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Narnia pictures! Click here!
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Also, what do Rock 'n' Roll, John Calvin, U2, Plato, and lap dancing all have in common? Read on.
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I'm on Amazon! Strange but true, I've submitted my review of Frederick Buechner's On The Road With The Archangel to the .com behemoth. If you'd like to read it, click here.
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Does Crouching Tiger have a hidden meaning? Steven D. Greydanus, over at Decent Films, thinks so.
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Jesus according to Hollywood: We're fast approaching the one-year anniversary of the release of The Passion of the Christ and Mike Hertenstein at Flickerings has a massive survey of Moviedom's many Jesus films from the silent era to Mel Gibson's controversial indie film. Here's the link.
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And just in case you didn't catch these the first time around, two MUST READ articles for U2 fans interested in exploreing the spirituallty of the band:
"Bono's American Prayer"
and
the Godspy review of "How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb".
15 comments:
Yup, I found it quite interesting. To cow princess, I don't think that we need to be quite that black and white about it. Christ and his message isn't about the law, it's about grace. Live by grace, and Christ will put a guidance in your heart. Live by holding on to the law, and you'd better be ready and able to respond that you live righteously and perfectly according to that law. The entire point is that Christ died to abolish the law, and bring in grace. If we can't live in grace, then Christ's death wasn't really that important. But He is extremely vital if we have to live by grace to get to heaven. As a matter of fact, He's the only way. Read romans 5-6.
Also though, according to Romans 6, we shouldn't sin all the more so that grace can increase. I'm not condoning Bono's past actions, and I don't completely agree with the author of that article. In essence, we should strive for being good. But we should also realise that if we fall, we fall on God's grace.
Anyway, all that to say, I don't think I would question Bono's faith because of those specific incedents. It's not really for any of us to say if he's a Christian or not. It's for God to say. Pointing fingers at specific sins is not profitable, just as we see in Matthew 5, that even calling someone a fool is guilty enough to get us into hell. Every sin is still a sin. I don't know about anyone else, but I've got plenty to worry about for myself before I start to look at Bono's sins.
Has Bono specifically said he was a christian? I read a fan book that claimed most of the band was but it was written about 10 years ago and contained no quotes or facts from Bono to prove he was Christian. The whole essay I have going is about the loss of faith in their lyrics.
But yeah to judge a pop star (even a great one) by a few isolated incidents is pretty foolish. If I make a mistake only a couple of people see it. If Bono makes a mistake 10 million people watch it over and over again. And this isn't even touching the issue of whether or not saying the "f word" is a sin or not.
Wow, nice discussion though, I admit, I've heard it once or twice before (Superman knows what I'm talking about). I thought you all (midnitcafe in particular) might find this article interesting.
Keep thinking!
Also to midnite: do you really believe that there has been a loss of faith in U2's lyrics? Have you heard anything from their last two albums? Have you heard "Grace"? Or "YAHWEH", for crying out loud? I don’t know if that’s what you’re talking about, maybe I misunderstood.
>All I am saying is that you cannot clam to be a >Christian, and do unGodly stuff, you just cannot.
So you are perfect? Since becoming a Christian you have never sinned? Not once?
To be honest, I stopped listening to U2 when they released Pop. I listening to All That You Can't Leave Behind once and didn't particularly care for it. I just bought the new one but haven't studied it enough to make any notes on it. There is definitely a loss of faith in the new material on Rattle and Hum as well as Zooropa.
U2 aside: I'm sorry Mat, I just re-read my last comment and it's too harsh. Please accept my apologies.
No problem. I wasn't offended in the least. Actually I'll have to look up the lyrics to those songs. Sounds like U2 bounced back to some Christian themes in the later albums.
The link to your amazon comments isn't working
I found this interesting:
"Well, you know, I am not a very good advertisement for God. So, I generally don't wear that badge on my lapel. But it is certainly written on the inside. I am a believer. There are 2,103 verses of Scripture pertaining to the poor. Jesus Christ only speaks of judgement once. It is not all about the things that the church bangs on about. It is not about sexual immorality, and it is not about megalomania, or vanity. It is about the poor. 'I was naked you clothed me. I was a stranger and you let me in.' This is at the heart of the gospel. Why is it that we have seemed to have forgotten this? Why isn't the church leading this movement? I am here tonight because the church ought to be ready to do that.
--Bono in response to Thunderstruck's question about how faith motivates his activism, asked during a press conference at Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky
That's very cool. Is there a date with it?
Sorry midnitcafe, I looked all over for a date for the quote and never found one but judging by the picture acompanying it, I'd say it was about 2001 - 2003, or somewhere around there.
Test
Well, it pretty much put an end to my essay. I have remained pretty ignorant about U2 post Zooropa and was going from there. With this quote, and my owning of the new album, I've seemed to lost interest in the thread.
Looking back over this, I'm glad I stayed out of it!
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