'I still haven't found what I'm looking for'

‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’

Chances are you’ll have heard the above lyric and may even be able to hum the tune.  Thirty-one years ago, the song reached number 6 in the UK singles chart and number 1 in the US.  It’s been ubiquitous in radio playlists ever since.

Bono, the Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Jr: collectively known as the band ‘U2’, whose album ‘The Joshua Tree’ included this song.   

But wait a minute: what do they mean they still haven’t found what they are looking for?  Aren’t they meant to be a Christian band?  Those were the questions circulating among the festival goers of Greenbelt back in 1987.  After all, Bono had announced in U2’s impromptu performance there in 1981, that they came because they felt the Lord was telling them to.  Subsequent songs seemed to back up that status as a Christian band: ‘Sunday, Bloody Sunday’ with its intent to ‘claim the victory Jesus won’; ‘40’, Bono’s take on Psalm 40; and ‘Pride (In the name of love)’, though more obscure in its references, alluded to Jesus with its line, ‘One man came he to justify’.  For Bono, the band’s usual lyricist, to declare ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’ seemed like a betrayal of the faith.  Many Christian young people – evangelical Christians at least – felt that the band was backsliding. I recall one incensed letter – I think it was to ‘21^stCentury Christian’ magazine – that castigated Bono and urged him, in as many words, to pull himself together!

What are we to make of the band’s faith, both then and now?  The truth is that U2 has never set out to be a Christian band.  Rather, they are a band whose music and lyrics are influenced by the Christian faith of three of them.  Adam Clayton is the one band member who has followed more of a typical ‘Rock’n’Roll’ lifestyle, although there are signs these days of his own sympathy for the Christian faith.  Like anyone (like me, anyway) growing into adult years with religious beliefs, they have embraced certainty and doubt at different times, and maybe at the same time.  They have explored faith through music and like many artists, they have left a deliberate ambiguity.  It is not up to the band to tell their fans what to believe, but they provoke and cajole us into thinking about these things.  

For a while, one of the ‘go-to’ speakers for Greenbelt was Revd John Smith, an Australian minister. He hung out with bikers and drank beer, heaven forfend!  He also knew Bono, so that was cool.  At the festival in, it must have been 1987, he spoke of how Bono had visited the day before, disguised as a steward.  That’s by the by.  Smith spoke about the criticism of the song and asked, ‘How many of you have really found what you are looking for?’  Good question!

In any case, it’s unwise to build a case based upon a song title, and that’s what many at the time appear to have done.  ‘Bono still hasn’t found what he’s looking for.  Does that mean he’s no longer a Christian?’  Take a look at these lyrics from the song:

I believe in the Kingdom Come
Then all the colours will bleed into one
Bleed into one.
But yes, I'm still running.

You broke the bonds
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross of my shame
Oh my shame, you know I believe it.

But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for.
But I still haven't found
What I'm looking for.

Bono speaks of what theologians call ‘the now and not yet’ of the Kingdom of God.  Jesus Christ came to usher in God’s Kingdom – the now – and much has changed with his coming, for many people.  There is still, however, much brokenness in the world, and in that sense the Kingdom has not yet come.  ‘I believe in the Kingdom come…’

Bono relates what Jesus has done for him, releasing him from shame into a new freedom through the cross. Yet he wants more of God and of God’s Kingdom.  It’s right for him to sing, ‘I still haven’t found what I’m looking for’.  It’s appropriate for me.  I want more of God’s Kingdom.  I want to see broken lives restored, equality for all, peace for all, freedom for all, opportunity for all.  

The music and performances of U2 in the 90’s had the critics continuing to question the faith of the band (more of that in another blog).  Yet the humanitarian actions of Bono (e.g. Jubilee 2000, DATA, Amnesty International) and music of the band since 2000 leaves me no doubt: they still haven’t found what they are looking for!  But they believe that one day they will.  

The band’s music points me back to the Bible and the ‘now and not yet’ of God’s Kingdom.  How am I seeking to make a difference in God’s world?  How am I are a part of the Kingdom coming?  I still haven’t found what I am looking for, but one day I will!

U2: From early beginnings to global success

U2: From early beginnings to global success

I am one of 10000 or so who can say, ‘I was there!’  I was there when an up and coming Irish band named U2 made an impromptu appearance on the main stage at the Greenbelt Festival in August 1981.  As I recall, they had travelled down from the north-east to perform, using borrowed instruments, before returning there for a concert later that evening.  At the time, they were beginning to break through and to be seen as the latest ‘Christian’ band.  The lead singer did nothing to refute that as he told the crowd, ‘We’ve come because we felt the Lord was telling us to.’  Six years later, U2 would be the biggest rock band in the world.

Bono, Edge, Adam Clayton, Larry Mullen Junior.  These are names known to many, the band line-up at their first gig in late 1976, and still together 42 years later.  Arguably, U2 is still the biggest and best band in the world, with sales approaching 200 million albums.  Unlike certain bands that endure as a tribute act to themselves (for example, the Rolling Stones), U2 continues to reinvent their music and to have things to say.  

What are the factors that have contributed to the success and influence of U2?  I am currently part way through some sabbatical reading on the band, but these are some brief thoughts thus far:

1.     Time and place.  The band members met at Mount Temple School in Dublin.  Neil McCormick, a journalist and contemporary at the school, suggests that 1970’s Dublin was a city that lacked exposure to the wider world. This meant that U2 did not have many examples to follow, good or bad.  They could create in their own way.

2.    The school itself.  Mount Temple was unique in Ireland as a non-denominational school.  It encouraged freedom of thought and expression.  Bono (Paul Hewson) formed a childhood gang called Lypton Village, that gave him his nickname and allowed him space to develop an identity in what was very much a creative community.  Not only did it contribute to the formation of U2, but also the less-heralded and experimental band, the Virgin Prunes.  Dik Evans, brother of the Edge, was a founder member, along with Gavin Friday and Guggi (their Lypton Village names).

3.    Loss. Tragically, Bono’s mother died when he was only 14.  She collapsed at the funeral of her father, having suffered a brain haemorrhage, and never recovered.  This loss is often referenced in Bono’s lyrics (he is the primary lyricist for U2), from  the early hit ‘I will follow’ (‘The boy tries hard to be a man, his mother takes him by the hand’) to ‘Iris’ (on ‘Songs of Innocence’).  It fuels the rage that he sometimes feels at the world.  Larry Mullen, the band’s drummer, also lost his mother in a road traffic accident, when he was almost 17, having also lost his oldest sister in 1973.

4.    Christian faith. Bono, Edge and Larry have all embraced a Christian faith from teenage years.  Adam has tended to follow a more ‘rock and roll’ path!  Mount Temple underwent something of a religious revival for a time with many pupils making commitments to Christ.  The three Christian members of U2 became part of a Charismatic church called the Shalom Fellowship, which was a huge influence in their faith development.

5.    Leaving the Shalom Fellowship.  As the band gained some success, they came under pressure to give it up for the Lord. Apparently, there was a prophetic word from a member of the fellowship that they do so, and for about two weeks, Edge left the band.  He returned having decided that their music and their faith was compatible.  The band members gradually loosened ties to the fellowship and pursued their faith in other ways.

6.    Success in America.  Even before their career began to flourish in the British Isles, U2 sought to ‘break’ America.  That the strategy was spectacularly successful can be seen the sale of over 10 million copies of the 1987 album, the Joshua Tree, in the US alone.  That success continues to this day.

7.    A commitment to social activism.  In 1988, Bono said: ‘To me, faith in Jesus Christ that is not aligned to social justice – that is not aligned with the poor – it’s nothing’ (quoted by Steve Stockman p 53, in his book ‘Walk On’).  That commitment is exemplified in his work for Amnesty International, persuasion of world leaders to ‘Drop the Debt’ in developing world countries, and the fight against AIDS.

You may already have stopped reading.  I’ll stop here for now!

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Watch this space for thoughts on the continuing influences on U2’s lyrics and particularly that of the Christian faith.

Spirit Break Out!

Last evening, I went to the latest leg of the Spirit Break Out tour. The tour emanates from Worship Central, which has close connections with Holy Trinity Church, Brompton, the home of the Alpha Course. The evening was led by Tim Hughes (writer of such songs as ‘Light of the world’ and ‘The greatest day in history’), assisted by three other solo singers and the usual array of musicians.

It was a good evening, attended by 1000 or so people and yet I felt curiously detached from it. Before you ask: yes, I was there to enjoy worshipping God; yes, there almost certainly is unconfessed sin in my life (isn’t there with all of us?), but none I could call to mind! So I was there without any particular baggage.

In fact, I spent much of the evening comparing the experience with my last visit to see U2 in concert in August 2009! I decided that I was more aware of God’s presence there than at yesterday’s concert. Lyrics such as ‘I was born, I was born to be with you’ (Magnificent), and ‘You heard me in my tune, when I just heard confusion’ (All because of you) spoke to me more than those of Tim Hughes et al. I was more caught up in worship (or emotion?) with 50000 other U2 fans than with the 1000 worshippers. At the U2 concert, perhaps 5% of the crowd had a Christian faith. Last might, one assumes it would have been at least 95%.

So why did the U2 concert allow me to worship more freely? In no particular order:

• AtU2, I knew the songs – pretty much word for word! Last night, I knew perhaps half of the songs. My own church is not exactly on the cusp of the latest worship songs, but we do use some newer ones! However, I think churches often over-estimate the ability of a congregation to learn new songs. I usually work on the rule of no more than one per service, if that.
• U2 did not have to pretend that it was a rock concert! They, and we, knew that it was. ‘Spirit Break Out’ tried to take on the attributes of a rock concert, with light show, dry ice and seven lampstands (I wondered if there was going to be any significance in that?). For me, there was a sense of hype being generated so that the Spirit would come!
• U2’s lyrics are more nuanced and thought-provoking e.g. ‘Yahweh, Yahweh, always pain before a child is born’. Today’s writers of Christian songs tend to fall into religious cliché, and even to reclaim clichéd lyrics of the past. There is nothing necessarily wrong with that – we are comforted by the familiar, and our beliefs are reinforced – but there is often no sense of anything new in today’s worship songs.
• The U2 concert was more evangelistic, though I doubt it set out to be so! Like ‘Spirit Break Out’, it was there for the fans. Unlike ‘Spirit Break Out’, many of those fans were ‘unconverted’ to Christ. They came with many questions about life, where Christians tend to come with many answers. Yes, I believe that Christ is the answer! Yet I believe that we must all be allowed space to ask our questions and express our doubts about life, the universe and everything! Maybe a U2 concert is a more effective place for that?

I can’t deny that most at last night’s concert were engaging with God in worship. I’m just thinking that worship is so much more than we sometimes make it.

You heard me in my tune ...

Last week, I led prayers at a local Christian care home. I won’t name it, but members of my church will know it well. I chose a hymn to sing with the residents, started the accompanying CD and off we went. Except that one woman, we’ll call her Jeanie, started singing a little late and with great gusto! All the way through the hymn, she was out of time with the rest of us. At the same time, she was out of tune. It was hard for the rest of us to keep going, and a few of us stifled smiles!

It reminded me of the line of a song from my favourite rock band, U2:

‘You heard me in my tune, when I just heard confusion.’

Of course, Jeanie is very deaf, but she was so pleased to join in with the singing. I heard confusion, but I don’t think she did at all, and I’m sure that God didn’t. If God can make sense of our flawed attempts at living, God can certainly enjoy Jeanie’s tune!