One Step Closer

I'd be in big trouble is Karma was going to finally be my judge. I'd be in deep s***. It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for Grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity. I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says, "Look you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there's mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and, let's face it, you're not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions." The point of teh death of Christ is that Christ took on the sings of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That's the point. It should keep us humbled. It's not our own good works that get us through the gates of heaven. - Bono

I've been reading this book called One Step Closer which is an analysis of U2 songs and scripture and theology. It's really interesting. Anyway, I wanted to share an excerpt from the book:

The Goal is Soul
The heart of what makes U2 a great rock and roll band is their ability to connect to what is deepest in us. Bono has this written in shorthand on one of his guitars: "The goal is soul." during the Elevation tour, Bono would typically end the song "Beautiful Day" with a chant back and forth with the audience singing "The goal is soul/soul/The goal is soul/soul." In one sense, such a phrase could be just schlock and no more. but if soul means something about spiritual depth, about mining the deepest and truest nature of people, then we've got something to work with. My proposal in this book is that a ways to "sum up" the band's way of seeing the world and those things most important in life is through talking about a tradition of thinking about the Christian life called "the theology of the cross."

The theology of the cross is not just a perspective about Jesus, or about his death on the cross, although it is that. Rather, it is all about how you see the world, and therefore how you live in it. It is a perspective that shapes a way of life. Like most perspectives that shape our way of life, it is not just an idea. Rather, like Bono's reference to karma and grace above, it is a worldview, a way of framing and interpreting events and people in general. As I unfold this perspective, I'll first make some general comments about its shape, and then I'll say a few general things about how it relates to U2.

Sixteenth-century Reformation theologian Marting Luther, writing a defense of his so-called radical ideas about grace, challenged the standard perspectives of his day with this powerful statement that forms the heart of our exploration of this theological tradition: "A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is." In order to spell this out in as clear a manner as possible, let me start with a summary version of the two sides, and then spell each out in a bit more detail before I shift to see how U2 embodies this emphasis. The summary version of the theology of glory says our relationship to God depends on us; it is an "if, then" proposition. This is what Bono calls karma, and you might summarize it as "if you do good, God gives good to you." the summary version of the theology of the cross says our relationship to God depends on god, it is a "because, therefore" proposition. This is what Bono calls grace, and you might summarize it as "because Christ died for us, therefore God shows us unconditional love, forgiveness and mercy." The theology of glory is in some sense predictable and amounts to an unremarkable extension of standard human expectation onto our image of God. The theology of the cross, however, is surprising and scandalous by human standards--only a merciful and loving God would have thought it up for us.

Christian Scharen

Interesting thoughts Christian...interesting thoughts.