Other U2 Songs You Should Know

On Sunday, I had the joy of talking about my favorite song of all time, U2’s 1987 hit, “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For,” and how it relates to I John 3:2. But it’s certainly not the only song by the band that touches upon faith matters. In fact, here’s a (too) short list of some other U2 songs that are worth listening to and reflecting upon:

“Gloria”: U2’s second album, “October,” released in 1981, is the band’s most overt evangelical Christian album. The biggest hit on the album was “Gloria,” which is not about a woman named Gloria, but rather a song of praise in Latin. In the chorus, Bono sings, “Gloria / In te domine / Gloria / Exultate / Oh, Lord, if I had anything, anything at all / I’d give it to you.”

“40”: The last song on the 1983 album, “War,” is simply Psalm 40 put to music, with the haunting refrain,“How long to sing this song?” This song became the tune that U2 closed most of its concerts with for many years, typically by leaving the stage one at a time until only drummer Larry Mullen, Jr. was left, keeping the rhythm. On the live album, “Under a Blood Red Sky,” when Mullen departs, the crowd continues to sing the plaintive refrain until finally fading to silence.

“Drowning Man”: Also appearing on the album, “War,” this song sounds like something the Psalmist would have written. If I were drowning in the ocean, these are the words and tune I’d want to have in my ears: “Hold on, and hold on tightly / Rise up, rise up with wings like eagles / You run, you run / You run and not grow weary.”

“Grace”: This beautiful song is found on 2000’s comeback album, “All That You Can’t Leave Behind.” These lines are priceless: “What once was hurt / What once was friction / What left a mark / No longer stings / Because Grace makes beauty / Out of ugly things.”

“Yahweh”: On 2004’s “How To Dismantle An Atomic Bomb,” this closing song acts as a kind of one-word answer to the question posed by the album title. It’s also a prayer to Yahweh (the Hebrew name for God), who is asked to “Take this soul / Stranded in some skin and bones … And make it sing.”

“13 (There Is a Light)”: Last December, U2 released “Songs of Experience,” a kind of companion album to “Songs of Innocence,” which came out in 2014. The band meant to release this album earlier, but Bono had a serious motorcycle accident, as well as another separate health scare. These two events put him in a melancholy mood, reexamining his mortality and relationship with God. He wrote brand-new songs for the album, and the result is a  God-drenched collection of songs. The last song is “13” (literally the 13th track on the album), and contains a hard-earned hope and trust: “There is a light you can’t always see / If there is a world we can’t always be / If there is a dark that we shouldn’t doubt / And there is a light don’t let it go out.” Light is a major theme on the album, and Bono sounds like John the Gospel-writer as he urges the listener to believe that the light will not be overcome by the darkness: “I know the world is dumb / But you don’t have to be / I’ve got a question for the child in you before it leaves / Are you tough enough to be kind?  Do you know your heart has it’s own mind? / Darkness gathers around the light / Hold on, hold on.”

Truth be told, every single one of U2’s songs are informed by a deep, questioning, challenging faith. In case you’re interested in exploring some of these songs, I’ve put together an Apple playlist here.

Would Jesus Get a Flu Shot?

If every silly thing an evangelist said became news, we’d have 24/7 coverage of preachers, and the late night hosts would never run short of jokes.

Gloria Copeland is the latest preacher to have been caught in a ridiculous string of sayings. What made her claims newsworthy apparently is the fact that she and her husband, Kenneth, are part of the president’s evangelical advisory board. Here’s what she said in a Facebook video this past week:

We’ve got a duck season, a deer season, but we don’t have a flu season. And don’t receive it when somebody threatens you with, ‘Everybody’s getting the flu.’ We’ve already had our shot … Jesus himself gave us the flu shot. He redeemed us from the curse of flu. And we receive it and we take it, and we are healed by his stripes. Amen? You know the Bible says he himself bore our sicknesses and carried our diseases and by his stripes we were healed. When we were healed, we are healed, so get on the word, stay on the word …  Just keep saying that, ‘I’ll never have the flu. I’ll never have the flu.’ Put words -- inoculate yourself with the word of God.

Believe it or not, these comments don’t sound insane to me, like they might to you. Because I understand the underlying theology. I was raised in a church that shared the beliefs of Kenneth and Gloria Copeland. They aren’t typical “evangelicals,” though they share common political viewpoints.

The Copelands are part of the Word of Faith movement, born out of the ministry of E. W. Kenyon, and popularized by Kenneth Hagin, who built a church ministry and Bible college in Broken Arrow, Oklahoma. The Christianity espoused by Hagin and his followers, including the Copelands, Creflo Dollar, and Charles Capps, to name a few, represents a subset of Pentecostalism, which incorporates elements of the “prosperity gospel,” along with an embrace of faith healing and positive thinking.

Word of Faith Christians believe that, besides the experience of salvation, in which a person repents of her sins, is forgiven, and is “born again,” there is a second experience available to us:“the baptism of the Holy Spirit with the evidence of speaking in tongues.” This occurs when the Spirit fills a person, and enables her to speak in other tongues, as happened in Acts 2. The technical term for these other tongues is “glossalia,” and is best described as an ecstatic babbling. Those who participate in such babbling believe they are speaking in a heavenly language, known only to God. At times, someone is given the ability to “interpret” this heavenly language, and so speak the message in English to those around.

Along with the tongues comes other benefits: people who are empowered by the Spirit are supposedly given the ability to gain wealth and prosper, as well as remain healthy throughout their lives.

Gloria quotes a passage from Isaiah 53 in her justification of believing that Christians don’t need to get the flu. The passage is known as one of the Suffering Servant songs, because it contains a lengthy description of a servant who suffers on behalf of Israel’s deliverance, and whom Christians believe is a prophecy of Jesus Christ.

The passage in question reads like this:

He was despised and avoided by others;     
    a man who suffered, who knew sickness well.
Like someone from whom people hid their faces,     
    he was despised, and we didn’t think about him.
It was certainly our sickness that he carried,
    and our sufferings that he bore,
    but we thought him afflicted,
    struck down by God and tormented.
He was pierced because of our rebellions
    and crushed because of our crimes.     
He bore the punishment that made us whole;
    by his wounds we are healed

(Isaiah 53:3-5, Common English Bible)
 

The last verse is the one which charismatics have seized upon. In other translations, the line reads, “By his stripes we are healed,” which they believe refer to the stripes on Jesus’ back after he was whipped. They take the word “healed” to be a literal reference to one’s health. Thus, if this is a prediction of what the Messiah is going to do in the future, then they reason that those wounds or stripes are meant for our healing in the here and now. All we need to do to be healed is to “name it and claim it.”

As soon as I left home, I left Word of Faith Christianity behind, believing it to be not only irrational, but dangerous and heretical. Their message goes over quite well in middle-class North America, but it falls like a thud in the Global South, in poor neighborhoods, and in war-torn countries.

Jesus didn’t come to earth in order to make us wealthy and healthy. He came with much deeper ambitions — to make us good.

We are, in fact, supposed to become like Jesus. Nowhere in Scripture is Jesus portrayed as particularly wealthy or healthy. in fact, I daresay that following in Jesus' footsteps guarantees quite the opposite.

I’ve met plenty of healthy and wealthy people who made me sick to my stomach, who were genuinely despicable people. But at the same time, I’ve known plenty of broke people who were sick in bed, but were filled with God’s shalom to the point that I wanted to be like them.

In the meantime, I’m headed to the pharmacy for my flu shot. Maybe you should, too.

Report From the Frontlines of the War on Christmas

News Anchor Linda Montgomery: Tonight, breaking news in the War on Christmas — reports of fresh attacks on the meaning of the season. Our reporter, Brett Whiplash, is embedded on the front line, and we have him live with us. Brett, can you hear me?

Brett Whiplash: Yes, I can.

Linda: Tell us where you are.

Brett: I’m here at the Willow Wallow City Mall in the center of town, and I’ve been walking in and out of the stores here and —

Linda: And let me guess. You’re only hearing “Happy Holidays,” right? Nobody is wishing you a “Merry Christmas”?

Brett: Ummm, well no. Plenty of salespersons have wished me a “Merry Christmas.” That’s not been a problem at all. In fact —

Linda: Ahh, but I bet they’re not playing any religious Christmas music, are they? It’s all reindeers and Santa, right?

Brett: Actually, I hear “Silent Night” on the mall loudspeakers right now, as I speak. I’ve heard an impressive number of carols that —

Linda: I’m surprised, Brett. I thought you had breaking news about the War on Christmas. I thought you were going to report that there was a new assault on the season.

Brett: But there is, Linda! That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I’ve spent all afternoon here and all I’ve seen is a mall full of stressed, anxious, and fearful people rushing in and out of stores, spending ungodly amounts of money in an effort to appease their children, parents, and extended family members. Everywhere I look, I see unhappy people, frightened people, busy people. They’re in such a hurry that they don’t even take the time to speak to each other. That doesn’t seem to me to be the “Christmas spirit.” If Jesus was born to be the Prince of Peace, well frankly I don’t see a lot of peace out here.

Another disturbing thing I’m seeing — as people walk through the mall, they’re busy looking at their phones, and we’ve had a number of collisions, spills, and mishaps as people have run into each other while occupied with updating their Facebook status. Those incidents have made people even grumpier than normal, and I’ve heard some raised voices. Once again, we seem to be missing “peace on earth, good will towards all.”

Not only that, but as people pass through the doors out to the parking lot, they pass a number of homeless people. They hardly take the time to even look at them. I thought Christmas was a time of giving and generosity, particularly to those in need. And yet most of the people I see out here aren’t paying any attention to those in need. It doesn’t make sense!

I’ve never seen such a Christ-less Christmas, to be honest. The rush to buy and consume, the greediness, the stress and the anxiety, the busy-ness and commotion —  surely this is not how we’re supposed to celebrate Christmas. This cannot be what Jesus wanted. This just can’t be the way it’s supposed to be. It’s horrible, Linda, a real travesty!

Linda: Well at least the salespeople are saying “Merry Christmas” again! That’s a huge relief. By the way, what can you tell us about this year’s Starbucks coffee cup? Does it use the phrase “Merry Christmas” or something pagan like “Season’s Greetings”?

Brett: What? I don’t, uh, I don’t know … really, that seems beside the point —

Linda: Thank you for your brave reporting, Brett. It’s great to hear that Christmas is back. We have President Trump to thank for that, don’t you think?

Brett: No, actually I don’t —

Linda: That was our investigative reporter, Brett Whiplash, on assignment on the frontlines of the War on Christmas. Next up, a report from the border where refugee terrorists are being turned back before they can wreak destruction in our country. But first, a word from our sponsor …