I loved this description of how Jesus engaged people in a very unique way...
We sometimes use the term "savior complex" to describe an unhealthy syndrome of obsession over solving others' problems. Ironically, the true Savior seemed remarkably free of such a complex. He had no compulsion to convert the entire world in his lifetime or to cure people who were not ready to be cured.
I never sense Jesus twisting a person's arm. Rather, he stated the consequences of a choice, then threw the decision back to the other party. For example, he once answered a wealthy man's question with uncompromising words, then let him walk away. Mark pointedly adds this comment about the man who rejected Jesus' advice, "Jesus looked at him and loved him."
In short, Jesus showed an incredible respect for human freedom. Those of us in ministry need the kind of "Savior complex" that Jesus demonstrated. As Elton Trueblood has observed, the major symbols of invitation that Jesus used had a severe, even offensive quality: the yoke of burden, the cup of suffering, the towel of servanthood. "Take up your cross and follow me," he said, in the least manipulative invitation that has ever been given.
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Social Justice and Evangelism
A strong piece I pulled from the World Vision ACTS network, a group of college students on many different campuses seeking to proclaim and advocate for justice and the needs of people in our world today, that was written by Scott Bessenecker, Associate Director of InterVarsity Missions and author of “The New Friars”...like very much its balanced and strong perspective on an often divisive conversation...
It is probably a frightening oversimplification to claim that when the early Church emphasized Jesus' humanity she spawned great social programs and when she emphasized his deity produced great theology. Understanding and expressing the reality of these two natures existing in a single person inspired the historic schisms. To this day we quibble about the deified power of Christ to save and the incarnational power of Christ to serve, as if they were at odds with one another.
This tension between social justice and evangelism - or Christ as Man and Christ as God - is a bit like the tension between LOVE as verb (I love) and LOVE as noun (my love) - it works great both ways, it just depends on what you are trying to say. In fact the noun and verb can have a symbiotic relationship, "A lover loves." I become the noun, a lover, when I consistently engage the act of loving.
I am grieved when Christians feel like an invitation to accept Jesus is the only way to legitimize the protesting of evil or need to throw an altar call in when feeding the homeless, as if confronting evil or doing good were not enough. Jesus held up a Samaritan as the picture of what it meant to inherit eternal life by fulfilling the law of loving your neighbor (Lk 10) even though he had substantial theological issues with what Samaritans believed (Jn 4). Hating evil and loving justice do not need an evangelistic call in order to become valid. Those actions please Jesus all by themselves.
I am grieved when I meet Christians who have no problem protesting unfair wages for migrant farmers but have no desire to call people into a saving relationship with Jesus. How can we see the kingdom come without inviting others to acknowledge the King? Justice flows from a Judge and answering Jesus' question, "who do you say I am?" matters. A friend of mine, Doug Schaupp, observes that it is easier for him to take someone who is good at evangelism and turn them into a lover of justice than to take a socially active Christian and grow them into a good evangelist. That is sad to me.
Separating social justice and evangelism is like getting married and then not living together. Is it better to have the security of a marriage covenant and never see your spouse, or to live together with no real commitment or promise? I want both. Some of us may be more gifted at the prophetic confrontation of evil systems and structures and others at calling people to say yes to Jesus' invitation to trust him for salvation, but we must remain stoutly committed to both.
Jesus as God and Jesus as man, separating those things is heresy.
It is probably a frightening oversimplification to claim that when the early Church emphasized Jesus' humanity she spawned great social programs and when she emphasized his deity produced great theology. Understanding and expressing the reality of these two natures existing in a single person inspired the historic schisms. To this day we quibble about the deified power of Christ to save and the incarnational power of Christ to serve, as if they were at odds with one another.
This tension between social justice and evangelism - or Christ as Man and Christ as God - is a bit like the tension between LOVE as verb (I love) and LOVE as noun (my love) - it works great both ways, it just depends on what you are trying to say. In fact the noun and verb can have a symbiotic relationship, "A lover loves." I become the noun, a lover, when I consistently engage the act of loving.
I am grieved when Christians feel like an invitation to accept Jesus is the only way to legitimize the protesting of evil or need to throw an altar call in when feeding the homeless, as if confronting evil or doing good were not enough. Jesus held up a Samaritan as the picture of what it meant to inherit eternal life by fulfilling the law of loving your neighbor (Lk 10) even though he had substantial theological issues with what Samaritans believed (Jn 4). Hating evil and loving justice do not need an evangelistic call in order to become valid. Those actions please Jesus all by themselves.
I am grieved when I meet Christians who have no problem protesting unfair wages for migrant farmers but have no desire to call people into a saving relationship with Jesus. How can we see the kingdom come without inviting others to acknowledge the King? Justice flows from a Judge and answering Jesus' question, "who do you say I am?" matters. A friend of mine, Doug Schaupp, observes that it is easier for him to take someone who is good at evangelism and turn them into a lover of justice than to take a socially active Christian and grow them into a good evangelist. That is sad to me.
Separating social justice and evangelism is like getting married and then not living together. Is it better to have the security of a marriage covenant and never see your spouse, or to live together with no real commitment or promise? I want both. Some of us may be more gifted at the prophetic confrontation of evil systems and structures and others at calling people to say yes to Jesus' invitation to trust him for salvation, but we must remain stoutly committed to both.
Jesus as God and Jesus as man, separating those things is heresy.
Saturday, October 17, 2009
Church: Love It, Don't Leave It
An interesting article from the Washington Post by Kevin DeYoung and Ted Kluck, authors of the book Why We Love the Church: In Praise of Institutions and Organized Religion.
Here's what Bono, Oprah, and the guru speakers on PBS won't tell you: Jesus believed in organized religion and he founded an institution. Of course, Jesus had no patience for religious hacks and self-righteous wannabes, but he was still Jewish. And as Jew, he read the Holy Book, worshiped in the synagogue, and kept Torah. He did not start a movement of latte-drinking disciples who excelled in spiritual conversations. He founded the church (Matt. 16:18) and commissioned the apostles to proclaim the good news that Israel's Messiah had come and the sins of the world could be forgiven through his death on the cross (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 2:14-36).
For almost two millennia, it was axiomatic that Christians, like, actually went to church (or at least told other Christians they did). From Cyprian to Calvin it was believed that for those to whom God "is Father the church may also be Mother."
But increasingly Christians are trying to get more spiritual by getting less church. Take a spin through the religion section at your local bookstore. What you'll find there is revealing - there are "revolutionary" books for stay at home moms, teenagers, and Christian businessmen. There are lots of manifestos. And most of the books about church are about people leaving the church to "find God." There are lots of Kerouacian "journey" stories, and at least one book about the gospel according to Starbucks. It used to be you had to overthrow a country to be considered a revolutionary, and now, it seems, you just have to quit church and go pray in the woods.
We've been in the church our whole lives and are not blind to its failings. Churches can be boring, hypocritical, hurtful, and inept. The church is full of sinners. Which is kind of the point. Christians are worse than you think. Our Savior is better than you imagine.
But the church is not all about oppression and drudgery. Almost every church we know of visits old people, brings meals to new moms, supports disaster relief, and does something for the poor. We love the local church, in spite of its problems, because it's where we go to meet God. It's not a glorified social/country club you attend to be around people who talk and look just you do. It's a place to hear God's word spoken, taught and affirmed. It's a place to sing praises to God, and a place to serve others. It's a place to be challenged.
The church is more than plural for Christian. It is both organism and organization, a living thing comprised of a certain order, regular worship services, with doctrinal standards, institutional norms, and defined rituals. Without the institution of the church nurturing the flock and protecting the faith for two thousand years, there would be no Christianity. If Gen Xers (like us) and their friends want to be against something, start a revolution. If you want to conserve truth and grace for twenty centuries, plant a church.
We love the church because Christ loved the church. She is his bride--a harlot at times, but his bride nonetheless, being washed clean by the word of God (Eph. 5:25-26). If you are into Jesus, don't rail on his bride. Jesus died for the church, so don't be bothered by a little dying to self for the church's sake. If you keep in mind that everyone there is a sinner (including yourself) and that Jesus Christ is the point and not you, your dreams, or your kids, your church experience might not be as lame as you fear.
Perhaps Christians are leaving the church because it isn't tolerant and open-minded. But perhaps the church-leavers have their own intolerance too--intolerant of tradition, intolerant of authority, intolerant of imperfection except their own. Are you open-minded enough to give the church a chance--a chance for the church to be the church, not a coffee shop, not a mall, not a variety show, not Chuck E. Cheese, not a U2 concert, not a nature walk, but a wonderfully ordinary, blood-bought, Spirit-driven church with pastors, sermons, budgets, hymns, bad carpet and worse coffee?
The Church, because it is Christ's church, will outlive American Idol, the NFL, and all of our grandkids. We won't last, but the Church will. So when it comes to church, be like Jesus: love it, don't leave it. As Saint Calloway once prophesied to the Brothers of Blues, "Jake, you get wise, you get to church."
Here's what Bono, Oprah, and the guru speakers on PBS won't tell you: Jesus believed in organized religion and he founded an institution. Of course, Jesus had no patience for religious hacks and self-righteous wannabes, but he was still Jewish. And as Jew, he read the Holy Book, worshiped in the synagogue, and kept Torah. He did not start a movement of latte-drinking disciples who excelled in spiritual conversations. He founded the church (Matt. 16:18) and commissioned the apostles to proclaim the good news that Israel's Messiah had come and the sins of the world could be forgiven through his death on the cross (Matt. 28:18-20; Acts 2:14-36).
For almost two millennia, it was axiomatic that Christians, like, actually went to church (or at least told other Christians they did). From Cyprian to Calvin it was believed that for those to whom God "is Father the church may also be Mother."
But increasingly Christians are trying to get more spiritual by getting less church. Take a spin through the religion section at your local bookstore. What you'll find there is revealing - there are "revolutionary" books for stay at home moms, teenagers, and Christian businessmen. There are lots of manifestos. And most of the books about church are about people leaving the church to "find God." There are lots of Kerouacian "journey" stories, and at least one book about the gospel according to Starbucks. It used to be you had to overthrow a country to be considered a revolutionary, and now, it seems, you just have to quit church and go pray in the woods.
We've been in the church our whole lives and are not blind to its failings. Churches can be boring, hypocritical, hurtful, and inept. The church is full of sinners. Which is kind of the point. Christians are worse than you think. Our Savior is better than you imagine.
But the church is not all about oppression and drudgery. Almost every church we know of visits old people, brings meals to new moms, supports disaster relief, and does something for the poor. We love the local church, in spite of its problems, because it's where we go to meet God. It's not a glorified social/country club you attend to be around people who talk and look just you do. It's a place to hear God's word spoken, taught and affirmed. It's a place to sing praises to God, and a place to serve others. It's a place to be challenged.
The church is more than plural for Christian. It is both organism and organization, a living thing comprised of a certain order, regular worship services, with doctrinal standards, institutional norms, and defined rituals. Without the institution of the church nurturing the flock and protecting the faith for two thousand years, there would be no Christianity. If Gen Xers (like us) and their friends want to be against something, start a revolution. If you want to conserve truth and grace for twenty centuries, plant a church.
We love the church because Christ loved the church. She is his bride--a harlot at times, but his bride nonetheless, being washed clean by the word of God (Eph. 5:25-26). If you are into Jesus, don't rail on his bride. Jesus died for the church, so don't be bothered by a little dying to self for the church's sake. If you keep in mind that everyone there is a sinner (including yourself) and that Jesus Christ is the point and not you, your dreams, or your kids, your church experience might not be as lame as you fear.
Perhaps Christians are leaving the church because it isn't tolerant and open-minded. But perhaps the church-leavers have their own intolerance too--intolerant of tradition, intolerant of authority, intolerant of imperfection except their own. Are you open-minded enough to give the church a chance--a chance for the church to be the church, not a coffee shop, not a mall, not a variety show, not Chuck E. Cheese, not a U2 concert, not a nature walk, but a wonderfully ordinary, blood-bought, Spirit-driven church with pastors, sermons, budgets, hymns, bad carpet and worse coffee?
The Church, because it is Christ's church, will outlive American Idol, the NFL, and all of our grandkids. We won't last, but the Church will. So when it comes to church, be like Jesus: love it, don't leave it. As Saint Calloway once prophesied to the Brothers of Blues, "Jake, you get wise, you get to church."
Friday, October 16, 2009
Looking at the World Upside Down by Philip Yancey
Some great words about the Counter-Cultural Kingdom Jesus Brought to All of Us and Invites Us to Bring to Our World...
Taking God's assignment seriously means that I must learn to look at the world upside down, as Jesus did. Instead of seeking out people who stroke my ego, I find those whose egos need stroking; instead of important people with resources who can do me favors, I find people with few resources; instead of the strong, I look for the weak; instead of the healthy, the sick. Is not this how God reconciles the world to himself? Did Jesus not insist that he came for the sinners and not the righteous, for the sick and not the healthy?
In India I have worshiped among leprosy patients. Most of the medical advances in the treatment of leprosy came about as a result of missionary doctors, who alone were willing to live among patients and risk exposure to study the dreaded disease. As a result, Christian churches thrive in most major leprosy centers.
In Myanmar, I have visited homes for AIDS orphans, where Christian volunteers try to replace parental affection the disease has stolen away. In Jean Vanier's center in Toronto, I have watched a scholarly priest lavish daily care on a middle-aged man so mentally handicapped that he could not speak a word. The most rousing church services I have attended took place in Chile and Peru, in the bowels of a federal prison. Among the lowly, the wretched, the downtrodden, the rejects, God's kingdom takes root.
Taking God's assignment seriously means that I must learn to look at the world upside down, as Jesus did. Instead of seeking out people who stroke my ego, I find those whose egos need stroking; instead of important people with resources who can do me favors, I find people with few resources; instead of the strong, I look for the weak; instead of the healthy, the sick. Is not this how God reconciles the world to himself? Did Jesus not insist that he came for the sinners and not the righteous, for the sick and not the healthy?
In India I have worshiped among leprosy patients. Most of the medical advances in the treatment of leprosy came about as a result of missionary doctors, who alone were willing to live among patients and risk exposure to study the dreaded disease. As a result, Christian churches thrive in most major leprosy centers.
In Myanmar, I have visited homes for AIDS orphans, where Christian volunteers try to replace parental affection the disease has stolen away. In Jean Vanier's center in Toronto, I have watched a scholarly priest lavish daily care on a middle-aged man so mentally handicapped that he could not speak a word. The most rousing church services I have attended took place in Chile and Peru, in the bowels of a federal prison. Among the lowly, the wretched, the downtrodden, the rejects, God's kingdom takes root.
Friday, September 25, 2009
A Unifying Vocation
An insightful piece on "why development work and gospel work cannot be put asunder" from a recent Christianity Today editorial...
In 2002, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof proclaimed evangelicals the "new internationalists," lauding us for engaging such issues as sex trafficking, slavery, and HIV/AIDS. We actually became internationalists with the blossoming of the modern missions movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Wherever missionaries took the Good News, they contributed to development by expanding literacy, promoting public health through sanitation, diet, and medicine, and improving the lot of women, children, and orphans.
But nearly ever since, we have debated the wisdom of faith-driven development work. Some harbor a suspicion that development work will squeeze out gospel work, while others argue that gospel work is impossible without it. That discussion continues now that international justice and development concerns have been mainstreamed by popular Christian musicians, megachurch pastors, and the National Association of Evangelicals.
Pope Benedict XVI can help us think through the issues. In July, he released his encyclical on development, Caritas in Veritate. Many took it to be about global economics, since the Vatican released it the day before the G8 Summit was to begin just a short drive from Rome. But Benedict's letter dealt with much more than economic life, focusing instead on what people and societies are and are called to be.
As Baylor University's Francis Beckwith explained on Christianity Today's website, the encyclical is "a brief against secular materialism in its economic and metaphysical forms, and its harmful consequences on the human family's common good." Secular materialism is an ideology, and ideologies are reductionistic. Thus, they are lies—or at best, distortions of the truth. They treat societies and people as functions of just a few factors. And both Marxism and free-market economics often treat people and societies as determined almost solely by economic factors.
But society is more than economic systems and governments. "Doing the Truth in Love," evangelical leaders' response to the encyclical, says that active Christian love "demands space for myriad human communities and institutions, not just for the state and the market, but also families and the many relationships of civil society. It is primarily the internal resources of communities, such as those of neighborhood associations, municipal councils, trade unions, small business, and more, that facilitate the cultivation of local talents and resources" (doingthetruth.org).
Human beings are not just workers or citizens. We are parents and children. We are members of ethnic groups. We learn. We love. We play. We plan. We celebrate. We seek justice and fairness for all. We use imagination to create art and solve problems. Above all, we worship. These are markers of human flourishing.
This is the truth about human beings, and, says Benedict, you cannot properly love people unless you understand the truth about them. Thus, Benedict reflects on a long list of areas that affect human flourishing: education, social security systems, food security, infant mortality, demographic control (including forced abortions), euthanasia, religious freedom, unemployment, food and water, the integrity of the family, the natural environment, energy resources, and migration, among others. Integral development, he says, "has to promote the good of every man and of the whole man."
By using the word vocation 28 times in this encyclical, Benedict points to humanity's transcendent dimension. He quotes Pope Paul VI: "Progress, in its origin and essence, is first and foremost a vocation: 'in the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfill himself, for every life is a vocation.' " He continues: "To regard development as a vocation is to recognize, on the one hand, that it derives from a transcendent call, and on the other hand that it is incapable, on its own, of supplying its ultimate meaning."
So development work is not only about the relief of suffering (countering a negative); it is fundamentally about helping people respond to God's transcendent call (empowering a positive).
This concept of vocation, God's call to all people, can provide the unifying force that holds development and gospel work together. Without a unifying force, Christians wander off the path, concentrating on compassionate work for those God loves while forgetting the scandalous Good News of the Cross. Or becoming so jealous for the glory of the Cross that they neglect the work of compassion and development.
But there need not be such conflict. As the Micah Network's Declaration on Integral Mission states: "Justice and justification by faith, worship and political action, the spiritual and the material, personal change and structural change belong together. As in the life of Jesus, being, doing, and saying are at the heart of our integral task."
In 2002, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof proclaimed evangelicals the "new internationalists," lauding us for engaging such issues as sex trafficking, slavery, and HIV/AIDS. We actually became internationalists with the blossoming of the modern missions movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Wherever missionaries took the Good News, they contributed to development by expanding literacy, promoting public health through sanitation, diet, and medicine, and improving the lot of women, children, and orphans.
But nearly ever since, we have debated the wisdom of faith-driven development work. Some harbor a suspicion that development work will squeeze out gospel work, while others argue that gospel work is impossible without it. That discussion continues now that international justice and development concerns have been mainstreamed by popular Christian musicians, megachurch pastors, and the National Association of Evangelicals.
Pope Benedict XVI can help us think through the issues. In July, he released his encyclical on development, Caritas in Veritate. Many took it to be about global economics, since the Vatican released it the day before the G8 Summit was to begin just a short drive from Rome. But Benedict's letter dealt with much more than economic life, focusing instead on what people and societies are and are called to be.
As Baylor University's Francis Beckwith explained on Christianity Today's website, the encyclical is "a brief against secular materialism in its economic and metaphysical forms, and its harmful consequences on the human family's common good." Secular materialism is an ideology, and ideologies are reductionistic. Thus, they are lies—or at best, distortions of the truth. They treat societies and people as functions of just a few factors. And both Marxism and free-market economics often treat people and societies as determined almost solely by economic factors.
But society is more than economic systems and governments. "Doing the Truth in Love," evangelical leaders' response to the encyclical, says that active Christian love "demands space for myriad human communities and institutions, not just for the state and the market, but also families and the many relationships of civil society. It is primarily the internal resources of communities, such as those of neighborhood associations, municipal councils, trade unions, small business, and more, that facilitate the cultivation of local talents and resources" (doingthetruth.org).
Human beings are not just workers or citizens. We are parents and children. We are members of ethnic groups. We learn. We love. We play. We plan. We celebrate. We seek justice and fairness for all. We use imagination to create art and solve problems. Above all, we worship. These are markers of human flourishing.
This is the truth about human beings, and, says Benedict, you cannot properly love people unless you understand the truth about them. Thus, Benedict reflects on a long list of areas that affect human flourishing: education, social security systems, food security, infant mortality, demographic control (including forced abortions), euthanasia, religious freedom, unemployment, food and water, the integrity of the family, the natural environment, energy resources, and migration, among others. Integral development, he says, "has to promote the good of every man and of the whole man."
By using the word vocation 28 times in this encyclical, Benedict points to humanity's transcendent dimension. He quotes Pope Paul VI: "Progress, in its origin and essence, is first and foremost a vocation: 'in the design of God, every man is called upon to develop and fulfill himself, for every life is a vocation.' " He continues: "To regard development as a vocation is to recognize, on the one hand, that it derives from a transcendent call, and on the other hand that it is incapable, on its own, of supplying its ultimate meaning."
So development work is not only about the relief of suffering (countering a negative); it is fundamentally about helping people respond to God's transcendent call (empowering a positive).
This concept of vocation, God's call to all people, can provide the unifying force that holds development and gospel work together. Without a unifying force, Christians wander off the path, concentrating on compassionate work for those God loves while forgetting the scandalous Good News of the Cross. Or becoming so jealous for the glory of the Cross that they neglect the work of compassion and development.
But there need not be such conflict. As the Micah Network's Declaration on Integral Mission states: "Justice and justification by faith, worship and political action, the spiritual and the material, personal change and structural change belong together. As in the life of Jesus, being, doing, and saying are at the heart of our integral task."
Monday, September 21, 2009
God Shows Up in Everyday Situations...Anne Graham Lotz
A quote that I often need to hear in order to be aware of the moments when God has shown up and I might actually miss what He's up to if I'm not careful...
God shows up in the ordinariness of our day, doesn't He? He doesn't show up only when He parts the Red Sea with a powerful wind, or in the banquet hall with handwriting on the wall, or on Mount Sinai with thunder and lightning, or on the Mount of Transfiguration in radiant glory. He shows up in everyday situations, as we are going about our everyday responsibilities in our everyday routines.
Moses was shepherding his flock at Mount Horeb. Gideon was threshing wheat by the winepress. David was looking after his father's sheep. Elisha was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. Nehemiah was serving wine to the king. Amos was tending his flock and his sycamore-fig trees. Peter and Andrew were casting their fishing net into the sea. James and John were mending their nets. Matthew was collecting taxes. The Samaritan woman was drawing water from the well. Saul was in the midst of a "business trip." All of these people were simply living their ordinary lives when God invaded, interrupted, and turned their world inside out.
God shows up in the ordinariness of our day, doesn't He? He doesn't show up only when He parts the Red Sea with a powerful wind, or in the banquet hall with handwriting on the wall, or on Mount Sinai with thunder and lightning, or on the Mount of Transfiguration in radiant glory. He shows up in everyday situations, as we are going about our everyday responsibilities in our everyday routines.
Moses was shepherding his flock at Mount Horeb. Gideon was threshing wheat by the winepress. David was looking after his father's sheep. Elisha was plowing with twelve yoke of oxen. Nehemiah was serving wine to the king. Amos was tending his flock and his sycamore-fig trees. Peter and Andrew were casting their fishing net into the sea. James and John were mending their nets. Matthew was collecting taxes. The Samaritan woman was drawing water from the well. Saul was in the midst of a "business trip." All of these people were simply living their ordinary lives when God invaded, interrupted, and turned their world inside out.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
The Pinnacle of Power: What I saw at the U2 concert by ANDY CROUCH
A great reflection piece by one of my favorite cultural thinkers about the band that has been my personal favorite for over 20 years and a lead singer who has played a shockingly large role in flipping my world upside down...enjoy...and oh how I wish I had been there...
Sometime in high school, I acquired the idea that attending a rock concert, for a middle-class kid anyway, was a transgressive act. It was a step out of the sedate norms of suburban life into an exhilarating, dangerous netherworld, an intoxicating haze of smoke, primal rhythms, and throbbing sensuality—throwing off the shackles of predictable conformity and throwing down the gauntlet of rebellion.
Well, earlier this week I joined 60,000 Midwesterners at U2’s 360 Tour concert at Chicago’s Soldier Field, and can report, with faint disappointment, that the most transgressive act I managed to commit, or indeed witnessed all evening, was talking with some friends in the narrow stairway of section 443 before the concert began, thus impeding the path and incurring the wrath of the vendors of Miller Lite. (“ONE CAN LIMIT,” their coolers proclaimed.)
The concertgoers streamed into the Chicago Bears’ home stadium in attire that can best be described as Apple Store Clientele—casual cool with an extra helping of organic sustainability. Befitting U2’s long and protean career, they were strikingly intergenerational. Four teenage boys wearing school T-shirts from the Near North Side, cleancut and fresh-faced, stood right in front of me, singing every word through the whole show. A couple rows down, two late-40s parents escorted their teenage daughter and preteen son. Or was it the other way around? I saw lots of parents accompanying pre-driving-age teenagers, making me wonder whether the parents or the children had been the ones to make the case for going to see U2. Perhaps the predominant demographic, at least in the nosebleed seats, was twentysomething couples, few of whom betrayed the nervous electricity of first dates: my bet is they were either married or contentedly cohabitating. All in all, it was a perfectly domestic evening.
The show was spectacular, of course—conducted in the round under a superstructure that was part circus tent, part spacecraft, part church spire, with a pantographic video wall whose versatility was probably the best surprise of the evening. (It’s hard to remember or believe that rock acts used to fill stadiums without using video, so essential is the medium for bringing the tiny figures on stage to life.) Perhaps my experience was affected by the third-rate sound at our level (one friend said that given the multiple echoes, it was like we were attending three concerts each two seconds apart), but what captured my attention most of all was the visual drama of the night, not the music. And what really began to captivate me was what was happening in the seats, not on stage.
The scene, it dawned on me, was straight out of a Leni Riefenstahl film—the stadium, the adoring crowd, the fists pumping the air, the coordination, not to say manipulation, of emotion, music, volume, noise, silence. The performance was masterful in every sense of the word, including its more sinister sense. The mastery was not just that of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen, Jr.—it was also, even more so, that of a great unseen crew of engineers, designers, videographers, producers. They used every trick in the book, and several tricks destined to be added to books yet to be written, to usher four men, and above all one man, to a position of power.
The tempter in the gospels suggested that Jesus throw himself from the pinnacle of Herod’s Temple—perhaps 150 feet high—in order to gain the admiration and worship of the masses of Judea. But U2’s stage set (which rises to 164 feet if the scarily comprehensive Wikipedia article can be believed), with all its technological wizardry, makes the Temple look like an elementary-school swingset. To be sure, Bono did not ascend its central spire and throw himself down, but if he had, I suspect the crowd would have gone wild.
U2 seems to have found a way to wield tremendous power without being consumed by it.
For what became clear, and increasingly distracted me from the brilliant performance, was that the crowd wanted it all. They wanted to look alike (each, of course, alike in their own individually expressive way—each judiciously sized tattoo, placed where it would be covered by business attire, a personal statement). They wanted to pump their fists in unison. They wanted to vicariously exult, suffer, die (at the conclusion of one song Bono lay sprawled on the stage, motionless, just long enough for the crowd to catch its breath in anxiety), and triumph. The boys in front of me—was it so long ago that I was their age, their stage, full of their improbable joy and rage?—were almost palpably desperate to be drawn in. The right man, I thought, could have transmuted all this fervor into something genuinely powerful, genuinely transformative in the world beyond the stadium. Or the wrong man. Ask Leni Riefenstahl.
It is curious to think that in this postmodern age of pluralism, individualism, and self-expression, fascism may not be as far removed as we think. Perhaps it is not incidental that Apple, the ultimate merchant of cool (for whose products I am daily, insanely grateful), enforces its own sort of velvet-fisted uniformity on its devotees. I cannot be the only person to have occasionally wondered if I am worthy, not to mention appropriately dressed, even to enter an Apple Store. But enter it we do, in search of simplicity, beauty, and predictability—a bit of control in a complex and chaotic world. Which is pretty much what all gods offer their worshippers.
All of which makes me glad and a bit amazed that such power has fallen, in the case of U2, into such humble hands. Bono would be the first to protest that he is anything but humble, but of course that is one of the signs of humility. For all the posturing, for all the 30-foot-high closeups on the screen, after much wandering and experimenting (including a phase where Bono dressed up as Mephistopheles) U2 seems to have found a way to wield tremendous power without being consumed by it. They have done so by choosing to spend their power on others, and on pointing to Another. The two emotional highlights of the show, for me at least, were a performance of the sublime anthem “Walk On” dedicated to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, with a simple but effective bit of crowdsourced theater on behalf of her cause; and an a capella rendition of the first verse of “Amazing Grace.” The crowd knew the words, and they sang along.
If it is possible for as outsized a personality as Bono to recede from awareness, in those moments he was just one of us, leading us beyond himself to what truly matters. This is something that Steve Jobs, for all his brilliance, has never done—his rare public efforts to address any topic larger than the latest insanely great Apple product, such as his much-quoted 2005 Stanford commencement speech, are no more and no less than a distilled version of the Western cult of self-realization. Steve Jobs has never led a crowd in singing “Amazing Grace.” Maybe someday he will, though perhaps first he will have to go through a phase where he dresses up as Mephistopheles.
As it happens, U2’s 360 Tour was, in a dramatic shift, sponsored not by Apple, which sold umpteen million devices to the throbbing soundtrack of “Vertigo” back in 2005, but by a much humbler fruit, the Blackberry. No doubt that decision was made primarily for commercial reasons (though Bono has also said that Apple wasn’t interested in collaborating creatively with U2, which tells you something about Apple’s corporate confidence). But it’s interesting in its symbolism nonetheless, and suggests that U2 will continue to turn their unparalleled cultural power in unexpected directions. If all the stories hold together, it was Mephistopheles who tempted Adam before he tempted Christ, urging him to take a bite. Against all odds, U2 keep telling that old, wily fool to get behind them, turning the vast unquenchable human thirst for worship toward someone worthy of it. Walk on.
Sometime in high school, I acquired the idea that attending a rock concert, for a middle-class kid anyway, was a transgressive act. It was a step out of the sedate norms of suburban life into an exhilarating, dangerous netherworld, an intoxicating haze of smoke, primal rhythms, and throbbing sensuality—throwing off the shackles of predictable conformity and throwing down the gauntlet of rebellion.
Well, earlier this week I joined 60,000 Midwesterners at U2’s 360 Tour concert at Chicago’s Soldier Field, and can report, with faint disappointment, that the most transgressive act I managed to commit, or indeed witnessed all evening, was talking with some friends in the narrow stairway of section 443 before the concert began, thus impeding the path and incurring the wrath of the vendors of Miller Lite. (“ONE CAN LIMIT,” their coolers proclaimed.)
The concertgoers streamed into the Chicago Bears’ home stadium in attire that can best be described as Apple Store Clientele—casual cool with an extra helping of organic sustainability. Befitting U2’s long and protean career, they were strikingly intergenerational. Four teenage boys wearing school T-shirts from the Near North Side, cleancut and fresh-faced, stood right in front of me, singing every word through the whole show. A couple rows down, two late-40s parents escorted their teenage daughter and preteen son. Or was it the other way around? I saw lots of parents accompanying pre-driving-age teenagers, making me wonder whether the parents or the children had been the ones to make the case for going to see U2. Perhaps the predominant demographic, at least in the nosebleed seats, was twentysomething couples, few of whom betrayed the nervous electricity of first dates: my bet is they were either married or contentedly cohabitating. All in all, it was a perfectly domestic evening.
The show was spectacular, of course—conducted in the round under a superstructure that was part circus tent, part spacecraft, part church spire, with a pantographic video wall whose versatility was probably the best surprise of the evening. (It’s hard to remember or believe that rock acts used to fill stadiums without using video, so essential is the medium for bringing the tiny figures on stage to life.) Perhaps my experience was affected by the third-rate sound at our level (one friend said that given the multiple echoes, it was like we were attending three concerts each two seconds apart), but what captured my attention most of all was the visual drama of the night, not the music. And what really began to captivate me was what was happening in the seats, not on stage.
The scene, it dawned on me, was straight out of a Leni Riefenstahl film—the stadium, the adoring crowd, the fists pumping the air, the coordination, not to say manipulation, of emotion, music, volume, noise, silence. The performance was masterful in every sense of the word, including its more sinister sense. The mastery was not just that of Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen, Jr.—it was also, even more so, that of a great unseen crew of engineers, designers, videographers, producers. They used every trick in the book, and several tricks destined to be added to books yet to be written, to usher four men, and above all one man, to a position of power.
The tempter in the gospels suggested that Jesus throw himself from the pinnacle of Herod’s Temple—perhaps 150 feet high—in order to gain the admiration and worship of the masses of Judea. But U2’s stage set (which rises to 164 feet if the scarily comprehensive Wikipedia article can be believed), with all its technological wizardry, makes the Temple look like an elementary-school swingset. To be sure, Bono did not ascend its central spire and throw himself down, but if he had, I suspect the crowd would have gone wild.
U2 seems to have found a way to wield tremendous power without being consumed by it.
For what became clear, and increasingly distracted me from the brilliant performance, was that the crowd wanted it all. They wanted to look alike (each, of course, alike in their own individually expressive way—each judiciously sized tattoo, placed where it would be covered by business attire, a personal statement). They wanted to pump their fists in unison. They wanted to vicariously exult, suffer, die (at the conclusion of one song Bono lay sprawled on the stage, motionless, just long enough for the crowd to catch its breath in anxiety), and triumph. The boys in front of me—was it so long ago that I was their age, their stage, full of their improbable joy and rage?—were almost palpably desperate to be drawn in. The right man, I thought, could have transmuted all this fervor into something genuinely powerful, genuinely transformative in the world beyond the stadium. Or the wrong man. Ask Leni Riefenstahl.
It is curious to think that in this postmodern age of pluralism, individualism, and self-expression, fascism may not be as far removed as we think. Perhaps it is not incidental that Apple, the ultimate merchant of cool (for whose products I am daily, insanely grateful), enforces its own sort of velvet-fisted uniformity on its devotees. I cannot be the only person to have occasionally wondered if I am worthy, not to mention appropriately dressed, even to enter an Apple Store. But enter it we do, in search of simplicity, beauty, and predictability—a bit of control in a complex and chaotic world. Which is pretty much what all gods offer their worshippers.
All of which makes me glad and a bit amazed that such power has fallen, in the case of U2, into such humble hands. Bono would be the first to protest that he is anything but humble, but of course that is one of the signs of humility. For all the posturing, for all the 30-foot-high closeups on the screen, after much wandering and experimenting (including a phase where Bono dressed up as Mephistopheles) U2 seems to have found a way to wield tremendous power without being consumed by it. They have done so by choosing to spend their power on others, and on pointing to Another. The two emotional highlights of the show, for me at least, were a performance of the sublime anthem “Walk On” dedicated to Burma’s Aung San Suu Kyi, with a simple but effective bit of crowdsourced theater on behalf of her cause; and an a capella rendition of the first verse of “Amazing Grace.” The crowd knew the words, and they sang along.
If it is possible for as outsized a personality as Bono to recede from awareness, in those moments he was just one of us, leading us beyond himself to what truly matters. This is something that Steve Jobs, for all his brilliance, has never done—his rare public efforts to address any topic larger than the latest insanely great Apple product, such as his much-quoted 2005 Stanford commencement speech, are no more and no less than a distilled version of the Western cult of self-realization. Steve Jobs has never led a crowd in singing “Amazing Grace.” Maybe someday he will, though perhaps first he will have to go through a phase where he dresses up as Mephistopheles.
As it happens, U2’s 360 Tour was, in a dramatic shift, sponsored not by Apple, which sold umpteen million devices to the throbbing soundtrack of “Vertigo” back in 2005, but by a much humbler fruit, the Blackberry. No doubt that decision was made primarily for commercial reasons (though Bono has also said that Apple wasn’t interested in collaborating creatively with U2, which tells you something about Apple’s corporate confidence). But it’s interesting in its symbolism nonetheless, and suggests that U2 will continue to turn their unparalleled cultural power in unexpected directions. If all the stories hold together, it was Mephistopheles who tempted Adam before he tempted Christ, urging him to take a bite. Against all odds, U2 keep telling that old, wily fool to get behind them, turning the vast unquenchable human thirst for worship toward someone worthy of it. Walk on.
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