Bono Follow-up

For obvious reasons, there are lots of questions and speculation surrounding Bono. Without getting into the details, I have a couple observations. Since these are just thoughts, they may not be related to one another.

First, God never called us to be ambiguous about our faith. When asked, we are to answer plainly. That is something I do not believe Bono does. And let me be clear, I believe that to be a huge downfall.

Second, when Jesus came the first time He shunned the religious leaders of the day, even though they were convinced He would hop on their bandwagon of issues and be in their subculture club. If He were to show up today, He may do the same ... and while He was at it, He may take up for social issues like fighting AIDS, and getting water and prescription drugs into Africa. Bono does this. He's got more brownie points for this than I could ever hope to have.

Third, so many Christians are concerned with being seen as "cool" that when a cool person like Bono looks like he's toeing the line of spirituality, they throw him into their camp and hold him up as a viable reason to become a Christian. It's like saying, "See, I told you Christians were cool. Just look at our newset member--he's super-cool!" That's just lame and everyone knows it. Logically, if you showed a positive person and said, "Here's why you should join us," you would also have to admit that for every bad person in Christianity, you would have to say, "Here's why you shouldn't join us." The logic just breaks down.

Lastly, God knows our hearts. We don't even know our own heart, let alone someone else's, which makes it very hard to judge a person's heart. So we may just need to leave the man alone until he makes his decision (one way or another) public. We can look at his actions concerning Africa and honor them as noteworthy, but that's a far cry from transitioning into judging Bono's heart. And that's shaky ground to be walking on anyways.

The man is an enigma, a blessing and a curse: challenging stereotypes, pressing us out of our comfort zone, leading an honorable charge for social justice, speaking of God as if he knew Him--without subscribing to one firm way (which may or may not be good or bad)--and rocking the house day after day. And I thank him for it.