Aye. He is . Well he might be but i really only used the title to draw ya in.
I love to read stuff thats way beyond me. Usually what happens is that something clicks in my head and the rest (or majority ) of the paper, article, blog etc goes right over my head. Of course I grow in learning, so someday I will be able to read things and thoroughly understand everything!! whereupon I will be God and destroy a great majority of ye because I dont have just an evil side to me but also a wicked side cause you see I enjoy your suffering.... Pardon the rant. Im just processing some other stuff I was thinking about today ... I guess I should get back to my point....
Ok. So bono needs to start saying he is a christian again. The reasons are as follows. A lot of us have discovered a big wave of grace has been floating around Jesusdom for the last few years and we have quite rightly and keenly jumped on board and surfed for all we can, bravely fighting off anyone who would have us go back to the old ways of acting good and belief without thought. and i recon that alot of ye who count me as friends here on myspace have taken on board this way of looking at life with our Lord.
A great many of us have discovered artistic sides henceforth expressed with much freedom or have found a love for the arts that comes from being love with a creative God. A great many of us have developed minds to see the attributes of the kingdom of God in the ways of everyday and the rythms and themes of life all around us, we see love patience creativity faithfullnes and much more in the worst of places and people ( i love marilyn manson). Or though i personally have been slack in this next aera alot of us have developed enormous senses of justice and mercy not just for the people of the world but for the world itself. We feel at home amoungst the places and people that the world has left behind....all of these are great things .
But.
To do this we have hidden ourselves. We are not so forthright about our beliefs. Much arguments have been put out there as to why we shouldnt, its off-putting, its done with a spirit of superiority are two of the biggest that i can think of right now. and two that i agree with thoroughly. However i think we are danger of losing ourselves and our witness. As i was saying i was reading a thing way over my head today. this guy called plantinga is like thee foremost philospher in the states today... and he is christian. He was arguing for calling himself a christian philospher and for others of the same convictions to do so as well. His argument was that there cannot be a science or art without any bias. We talk alot about the wrongness of separating the secular from the sacred and putting one into the "bad" camp and one into the "good" camp thus barring christians from understanding and reaching the many non-christians who are talking and thinking about things of God unbeknownst to them and also from stopping christians from producing in many aeras of life or challenging non-christians assumptions in many aeras properly. But in doing this i feel we have somewhat at least agreed with alot of their assumptions that are wrong simply by working with them.
in other words in our new found willingness to mix it up with the world we have forgotten the need to band together and work against the "city of man". As good as some people might be eg geldof and ghandi there aims are not there for the glory of God. Even when we do great things with them, if our faith is not stated as the source of our inspiration and is just left as a personal thing it will only ever be viewed as an interesting habit or weird tic that we have.
Cs lewis used to say we should have less christian authors and more authors who are christian and many have latched onto this as a usefull quote to give to the "christian" writting,music and film industry something to think about. However no one would deny that cs lewis was anything but a christian. it was qutie obvious where he thought truth lied, not just from his fiction but from his many defenses of christianity. which brings me to bono. Where is this side of him? Its quite obvious that the man has a great grasp of the gospel and grace. When i read his words i am always left thinking. wow!! but where is the open and unashamed of christianity to his audience, if ever there was someone who would find a way of putting it in language people could understand it should be him?? You could say that bono is not an evangelist or even an apologist, i would counter that with- not yet. I think its every ones job to evangelise. Including bonos. Ok ok he maybe already does but please, a little more clarity Mr hewson!!