From: Sam Norton (elizaphanian@kohath.wanadoo.co.uk)
Date: Wed Aug 17 2005 - 14:12:11 BST
Hi Marsha,
>
> What is Love? What is the opposite of Love?
This is from a new book of conversations with Bono:
Bono: My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person
of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love. What does that mean? What it
means for me: a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a
child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without
honor. I don't let my religious world get too complicated. I just kind of
go: Well, I think I know what God is. God is love, and as much as I respond
[sighs] in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that
love, that's my religion. Where things get complicated for me, is when I try
to live this love. Now that's not so easy.
Bono: There's nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a
picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is. I
accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases,
evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery.
The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so
relatable. But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure
out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like
the journey from stern father to friend. When you're a child, you need clear
directions and some strict rules. But with Christ, we have access in a
one-to-one relationship, for, as in the Old Testament, it was more one of
worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other
hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The
combination is what makes the Cross.
Assayas: Speaking of bloody action movies, we were talking about South and
Central America last time. The Jesuit priests arrived there with the gospel
in one hand and a rifle in the other.
Bono: I know, I know. Religion can be the enemy of God. It's often what
happens when God, like Elvis, has left the building. [laughs] A list of
instructions where there was once conviction; dogma where once people just
did it; a congregation led by a man where once they were led by the Holy
Spirit. Discipline replacing discipleship. Why are you chuckling?
Assayas: I was wondering if you said all of that to the Pope the day you met
him.
Bono: Let's not get too hard on the Holy Roman Church here. The Church has
its problems, but the older I get, the more comfort I find there. The
physical experience of being in a crowd of largely humble people, heads
bowed, murmuring prayers, stories told in stained-glass windows .
Assayas: So you won't be critical.
Bono: No, I can be critical, especially on the topic of contraception. But
when I meet someone like Sister Benedicta and see her work with AIDS orphans
in Addis Ababa, or Sister Ann doing the same in Malawi, or Father Jack
Fenukan and his group Concern all over Africa, when I meet priests and nuns
tending to the sick and the poor and giving up much easier lives to do so, I
surrender a little easier.
~~~
Sam
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