How long must we sing this song

I love "Still Haven't Found," and it's crucial to discussions of the band's offerings on faith, but U2 has released songs like "Magnificent" that only make sense -- as coherent statements -- when viewed as hymns. More on this later. Moving on to the key paragraph. So is this a piece about Bono and crew being confused about what they do or do not believe, or is it about the fact that some people on the secular side of the cultural aisle are -- after three-plus decades -- still struggling with their grief because one of the planet's most popular and important bands is, well, meaningfully Christian?

On the other side, of course, there are plenty of Christians arguing about whether U2 is, as a band, "Christian" enough. I understand that argument, because it's linked to the tragic art vs. Over to you, Charlie Peacock, in I also understand in fact, I wrote my Universal syndicate column on this topic this week that some people simply like to argue about U2 lyrics -- period. But "secretly Christian"? Say what? People, there are facts here that can be discussed, on the record statements in interviews and in books that can be cited.

The best take on this? If you are into facts, you really should read it online so that you can follow all of his hyperlinks especially this one to crucial facts, quotes and info. Here is a major chunk of that:. Veteran GetReligion readers will know that, for me, it is especially ironic that this debate just rolls on and on. After all, it's been nearly 32 years since the interviews I did with Bono and Edge on these issues including the whole "Christian" music industry debate for The Champaign-Urbana News-Gazette.

I tried to land a story based on those interviews at Rolling Stone , but the editors, well, seemed to think I had made the quotes up. Two years ago, I wrote a column that hit the key point in this debate, from my perspective. The year-old Bono was already saying the same kinds of things he told Focus on the Family and plenty of other unconventional media outlets, if you're talking about platforms for rock music news and commentary.

Here's the second half of that "On Religion" column :. Terry Mattingly. Douglas LeBlanc. Richard Ostling.

Bobby Ross Jr. Julia Duin. Ryan Burge. Clemente Lisi. Ira Rifkin. Previous Contributors. Every day that is the life I have, that is the world I know. And I thought of this again this week, joining scores of thousands at the U2 concert in Pittsburgh.

It was glorious. A U2 concert is nothing if not amazing, from glorious beginning to glorious end, with incredible energy and unparalleled skill the band singing songs shaped by the truest truths of the universe in language the whole world can understand.

With a screen backdrop as big as the stage itself running across the whole of the end zone in Heinz Field, moment-by-moment we were mesmerized by the technological wizardry of their creative imagination, song by song twined together with visual images that gave us windows into more than words alone can ever convey. But as full of wonder as it all was, before the night was over we were invited into the wounds of the world too— because that too is U2.

In a way that is unique on the face of the earth in this generation of artists, the band has used its platform to give voice to things that are just not right in the world. One cannot enter in very fully to their music without being forced to think about the wrongs and sorrows of life.

Given in different places to different people, both of mine were public presentations that drew on songs by U2 that were born of loss and longing, one a speech at a college and one a wedding homily. Walking into the rooms of the world in which I work, my assumption is always that everyone has suffered in some way. It is a broken, broken world, and we are broken, broken people, sons of Adam and daughters of Eve who in our very different ways know both the glory and the ruin of the human heart.

The guitars rang out, the drums beat, the voices loud enough to be heard across the Golden Triangle, every one of us singing our own song, wondering as we must about the meaning of life, knowing our own hurts, feeling our own pains, hoping and hoping that someday somehow we will find what we are looking for, what we are longing after with every fiber of our being.

We all know those songs, we all will sing them, again and again and again.