Walk On: The Spiritual Journey Of U2

"Their faith is bigger, their vocation is bigger, and their God is bigger. They are secure enough to be able to live outside the conformity."

One benefit that came from a soggy and windy camping holiday last week was that I was able to get through a couple of books. I particularly enjoyed Walk On: The Spiritual Journey Of U2 (Stockman, S. 2005).

It was good to get an insight to some of the lyrics beyond the CD sleeves and to see how they were used in concert to get across the strong themes that characterise U2.

There was a rich collection of Bonoism's on Faith Development, Christianity, Mission - here are a few of them:

Bono on Social Justice:-
"To me, faith in Jesus Christ that is not aligned to social justice - that is not aligned to the poor - it's nothing" (pp46).

"There is a radical side to Christianity that I am attracted to. And I think without a commitment to social justice, it is empty." (pp59).
Bono on Faith Development:-
"Belief and confusion are not mutually exclusive; I believe that belief gives you a direction in the confusion. But you don't see the full picture. That's the point. That 's what faith is. You can't see it. It comes back to instinct. Faith is just up the street. Faith and instinct, you can't just rely on them. You have to beat them up. You have to pummel them to make sure they can withstand it, to make sure they can be trusted." (pp133).
I particularly liked Stockman's summary of the essence of U2 in his conclusion:
"They are working within bigger contexts, taking what they really believe to the world beyond the Christian Ghetto, and to reach that world they are happy to be misunderstood by the evangelical doubters who live in their absence-of-doubt world! Their faith is bigger, their vocation is bigger, and their God is bigger. They are secure enough to be able to live outside the conformity." (pp215)

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