Washington D.C., May 18, 2017 / 03:08 pm (CNA).- If you’re an ardent fan of U2, you may know that lead vocalist Bono loves the Psalms. The 57-year-old Irish musician has spoken out several times about the inspiration that he draws from reading the Biblical hymns.
And now, Bono says the Psalms offer a lesson for aspiring Christian musicians: If you want to create real art, you need to be way more honest than is typical of the “Christian music” genre.
“Creation screams God’s name. So you don’t have to stick a sign on every tree,” he said in a new video interview, released last month.
The Irish rock icon rejected the idea that music or art must be explicitly labeled Christian and limited to overtly Christian messages in order to glorify God.
“This has really, really got to stop. I want to hear a song about the breakdown in your marriage, I want to hear songs of justice, I want to hear rage at injustice and I want to hear a song so good that it makes people want to do something about the subject.”
Bono’s comments came in a five-part video clip series released by Fuller Studio, a group that promotes “resources for a deeply formed spiritual life.”
In another part of the series, Bono said that what he has learned from years of reading the Psalms is the importance of listening and honesty.
He pointed to the Biblical figure of King David, to whom the Psalms are attributed.
After falling in love with a married woman named Bathsheba, King David commits adultery with her and then arranges a plot to kill her husband, a soldier, to cover up the subsequent pregnancy.
The evils committed by King David are “mind blowing,” Bono said, and yet he was able to find grace and redemption.
The honesty of giving expression to the real things that are going on in one’s life is the key to good art, he said, encouraging Christian musicians that their goal is to create art, not advertising.
“I want to argue the case for artists or potential artists who might be listening in on our conversation and are not giving expression to what’s really going on in their lives because they feel it will give the wrong impression of them.”
“Brutal honesty,” he went on to say, “is the root. Not just to a relationship with God, but it’s the root to a great song. That’s the only place you can find a great song. The only place you can find any work of art, of merit.”
Article Archive
Bono thinks Christian artists need to be way more honest
Related Articles • More Articles
Father David Waller will become the first bishop Ordinary of the Ordinariate. / Credit: Courtesy photo / Bishop's Conference of England and WalesNational Catholic Register, Apr 29, 2024 / 18:45 pm (CNA).The Vatican has announced a new leader of the ordinariate in Great Britain.Father David Waller, 62, a parish priest and vicar general of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, will replace Monsignor Keith Newton, 72, who is retiring after serving over 13 years as the ordinary of the ecclesiastical structure for former Anglicans.In a statement, Newton called the Vatican's April 29 announcement "momentous" given that Waller, who is a celibate, will become the first bishop ordinary of the ordinariate. As someone who was already married as an Anglican clergyman before entering the Church through the ordinariate, Newton was not allowed episcopal consecration.Established by Pope Benedict XVI in 2011 through his 2009 apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, the ordin...
Landscape view of Sacrofano, Italy, north of Rome. / Credit: Dmitry Taranets/ShutterstockRome Newsroom, Apr 29, 2024 / 15:00 pm (CNA).The World Meeting of Parish Priests for the Synod opened on Monday to discuss "how to be a synodal local Church in mission," allowing priests from around the world to discuss questions raised during the ongoing synod and share their personal pastoral experiences. The four-day meeting, which is taking place from April 29 to May 2 at the Fraterna Domus retreat house in Sacrofano, Italy, just north of Rome, is attended by about 300 priests from around the globe and is divided into several sessions, taking cues from different themes and questions raised in the synod's synthesis report. "The parish priest is a man of the people and for the people. Like Jesus, he is open to the crowd, constantly open to the crowd, to help each and every one understand that they are a letter from Christ," said Cardinal Mario Grech, secretary general of the Gen...
Archbishop Christopher J. Coyne. / Credit: Diocese of Burlington, VermontCNA Staff, Apr 29, 2024 / 07:00 am (CNA).A New England prelate is urging Catholics to both minister to transgender-identifying individuals in the Catholic Church while still continuously affirming "the goodness of human creation" as male and female.Coadjutor Archbishop Christopher Coyne of Hartford, Connecticut, told CNA last week that he would make it a point not to challenge a transgender-identifying man or woman when they present as the opposite sex.Coyne appeared on Connecticut Public Radio earlier this month arguing against the basic claim of gender ideology, which argues that men and women who "identify" as the opposite sex should be treated as such."Biology is biology. You're either XX or XY. That's a scientific fact. You can't un-prove that fact," the bishop told public radio. But, he argued, the LGBT debate has "pulled me more into a place of understanding and care," including regarding trans...