapter five (titled "parables as offense and grace.") that discusses the song crumbs.

A second song that embodies the mode of parables focuses less on personal faith and more on the church’s inaction. The song “Crumbs from Your Table” steps hard on the toes of the ultra religious, especially in the United States. In an interview, Bono said, “I went to speak to Christian fundamentalist groups in America to convince them to give money to fight Aids in Africa. It was like getting blood from a stone. I told them about a hospice in Uganda where so many people were dying they had to sleep three to a bed. Sister Ann, who I mention in the song, works at that hospice.”
“Crumbs From Your Table” is one of the songs on 2004’s album How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb. And it clearly comes out of the activism Bono and the band have taken on in especially dramatic ways since the Jubilee 2000 campaign. Bono, well aware now of how easily he can be targeted for living as an ultra-rich rock star while advocating for the poorest of the poor, says “I see my role as raising the alarm. I have a very loud hailer. My bullhorn is plugged into a Marshall stack, and I can use this ridiculous thing called celebrity to the advantage of these things.”
Some people imagine “Crumbs from Your Table” takes its lead from the parable of the Canaanite woman in Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 15, where there is a story of a woman whose daughter is possessed and who wants Jesus’ help. When he hears of her request, he responds by saying he has come for “the lost sheep of Israel,” and “it is not right to take bread out of the children’s mouths and throw it to the dogs.” Jesus’ attention to his own people (the lost sheep of Israel) is the expected response. But the outcome ends up quite different. The woman is feisty and does not stand for this dismissal. She retorts: “Even the dogs eat the crumbs from the master’s table!” Jesus relents and says, “Oh, woman, your faith is something else!” The image of this persistent and feisty woman fits the image U2 projects of Africa as beautiful and proud, ready to work for their own improvement if the playing field were only level (as the band so vividly illustrates in the hand-drawing from the book accompanying How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb in the deluxe edition—it is a soccer field with one end elevated! See below)
Another relevant parable with the line “crumbs from the table” is the parable of the rich man and Lazarus from Luke’s Gospel. (note: help from Steven Miyamoto on this interpretation) There, Jesus tells the story of a rich man, always dressed in fine clothing and enjoying life. At his gate, a poor man lay covered with sores, begging for the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table. Again, putting the parable theory of reversal into play, it would have been typical in that day to see the rich man as blessed by God and the man covered with sores as under God’s judgment. Yet, the parable goes on to say, when they both died the beggar was taken up into heaven, while the rich man went to hell. This would have offended the hearers who assumed that while the rich man might owe charity to the poor man to keep him from starving, he certainly would not seek to interact with him, or more than that, try to rehabilitate him. The beggar was at best an unclean sinner who deserved his suffering and was to be avoided at all costs by those who are righteous for fear they, too, would be tainted.
The song assumes rightly that many in America believe themselves to be—like the rich man in the parable—“special” in God’s eyes, and our prosperity to be divinely ordained given our “special” place. Yet from the first couplet, U2 calls such an interpretation into question: “From the brightest star/ comes the blackest hole.” Commenting on the legacy of colonialism and exploitation of Africa for slaves and raw materials verses the paltry amount of foreign aid offered to the poorest nations, Bono sings, “I was there for you baby / When you needed my help / Would you deny for others / What you demand for yourself?” And then as if anger overtakes the band at this point, Bono shifts into a two line refrain “Cool down, mama, cool off / Cool down mama, cool off” before being able to sing the chorus: “You speak of signs and wonders / I need something other / I would believe if I was able / But I’m waiting on the crumbs from your table.”
It is important to note that in the parable, and in the song, there is no condemnation of money, or having a lot of it, but there is certainly a question of what qualifies as a righteous use of money. If we believe, as U2 does, that what we have is a surprising and unmerited gift from God then what we have ought to serve more than our own needs. If this is true, that it makes more sense to say, as the song does in verse three, “Where you live should not decide / whether you live or whether you die.” Just prior to this parable in Luke 16, Jesus comments “No workers can serve two bosses; He’ll either hate the first and love the second or adore the first and despise the second. You can’t serve both God and the Bank.” Luke then continues with commentary: “ When the Pharisees, a money-loving bunch, heard him say these things, they rolled their eyes, dismissing him as hopelessly out of touch.” (The Message)
Bono has been accused of the same, but he keeps on script in his rounds of speeches at Ivy League graduations, political speeches, and television appearances. On one typical recent occasion, addressing the Labour Party Annual Conference, Bono recalled his 1984 summer trip to Wello, Ethiopia with his wife, Alison Stewart.
"We lived there for a six weeks, working in an orphanage. On our last day at the orphanage a man handed me his baby and said, ‘take him with you.’ He knew in Ireland his son would live; in Ethiopia his son would die. I turned him down. In that moment I started this journey.
Later in the speech, though, he turns the speech from Africa to Europe and America:
Earlier I described the deaths of 6500 Africans a day from preventable, treatable disease like AIDS: I watched people queuing up to die, three in a bed, in Malawi. That’s Africa’s crisis. But the fact that we in Europe or America are not treating it like an emergency—and the fact that its not every day on the news, well that is our crisis. And that’s not horses**t, that’s something much worse, I don’t even know what that says about us."
The song “Crumbs From Your Table” concludes with similar sentiments: “Three to a bed / Sister Ann, she said / Dignity passes by.”
The parable in Luke 16 concludes with the rich man in hell, begging Father Abraham to let him return to ward his five brothers so that they will change and avoid his awful fate. Abraham denied the request, however, saying, “They have Moses and the Prophets to tell them the score. Let them listen to them.” Perhaps, just perhaps, God is using this rock star singer to point us back to the parables, to the prophets, and to Moses, so that we rise to the moment and escape the hell on earth that so many people live in today. And by using globalization to redefine the reach of this parable, Bono remarks: “There was this old definition of generosity, which is at the very least the rich man looks after the poor man on his street. Guess what? Now, that street goes round the world.”
U2 speaks in parables, in part, because they are deeply grounded in the world of scripture. It is how they think, how they see the world, how they understand what matters most in the world. Despite themselves, echoes of parables come out in their speech and song. Yet they also know the usefulness of speaking purposefully in parables. Art is at its worst when it is simple and transparent. Art stretches us, questions us, and leads us into new worlds. And expecting U2 to toss aside their art for faith presented in a simple formula not only misses the power of their art to help us clear space to see God and the world anew; it also misses the fact that much of the bible is poetry and parable, artistic writing forms, and at times altogether challenging for seeking understanding. Truth comes in many forms; one gift of U2 is showing how varied faithful truth seeking can be.

kyrie eleison, new orleans and the southland

2005-09-01T19:15:00.000-04:00

beth, a friend who blogs here, has said what i'd say regarding the tragedy in the southland.
for more on kyrie eleison, check this.

Elevate

2005-08-30T07:09:00.000-04:00

I got a very friendly note from Mark A. Almlie, Pastor of Mosaic (a young adults ministry) at Redwood Covenant Church in Santa Rosa, CA who is launching a new "post-contemporary, loudly-contemplative worship experience" called Elevate. He's preaching the first seven weeks drawing on U2 and he saw my book on CBD. He wrote to strike up a conversation about the band, faith, and preaching. Of course he's already read Walk On and Get Up Off Your Knees. So we'll talk and perhaps he'll inspire me to start a similar service here in New Haven. I'm so often underwhelmed at church and I'd like that to change.

+Peace

On Amazon!

2005-08-28T20:52:00.000-04:00

I arrived back from vacation to find the book listed online at the usual outlets. How fun. I put the link on the right sidebar so that you can see it, if not pre-order it. I'm proud to offer a book at under $20--my last book with Liturgical Press was listed on Amazon for $20 and One Step Closer is $10!

copy editting

2005-07-27T13:52:00.000-04:00

i did finish the boring work of creating the endnotes and sent it off to the publishers who now give it to a copy editor and i get a couple weeks off. after that process, i have to say, @u2 has the most amazing archive. most any interesting article out there on u2 is archived on their site. somebody could write a book without consulting another source! way to to, matt and company!
peace

getting bono a copy

2005-07-27T13:50:00.000-04:00

well i sent my manuscript to bono via principle management in dublin and got this reply:

Dear Christian

We acknowledge receipt of your letter to Steve Matthews of July 15th together with the manuscript of the above book.

We note you include lyrics of U2 songs in the book: have you obtained a license to do so from U2’s record company, Universal Music?

If not, please contact the following to request permission to include these lyrics:

Suzanne Moss
Suzanne.moss@umusic.com

Best wishes

Candida Bottaci
Principle Management
Dublin

So the I wrote back telling them that i was indeed working on getting permissions. I also asked if they would just put my manuscript in the round file or if they might consider passing it and my letter along to bono? and I got this reply:

Dear Christian

It will not be possible to forward anything to Bono this year as he and
U2 are currently on a worldwide tour.

Best wishes
Candida Bottaci

So, on the one hand, it is so nice of them to reply when I'm sure they get many contacts. But I thought that, you know, he might have a few minutes to look at mail this year. Oh, well. My letter referenced the parable of the persistent widow from Luke 18:1-8. I assumed all along that contacting bono or any member of the band would be hard, and i'll keep at it. suggestions welcome!

peace

amazing grace 2

2005-07-27T13:39:00.000-04:00

fyi, i posted the version of amazing grace from the second paris show on my other blog where you can download it.

amazing grace

2005-07-19T11:20:00.000-04:00

philip taylor at the u2 site threecordsandthetruth sent me a limited-download url for a clip of U2's performance in Paris a couple weeks ago where they substituted their typical ending of Running to Stand Still (which has been a chorus of halleluias) to a version of Amazing Grace, Bono's favorite hymn, and it is fun to hear the band play this lovely song as the Declaration of Human Rights begins to be read for if you know the history of the song, it was written John Newton who was a former slave ship owner and captain who through a profound religious experience became a devout Christian and later a priest involved in a movement in England to abolish the slave trade. Steve Turner, the rock music journalist, was inspired by a conversation with Bono and wrote a great book about the song titled, "Amazing Grace: John Newton, Slavery, and The World's Most Enduring Song."

boring

2005-07-19T10:17:00.000-04:00

partly, writing a book is hard to do because it is tedious and even boring. not that i'm whining or begging for sympathy, but the truth of the matter is writing and research are not all. i'm now at the stage of copy-editing, looking over the text for the umpteenth time for mistakes, places that need clarification, etc. and as well, i'm creating the endnotes section. going through every chapter, copying the last few words of a quote, and then pasting them into a new document at the end with the full reference (author, title, page number, etc.) for some reason, publishers have moved away from using superscript numbers in the text, even as endnotes, in books that are intended for a broader audience. funny--i'm doing a boring part of the process and my blogging is boring, too.

Not done!

2005-07-08T13:36:00.000-04:00

Ah, yes . . . How could I think I was done so easily!

I got a call from Rodney Clapp today and he said that the manuscript is too long (it needs to be about 180 ms. pages) and so he is sending me a letter to describe his reactions to the draft. I'll know more when I get the letter tomorrow, but he said that he thinks I should cut most of part three of the book (about 45 pages) because parts one and two are the heart and energy of the book. Probably right.

It is immodest of me to say so, but it was a great relief and very encouraging to hear praise about my work at this point. It is the first public moment, in a way, and I'm as nervous as any artist letting her or his creation out for judgment. That will continue for quite a while, and I should prepare myself to have many people not like it, too, since U2 fans are anything but docile! But if the book is any good at all, it will spark thinking and debate about the Christian life and how U2 serves as a spiritual resource to so many people in their journey with God. And that thinking and debate is a good thing, a thing perhaps dependent on people having divergent views on what I've done.

thanks for your journeying with me and keep sending me comments, questions, thoughts, and material to ponder as I work on revisions.

peace

miroslav volf and u2

2005-07-06T10:39:00.000-04:00

so since I used miroslav's work in the epilogue and he is a friend and colleague here at the yale center for faith and culture where I work, i sent him the epilogue to see what he thought. i was a little nervous he'd say I totally misinterpreted his article but he said 'you used me well!' so I'll take that. btw, miroslav has written a powerful book about loving enemies that comes out of his experiences in the former yugoslavia where he grew up.
peace, chris

Done!

2005-07-01T21:37:00.000-04:00

I finished the manuscript draft today and sent it off to Rodney Clapp, the editor, for substantive comment before revising. It came out at 225 pages without endnotes or bibliography. it feels REALLY GREAT to get to this point. I think I have 10-15 blogosphere quotes in the book, which is a testament to the sophistication of U2 fans. FYI, here is the Epilogue:

| Epilogue

. . . To Knowing

“I was talking to Noel Gallagher [from Oasis] about my dad, who lost his faith toward the end of his life. And Noel asked, ‘Does he believe in God?’ And I said, ‘I don’t think he knows.’ So Noel went, ‘Well, he’s one step closer to knowing now.’ And I thought, ‘I’m going to write that song…’ ”

Bono, describing the origins of the song “One Step Closer”

I hope some of the people who read this book don’t know very much about faith, and aren’t sure about God. I hope some of those people read to this point, and are thinking: “Maybe I want to try out that way of life, even if I haven’t always been turned on by what I’ve seen in church or from other Christians.” But perhaps you’ve been a Christian for a while, or, like me, grew up in the church and have become fed up with churches that too often seem uncomfortably like what Bono describes as “bless me clubs.” If that is you, then this book is for you.

I’ve described an understanding of the Christian life that has deep roots in the tradition, is faithful to Jesus, and fits U2. I’ve called it the theology of the cross, and I’ve offered it here as a way of seeking God. It is not an understanding of the faith that lets us climb a ladder to God. It is a faith that, by recognizing that God came to us, lived with us, died for us, and now gives lives in us by his spirit, frees us to really live in and for the world.

My friend and colleague Miroslav Volf calls this view of the Christian life “soft difference.” This view of the Christian life helps summarize what I’ve described in this book, and so now I’d like to use it as a simple way to describe this way of living the truth, of following Jesus, in and for the world. And it doing so, I’ll be clearer why U2 “gets a lot of stick” for their faith both from the rock ‘n’ roll side, and from the faith side. To set up what Miroslav has to say, I’ll first describe these two sides—the rock ‘n’ roll side and the faith side—showing the perspective they come from in critiquing U2.

On the one hand, some voices say that the band’s faith should make no difference in their music and public life. I’m referring to critics who say, “Oh, please, get off your high horse and be a proper rock ‘n’ roll band.” These critics—including fellow rockers and many music fans and writers—get tired of U2 and especially Bono pontificating about this or that cause. They claim the band has sold out for corporate rock and any support for a cause engenders a lot of eye-rolling from those who have grown tired of the high-profile star-with-a-cause activism. Many people of faith who cut against the grain have been told to shut up, as well, and the band has struggled long and hard with its ‘heart on their sleeve’ approach. Even when they turned to much more clever, humorous, and ironic presentation of their ideas in the 1990s, it was only heart in another guise (Flanagan).

On the other hand, other voices say that the band’s faith should make a stronger difference in their music and public life. The classic critique, mentioned earlier in the book, regards the band’s anthem of faith and doubt titled “I still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Why, if their faith is sincere, can’t U2 simply proclaim in unequivocal terms that Jesus is the answer and they have found what they’re looking for? Such critics bemoan that U2 has received awards from “wicked MTV” and has at various points indulged in strong drink, smoking, and cursing. This perspective argues, “The world loves U2 because U2 is of the world.” For anyone who knows the Bible, this is a slam that draws on Jesus’ famous admonition to his followers to be “in, but not of, the world.” (cf. Way of Life ministries)

No difference, or a hard difference that builds a wall between the believer and the world. Are these the options? If they are, I’m not a follower of Jesus, either. I want something else, something that admits my doubts and failings while freeing me to embrace the world for the sake of witnessing to the abundant life possible in God. Miroslav writes about a perspective he calls “soft difference.” In a long article reflecting on the Biblical book of 1 Peter, he talks about the community to whom this letter was written now nearly 2000 years ago. Prior to conversion, these Christians were surrounded by people they considered neighbors. After becoming Christ’s disciples, they found they didn’t fit quite as well in former routines. They became, as the text says, “aliens” in their own city.

This alien identity is, Miroslav says, “a bursting out of the new precisely with the proper space of the old.” Our lives, while remaining in the midst of the world, are made new. This new life, given in baptism, can take two forms as it works itself out in relation to the old world. One is a negative process of rejecting the beliefs and practices of others. The other option entails a positive process of giving allegiance to something distinctive. Given that they were a minority group under some suspicion, the community 1 Peter describes does not argue for wholesale revolution against the norms of the surrounding culture. Rather, they are to be the change they wish to see in the world, a perspective that has echoes from Jesus through Gandhi to U2. “To make a difference, one must be different,” Miroslav writes.

The author of1 Peter withholds power as a means to force a change in the world. Rather, the means (soft difference, and not hard) is through meekness, gentleness, and fearlessness. The last of these is key. Fear drives assimilation or rejection; become like me or get away from me. Soft difference makes a way for people to live without fear, and “mission fundamentally takes the form of witness and invitation. They seek to win others without pressure or manipulation, sometimes even ‘without a word’ (1 Peter 3:1).” But soft difference is not simply a missionary method; it is “following in the foot steps of a crucified Messiah. It is not an optional extra, but part and parcel of Christian identity itself.” (Volf)

Such an approach is deeply needed today. It is not simply a means in our individual journeys to take one step closer to God. It is, in the face of hatred and terror, a way forward given to us from the crucified Messiah. This way offers Christians a path in the world that is faithful to God’s way in the world. God, the love and logic of the universe, became human as a baby in order to live and suffer and ultimately save the world. That means that the way of weakness and humility, of love and suffering, of giving our lives to and for the world, is already blessed. U2 has found that way to follow Jesus. They point us towards it. And this book serves its purpose if one or two find their way one step closer to knowing this way.

money where your mouth is

2005-06-27T14:46:00.000-04:00

i'm finally hitting the home stretch, starting the last chapter of my book today. part three of the book is 'singing the truth' and here i want to talk about the way their music and their actions embody their values in a powerful way. i find it absolutely stunning to see what battles are fought on blogs and websites over whether these guys are saints or sinners (in chapter nine, i say they are both and so am i). but today (as if the world needs proof) the band announced that they each, plus the 'fifth member of the band' manager paul mcguinness are giving a million euro each to the effort to end poverty in africa. that equals about a six million dollar gift. if it was a one time thing, it might be not be but a nice gesture from a rich rock group. but it is utterly consistent with their example year after year.
peace

hope at the house of joseph

2005-06-21T14:09:00.000-04:00

i'm just finishing the chapter on hope and i wrote a simple poem drawing on the experience i had working at a homeless shelter called the house of joseph in wilmington delaware for a year. it is a poem obviously inspired by U2.

on the street
too many lives broken
dreams in shards
lying scattered.
Hope comes
through eyes not averted
hands not clenched
to protect,
not connect,
not break this heart of stone
and make it bleed.

walk on

2005-06-19T20:35:00.000-04:00

i'm about to begin writing the chapter on U2 singing about love and one of the most profound of the very many songs they've done that deal with themes of love is 2000's "walk on" dedicated to daw aung san suu kyi, the burmese hero and nobel peace laureate who just turned 60, still under house arrest by the military junta that controls the country they call "myanmar." the song walk on, if you haven't listened closely, begins "love, is not the easy thing"

indeed. you inspire us, Aung San Suu Kyi, and may your birthday be an occasion for dedication to helping to assure your release and freedom to bloom in the stony ground of your county. more on the story here.

peace,

Rose

2005-06-13T12:32:00.000-04:00

Rose
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

With all the intense advocacy work going on via the one campaign and their effort to 'make poverty history', it is wonderful to have in mind a person for whom this whole conversation is about. the statistics are so abstract--saving a million lives, a billion living in extreme poverty, etc.

so, meet rose delesani, our sponsor child from milambe, malawi, in the mangochi region. sonja and I have been considering african adoption for years now, and have resisted partly out of worry if it is the right thing to do. but we wanted our kids (Isaiah, 7, and grace, 4) to have a concrete connection to poverty and to the struggles we are involved in as a family and at our church. so last christmas, instead of spending a big pile of money on ourselves, we spend a small pile and used the rest to sponsor rose (through save the children, whose charity rating is very high). she is 7, and lives in a thatched roof hut in a rural subsistence farming area. she loves football and math. she has two parents (a major deal in an aids stricken country) and two siblings. we've exchanged letters once (it is slow) and will keep learning about each other over time.

the u2 book will be dedicated to isaiah, grace, and rose, hoping that the book moves us all one step closer to a world where true equality exits for all.

peace

book cover, 2

2005-06-13T12:21:00.000-04:00

June 7, 2005

Actually, although I like the cover, I didn't choose the title or cover. I got this email, if you are curious, from the art director and fortunately I like it so no problem. I've often heard that this is the case, but wow, it is true!

Christian Scharen
Yale University
New Haven, Connecticut 06520
203.432.8671

Dear Professor Scharen,

Attached you will find the proposed cover for your forthcoming book, One Step Closer. This cover was selected by our Editorial, Marketing and Sales team. I hope that you are pleased with it. Please contact me at your earliest convenience should you have any concerns.

Kind Regards,

Paula Gibson
Art Director

One Step Closer to publishing!

2005-06-09T05:24:00.000-04:00

One Step Closer
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

how exciting! I got this proof from paula gibson, the graphics person at Brazos. She's done a nice job, and the photo is from Love and Peace or Else during the Vertigo Tour 2005. I love that.
peace

Rev. Bono: making more than good music

2005-06-03T06:42:00.000-04:00

i find it interesting that critics of U2's "preachiness" think that Actung Baby and the ZooTV somehow are the golden era when U2 behaved like a proper rock 'n' roll band, giving up their habit of speaking the truth in ways that might have some effect in changing the world.

Here is an example, from a review of the recent Chicago tour stops on the Vertigo Tour, by Sun-Times critic Jim Derogatis, titled "Rev. Bono":

"With the exception of its startlingly innovative Zoo TV tour and its Achtung Baby-era shift toward postmodern irony and fearless reinvention, this band always has had a problem with grandiose flag-waving -- literally. During my first U2 concert in 1981, I rolled my eyes when Bono hoisted a giant white banner. And as documented by the concert films Live at Red Rocks (1983) and Rattle and Hum (1989), speeches and chest-thumping theatrics always have been part of the show."

But this interpretation totally misses how the 1990s era was the same band, with the same big ideas, playing with different modes of communication (see my judo post below). A couple comments from the band make clear that the 1990s were not such a dramatic departure from the core focus of the band over time to risk speaking the truth even when it could be painful, for them and for the audience.

Bono on Actung Baby: It’s all a con—a way of putting people off from the fact that it is a heavy mother. It’s probably our most serious record yet it’s the least serious title. It just fooled everyone. They thought we’d lightened up—which is totally untrue. We’re miserable bastards.

Larry on ZooTV: "I can't remember anything more excruciating than those Sarajevo link-ups. It was like throwing a bucket of cold water over everybody. You could see your audience going, What the fuck are these guys doing?"

The most fundamental issue here, I think, and I'm writing about this in part two of the book, is that U2 does not think they can do anything they want. As Larry said during the 1990s, "I've always felt that I'm a musician in a band and I've been given a gift. And I believe that gift is from God. I don't believe it is from anywhere else."

And because it is a gift, a divine gift, they don't think they can just do whatever they want with their lives and music and fame. As Bono says in the recent book with Michka Assayas, his voice belongs in some important sense to others, to those who are without voice. And this means that he does not, and the band does not, do just as they please, but to some extent, what is pleasing in God's sight. It goes back to the moving letter Bono wrote to his father (quoted by Bob Hewson to Bill Flanagan in the last chapter of U2: At the End of the World): "Our ambition is to make more than good music."

I for one am grateful that they do.

sore arms, half way

2005-05-26T16:33:00.000-04:00

i'm writing as fast as i can, now half way through the book at 108 pages. my arms hurt and i've got a lot to do at work (like, my day job) the next couple of days, so i'm looking forward to a break in writing. i've got to do some reading to refocus my thoughts for the second section. so i've picked up jurgen moltmann's the crucified god, a book that helps me think about the kind of theology helpful in making sense of u2's spiritual vibe. i'll say more about that in a post when i turn to writing the opening of the second part, titled 'singing the cross.'

i just finished the first part of the book with chapter five. here's the table of contents as it is now. the funny thing is, and i want it this way, is that it doesn't even seem like it is a book about u2. it is, in part, a book about scripture and tradition, but as i understand them to be refracted through u2, and so i don't at all want to use u2 to prop up scripture and tradition, as if they need that. no, the reverse. i want to follow u2 in their pruning of scripture and tradition so that we can see the bleeding, beating heart of god's love for the world. it's like the lyric bono quotes to michka assayas in bono in conversation (btw i got to barnes and noble about 1:oo p.m., far to late to get in for a signature, but in time to see the uproar!):
"if your heart was hard, that would be better/ you could only break it once or twice/ after that it would be rid of blood and you could let it turn to ice." bono's heart doesn't break because of romantic love (as he sings in miracle drug, 'i've had enough of romantic love') but because he "tries to be like you, when I look at the world." fill in "you" for "god" as you ought to in u2's music and you've got the gist of what i'm after. i'm rambling and my arms hurt even more. i know, everybody hates a whining writer. here's the toc:

Introduction: “One Step Closer . . .”1

Step One: Singing scripture 17

1. Psalms 24

2. Wisdom 41

3. Prophets 56

4. Parables 75

5. Apocalypse 89

Step Two: Singing the cross 108

6. Faith (not sight) 000

7. Hope (not finality) 000

8. Love (not despair) 000

9. Now/ Not Yet 000

Step Three: Singing the truth 000

10. Truth is Like a Double Edged Sword 000

Epilogue: “. . .To Knowing” 000

peace

gushing: tuesday night at the fleet center

2005-05-25T15:32:00.000-04:00

I had heard bad things about Kings of Leon from other fan reviews so I didn’t go to my seat in the Fleet Center (third level—one takes what one gets). I walked around the place, taking in the atmosphere, chatting with the Amnesty International booth about Burma and with the ONE campaign volunteers about how many U2 fans have joined the campaign on the tour thus far (150,000!). But the driving energy of KofL drew me into the venue and I plopped down in an empty seat just up and left of the stage. They were so intense, driving from one song to another, that they reminded me a little of the Ramones. I actually enjoyed them, even if I didn’t know any of their songs and couldn’t for the life of me understand the lead singer. I liked their studied seriousness, their tight jeans on stick legs, their carefully messed up hair shaking back and forth to the beat as they forced their instruments up to speed. I smiled, thinking about mature band with spiritual resonance and roots mentoring and modeling life in rock ‘n’ roll for young band with spiritual resonance and roots (KofL is three brothers whose father was a traveling southern Pentecostal pastor, along with a cousin).

When they finished I enjoyed watching the U2 roadies swarm the stage, pealing away all the stuff KofL used. The stage, when set up for U2, was so clean with most equipment either under or behind the stage, whereas KofL had it all right there (and maybe that is the only place left to put their amps and whatever). I have never been to a U2 concert and no rock concert of any sort since, geez, maybe Rush in Seattle in the late 1980s. (Yes, I did have tickets to U2 in Seattle then, too, but didn’t go because of morals—I was in my own ascetic moment and thought that the ticket price was better spent helping homeless people. Now I’m more open to seeing how spending a bit of money on joy can be faithful, too.) So I walked around checking out the ellipse stage and all the gear, both on the stage, under it (stairs came up the back on either side of the drum kit) and above the stage where the cool bulb video screens I’d heard about were stored on huge rollers. Later, I found out they can be raised or lowered easily, and were throughout the concert.
While the arena was about 1/5 full during KofL and pretty dead in terms of energy, as the clock neared 8:40, the place was really filling up. I had pretty good seats, looking about straight on to the front of the stage, so I wandered over to my seat and watched. One after another, the U2 assistants came out to check guitars and basses, and then the drum kit. I looked down to the sound board and saw Joe O’Herlihy pulling his pants up and pacing around in front of two huge sound board panels.

Just about 5 to 9, the song I was waiting for came on with the sort of creepy, sort of attractive repetition of “Everyone, everyone” with each time pronounced differently. All of sudden the lights when down, the crowd stood up, and I saw bobbing flashlights walk in from the right of the stage. Next thing I knew, the opening low growl of Edge’s guitar on City of Blinding Lights came on and the video screens descended with glowing lights and confetti began pouring from the ceiling near the tip of the ellipse where Bono emerged singing “The more you see, the less you know . .” and the crowd was going nuts.

He walked around to the front of the stage as the ellipse lit up and the lighting was flashing. It was a much more dramatic beginning than I expected because I sort of thought COBL is a swaying, sing-songy piece and I’d come into the show hoping for Vertigo or Love and Peace or Else as the opener as has been the case at some shows. But this was spectacular. Vertigo came second, with Bono laughing and saying this is not a Spanish town, it’s an Irish town, and then counting in Gaelic to kick off the song. He worked the catwalk out into the crowd. Then right into the groove of Elevation and the crowd immediately took off with the Woo, woo, Woo, wooho, and Bono just let us sing for a bit, and then sang some of the song with us before the band finally kicked in. The Edge took his turn working the left side of the catwalk.

After guitar switches, a single video screen displayed the cover of U2’s first record, Boy, and the band launched into a really rocking version of The Electric Co. with the band sounding for the first time like they had the raw energy of the KofL. It was beautiful and the crowd seemed to know it and sing along pretty well. No lights, no gimmicks, just hard pounding drums and bass, grinding guitar, and great singing. Then, another surprise, I heard the unmistakable plaintive guitar rift that opens The Ocean. They changed some of the lyrics to fit singing it looking back 25 years (and I forgot how short the song is!)

Then they picked back up the speed with the up-beat opening song from 2001’s All That You Can’t Leave Behind, Beautiful Day. And here, the people really sang it out. The song ended with a brief cover of a song I don’t know from the J Giles Band with a reference to their singer, Peter Wolf, who was apparently in the audience. Bono then gave his “look to the future” speech suggesting that we’re living in a time of miracles and some of those doctors and nurses who are coming up with new medical treatments might be in the audience tonight, and that we should understand that science and religion don’t conflict, but rather God is inspiring such medical innovation. Perhaps the person who will cure cancer is here tonight, Bono said. And they launched into Miracle Drug.

This song was sung in a lovely way, followed by a touching rendition of Sometimes You Can’t Make It On Your Own--really (I can’t believe he can pull out the emotion week after week). It ended with a sort of plea-prayer of longing, and faded out to dark.

After a wardrobe change, and picking up the headband Bono uses for this section, we heard the boom of the huge bass joined by fuzzy loud guitar that leads into Love and Peace or Else. Here, Bono and Larry came out to the tip of the ellipse to sing and whack a marching drum and cymbal. Towards the end, when Bono cries out “where is the love, love and peace” and Edge chimes in with the final wild guitar, Bono took the drum sticks from Larry who ran back around to the drum kit while a spotlight was on Bono, just whacking the drum, really whacking it hard, and the whole song cuts down to that. Boom. It was pretty cool, I think, and it stands as one of the highlights of the new songs. Then Love and Peace morphed into Sunday, Bloody Sunday and in the middle Bono gave a little commentary about his headband—three symbols, three religions, all true, all children of Abraham, and then he vamped a little prayer lament to Father Abraham, calling upon him for help with his children, and leading us in a chant saying “no more” to the hatred and violence. The third song in this set, Bullet the Blue Sky, seemed to here be a commentary on the war in Iraq, with the huge light screen video panels coming down and portraying an F-16 fighter plane as the band sang. Towards the end of the song, bono bulled the blindfold down and knelt down by the drum kit, hands held crossed above his head, pretending to be tied. The image of the Iraqi torture victims was unmistakable. After standing up, he felt his way to the mike to sing versions of “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” and “These are the Hands the Built America” before finishing with Bullet. He then dedicated the next song, Running To Stand Still, to the proud men and women serving in the United States military. Staring with Bono on harmonica and Edge on piano, it set a really different tone. People sang really well and loudly on the “la la la de day, la la la la de day, la la la de day” section of the song, and the rest of it, too, for that matter.

What really caught me off guard, however, is the ending. The song is about heroin addicts in Dublin during a hard time, and how for some drugs seemed like the only way out of misery. So at the end of the song, after the feeling the needle chill and the drug entering to do its work, Bono has gone into a chorus of Hallelujahs that make sense in terms of the relief of the addict’s high. But here, as Bono moves into the Halle, halle, hallelujah, the UN Declaration of Human Rights begins scrolling on the huge main video screen and the crowd begins to cheer, and as they get to number three, a woman who seems to be east Asian reads the declarations, including numbers 3, 4, 5, and 6, with the last focusing on equality. And from there, the band kicks into Pride (In The Name of Love). In the midst of it, Bono got the crowd singing with him on the woo woo, oo oo’s and keep them going while he made interjections like a African American pastor, that Dr. King’s dream wasn’t just about the American dream, and it is not just a European dream, or an Asian dream, but it is a dream about equality for the whole world, and the journey of equality moves on, with everyone being equal in the eyes of God, and especially Africans.  
The song never ends; it just morphs into the beginning of Where the Streets Have No Name with its plucky meditative guitar notes and Bono intoning connections between the bridge at Selma, important during the Civil Rights movement, to the mouth of the Nile, evocative of Africa’s antiquity, the journey of Equality moves in an expansive direction, growing into a vision of equality for all. Then, instead of the typical beginning primal scream whaaaaaaaoooooooooh at the start of the song, here Bono calls upon South African style shout, sort of like my old Anti-Apartheid tapes from The Joshua Tree era, and it went something like, ahhhh yeaaaa oooooh. And while this is going on musically, the light screens descended with, two with large outlines of the continent of Africa and three scrolling with the flags of Africa. When the band kicked into full gear on this song, I felt the emotional rise of the movement from Love and Peace or Else through to here overwhelm me and I felt like I was going to fly. This, to make the worship analogy, is like the climax of communion at the Easter Vigil, when so much else has built and built through layers of conviction, confession, prayer and song, finally to catch a vision of this heavenly banquet, this sacramental meal, where all are equal and all receive grace and mercy from God’s loving hand. Call me a sucker, or call me a true believer, but although I knew this was coming, I was not prepared for the overwhelming emotional release of this song (which I love, to be sure, but in this context it connected it to such a enormous and awful situation (extreme poverty in Africa) with a vision of healing and hope that just totally lifted my sights to what is possible. During the song, btw, Bono and Adam roamed the ellipse and met in the middle.

After the song, Bono gave a talk about what he’s after with the ONE campaign—he recalled being a boy in 1969 and watching the United States put men on the moon. He recalled, in a not very well disguised poke at today’s politicians, that John F. Kennedy said in the beginning of the 1960s that we’d put a man on the moon by the end of the decade, he didn’t take any polls, but just led, and the world followed. That, Bono said, is what the ONE campaign is asking President Bush, Prime Minister Blair, etc. to do. Not to put someone on the moon, but to bring humanity back to earth. We can, he said, end poverty if we only have the will. Not all poverty, but certainly extreme poverty—the kind of poverty where a child will die because of not having a 20 cent immunization. Tonight, he said, we can say no to that kind poverty. Then he introduced “this thing called the ONE campaign and let people know they could text message their names to sigh up during the singing of One. We’re so much more powerful when we work together as one.

Then they sang a soulful version of One, which ended the set. Bono asked us to put our cell phones up and it was a sort of odd beauty to see literally thousands of cell phones light up all around the arena.

Then after much rowdy applause, they came back with their first encore set, a mini trip down ZooTV lane. Opening with a four video screen slot machine style spinning image thing, which included the “Flat Stanley” cartoon image that was part of the show in the 1990s, the band came out with Zoo Station, The Fly, and Mysterious Ways. While these were fun to see, it was almost a ‘wink’ set that said, hey, we know you might like this, even if it does not really fit a show built around earnestness and transparent expression of truth rather than the round about ironic portrayal of truth that was ZooTV. And they even playfully acknowledged this by pausing on the words LOVE and HOPE in the midst of their flashing endless mind-numbing words used during the ZooTV tour. Bono tried to dance during Mysterious Ways, but should have followed his advice from Vertigo, “they know they can’t dance . . . at least they know.”

The last set, the (for me MUCH anticipated) last encore set, was the best. It opened with an incredible version of All Because of You, with loud singing from the audience. Then a warm version of Yahweh, with Edge playing acoustic guitar and Bono sort of roaming the right side of the ellipse. Interestingly, however, he didn’t end on the line I like so much: “take this heart, and make it break.” It was something like, “take this heart, and make it whole.” Not the same, but it fit my image of the night, which was about a vision of wholeness, of healing our lives by recognizing our interconnection, our at-one-ment (those with theological training can read in the extra layer there.) So given my sense of this move towards healing and wholeness, plus my deep love of the song, I hit another emotional high point when I heard Adam dig into the bass line for 40. I’ve dreamed about singing How long, to sing this song, with 20,000 voices strong. Last night, I got my wish and it was awesome. As in previous concerts, the band left one by one, with much applause, but always a return to the chorus. And after Larry left, and the whole stadium was dark, we sang a few more times in a booming voice, 20,000 as one.

Now, I can say, I’ve been to church U2 style. While they may have not played their best show ever (as other reviews have hinted) it was easily the best concert experience I’ve ever had, and one of the most integrated in terms of the idea of the concert. I left both knowing in my mind, in my heart, and in my soul, that we are one and we must join the work of becoming one, and that we’ve got some great music for the journey.

off to the fleet center

2005-05-22T05:54:00.000-04:00

i'm preparing for the concert in boston on tuesday night. i've been reading lots of reviews and even listening to a downloadable version of the kick-off concert from san diego ca. i think it will be really amazing given (horrors) i've never seen u2 live before. do you know any people who've been fans for more than 20 years and are still concert virgins? well, what can i say. i've had tickets before. the story is in the introduction to my book, and it is funny, i think.

i'm writing the apocalyptic chapter and one of the things that strikes me is how from early on u2 has had this sense that their concerts could be visions of another time and place, although i'm not so sure that was *as* true in the 1990s. But if you follow the various live interpretations of WTSHNN I think you can see the multiple ways they've nuanced this sense of taking the audience somewhere else, a somewhere that leaves them (potentially) changed when they depart from the concert.

here's two quotes, twenty years apart, to show what i mean:

Sometimes people go to a concert, any concert, and they're nervous. There's tension there and, at some concerts I've been to, the tension is still there at the end when people walk out. A U2 concert seems to be different, and that's the healing thing, the washing thing. I really believe that rock 'n' roll is very powerful.
Bono in U2 Magazine 10, 1984

If you see us in front of 100,000 people, and you ask, do you want to go on a journey to somewhere that none of us have ever been before, to that place where you forget yourself, and who you are, and where you can imagine something better? It’s a spine-chilling moment for you as a singer and for anyone in the audience.

Bono, Interview with Playback's Erik Philbrook, 12/04/2001

(by the way, i've found that when i need to think something out for the book, i'm beginning to come here, think it out, and then what i've written often becomes a draft for that section of the book. so look for some of these quotes, and comments from people here, in the book!)

peace

an interview with the boys, 2

2005-05-16T21:51:00.000-04:00

well, it turns out that principle management in new york is not how one gets an interview. so, after learning that you have to call interscope records in santa monica, ca., i faxed my letter off to staci brooks in publicity at interscope. then i called to follow up and it turns out staci is out on the road. of course! so then i got her email and send the letter (third iteration) off to her via internet this afternoon.

hmm. bets on whether i sneak in with an audience to interview one or more of the band? all the media get interviews, bozos and all. i sure hope so, and if i do, feel free to offer suggestions of what to ask, from a theological perspective. mike todd, who blogs here and here has been doing some interesting posts on u2 and related concerns. check him out, cause he's helping me think about u2 in a deeper way.

peace

judo and prophecy

2005-05-16T07:25:00.000-04:00

judo gentle
Originally uploaded by christianscharen.

so part of what irks me about much 'christian' music (and i just heard a lot of it traveling through arkansas and missouri) is that it is mainly about the bible and not about the world and our lives. and when it is about our lives, it is not about the parts where we doubt, cry out, and don't know what to pray.

i need a vision of the christian faith that allows me to face the world square on, and go through it with courage even if i don't have all the answers. this is the vision that i find in u2, and that fits the lutheran understanding of the theology of the cross.

bono explained it really well, in fact, at the end of bill flanagan's book when he talks about judo and the zootv tour. in a way it is a reflection of the way their idealism got beat up in the 1980s and they had to find a new way to speak of their values, and thus it reflects another mode for their prophetic voice--one that let them survive and go forward, and that fit the excesses of the 1990s.

"we were confirmed about our instincts that the idea of counterculture, the way it used to be in the sixties, that number is up. and i'm interested in these more asian ideas, which we playfully call judo, that you use the energy of what's going against you--and by that i just mean popular culture, commerce, science--to defend yourself. rather than resistance, in the hippie or punk sense of the world, you try to walk through it rather than walk away from it. as oppposed to the old ideas of dropping out and forming your own garden of eden--the sort of brown-rice position."

peace

U2 and love

2005-05-13T06:43:00.000-04:00

listen, i always new that U2 thought love was a key value, but really, i read through all their lyrics straight yesterday while sitting at starbucks and it is remarkable how often then speak of love, and in what varied ways. there is, I think, love as fidelity in (cf. Two Hearts Beat As One, A Man and A Woman), and then love as desire in With or Without You, Hawkmoon 269 or So Cruel, and then love as redemption in With a Shout and Love, Rescue Me, and then love as the tie between faith and doubt in God, Part II or Do You Feel Loved or Love is Blindness and then what I think could be described as the cost of love in Pride or Walk On or Love and Peace or Else. Powerful work, and sophisticated reflection on the kinds of love. This is sort of a basic typology of kinds of love, but it could be described differently and I'm curious if others would see it differently. I'll be writing a chapter on love next week (three chapters, actually, on faith, hope, and love).

peace

writing, prophecy

2005-05-11T08:06:00.000-04:00

as any author, i find it hard some days to write. i had started this project after being invited to lead a retreat for a group of college students in new england last october. i really got rolling after christmas, especially when i got formal word from rodney clapp that brazos would publish the book. i wrote a draft of the introduction and an outline for the whole book in february and started reading fan sites, books, and lots of online interviews etc. in march i wrote chapters one, two and got into three. but then april came and i had lots to do for work so i got off my rhythm of writing. i've been reading and thinking all along, so i feel i've been making progress, but i just haven't been able to get back into writing. today, i hope.

i've never done this, but i'm going to read through all the lyrics from boy to htdaab. i'm trying to think through the different ways the bible's prophetic voice has come through in U2's songs, not just in the obvious places like Drowning Man (where they quote Isaiah) or Pride (you'd be crazy not to see MLK, Jr. as a prophet), but perhaps also with Numb or Last Night on Earth. Thoughts on this one?

seek the truth!

2005-05-06T23:35:00.000-04:00

so i have to say that one of the key points of connection with U2 for me spiritually is the whole question of seeking the truth. i find so often that church life is hard to push beyond platitudes and life the world is full of hype and spin, so the actual spiritual discipline of seeking truth is profound. that is the heart of martin luther's understanding of theology of the cross--that you call a thing what it really is, or, to say it in different words, to speak the truth.

i've always sensed this about U2 although they use the tools of art, poetry and emotion more than logic to speak the truth. and so it was lovely to start reading Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas and find how how important Bono feels the passage of scripture is on seeking the truth that will set you free from John's Gospel.

the passage is something like this: "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free."

so, truth seeking is key to my interpetation of how U2 is important spiritually. more on this key them in the days to come.

peace

ecclesiastes at the end of at the end of the world

2005-05-03T18:56:00.000-04:00

i've been reading bill flanagan's long tourumentry book hoping to find a quote about the 1990s U2 embodying the spirit of ecclesiastes. i finally found it, on page 434. it was fun to read, even if it does make me wonder if he had a thought or experience he didn't write about (as i'm sure he did, but still . . .)

here's the quote:

"it took U2 fifteen years to get from psalms to ecclesiastes," bono sighed, " and it's only one book!"

for those who feel the impulse to run to your bibles, and even more for those who don't get that is about the bible, the joke is that only proverbs lies between the book of psalms and the book of ecclesiastes, so it is not too far to travel, but actually, it is a tremendous change and in coming to understanding the shift in content in those two books, i think a really important set of ideas becomes clear about how they worked as a band in those eras. interesting to note: my first two chapters are on psalms (one) and wisdom (two). wisdom is a term that describes books like proverbs and ecclesiastes.

anon, and peace

seeking an interview with the boys

2005-05-03T18:46:00.000-04:00

so, i thought to myself, the band gives regular interviews to the media. they've let various people including bill flanagan and michka assayas go in-depth to tell some of their story. so why don't i call up principle management in nyc to see about getting some time to talk. i called up their office yesterday and spoke to a friendly receptionist who basically say here is our fax number--send us a note saying who you are, what you want, and when would be good for you. so i did, faxing it over this morning. we'll see. here is the letter:

April 2, 2005

Ms. Keryn Kaplan
Principle Management
250 West 57th Street, Suite 2120
New York, NY 10107

Fax: 212-765-2372

I am a professor at Yale University Divinity School where I help lead the Yale Center for Faith & Culture. I work with a network of people going by the term Emergent Church trying to find new ways of being church for a postmodern age. I’ve been fascinated for years with fans talking about attending U2 concerts as “going to church.” So, I’m writing a book for young people dealing with the spiritual depth of U2’s music. The publisher, Brazos Press, is an intentionally post-denominational press trying to reach spiritually searching people with a vision of the Christian tradition alive.

I want to do an interview with a member of the band, especially Bono, about the connections over time between the band’s music and spirituality, especially with the way Adam has described the current album and tour as a movement from “fear to faith.”

I live in New Haven so I could come to New York or Boston most anytime during the time they are in New England later this May. But of course I’m flexible and would welcome something anytime.

Thank you so much for your help.

Peace to you,

Chris Scharen
Associate Director, Yale Center for Faith & Culture
Phone: office-(203) 432-8671 cell-(860)212-6418
Fax: (203) 432-5356
Email: Christian.Scharen@Yale.edu

awesome rev. beth

2005-04-26T22:10:00.000-04:00

let it be known that although she is not now and never will be responsible for what i write in this book, rev. beth maynard has been insightful and generous to the nth degree in response to my many pestering questions. she co-edited the really interesting collection of u2 sermons called get up off your knees. her blog on u2 is brief, broad, and always worth checking in with. so, thanks for the conversations along the way, beth, and i welcome other conversations from the u2 fandom and from seekers far and wide.

anon, and peace

what i'm not going to say about U2

2005-04-26T20:37:00.000-04:00

yesterday, 'wayne' commented on a post i did on the book on my work blog: faithasawayoflife.
here is what he said:
"Maybe in your book you can explain why Bono used the F word at the awards cerimony. It has been said that he tries to give a non-religious appearance. If so He not only showed he was non-religious but show the world that he was not much of a Christian. Just my thoughts and comments that I have lost respect for him and will listen to those who edify. And if you say he is trying to reach another audience, then I'll ask, were is the fruit of his. So what he has shown that Christians can curse on live tv and not be struck down by God. What kind of a witness is that?"

and i have this to say: i am so uninterested in asking the question 'are U2 christian' or are they 'christian enough'. if that is your worry, look elsewhere. here is a wonderfully thoughtful reflection on that question in relation to U2's current concert tour, and another by someone whose served as a sort of chaplain to the band. or, if you wish, you can read phil yancey's book, 'what's so amazing about grace' to get some insight (btw, the book was a band favorite when it came out in the late 1990s). you can also check out the website of one of the churches U2 members frequent when they're in the area: glide. the point is, if you don't think they're one of the most interesting voices speaking out of the christian tradition in public life today, which i do, then this book won't convince you cause i'm not going to defend that. although, on second thought, i do hope to show how serious they are as a voice for an authentic and spiritually alive christianity.