Discussing
When Bono met Eugene Peterson…

Watch a Fuller Studio video of Eugene Peterson discussing The Psalms with U2's Bono.

Thank you for "Think Christian". Sometimes I want to not read or otherwise close the book so to speak because it takes me out of my comfort zone of literal understanding and forces me to open up to more possibilities. I.E., one may not talk like, always walk like or seem like a Christian .... BUT, they are! The diversity, colors, and expression of Christianity is as varied as we are physically, mentally and emotionally. We are one as His children and true believers nonetheless. Glorious truth!

I've never cared for U2's music but I've come to greatly respect and admire Bono, for reasons having nothing to do with him as a musician.

Thanks so much for posting this. I first heard "40" on a bootleg U2 tape I bought at a record store not too long after becoming a Christian. In high school at the time - it was such a relief to know that a band I was growing to really like was tuned in to the Bible. In a way it made my Christianity "ok" while comforting me to know that the music and art that I loved could be used so powerfully to move people closer to God vs. being something that was sinful or distracting. Watching this video this morning some thirty plus years after buying that tape... I can't recall anything in recent memory that captures better how I see the world through my own relationship with God.

Bono comments about honesty in Christian Music....asking why they don't also write about the bad things, the struggles of/over/against the flesh.

It reminds me of a statement (can't find the quote right now) by the Reformer Martin Luther regarding "hagiography", i.e., concerning the lives of the saints, namely, that he took comfort in the few cases one could find in the lives of historic saints where imperfections are recorded--that they struggled, had imperfections to contend with, and yes, had not merely grievous sins to repent of and overcome but deeper than that, at root, a sinful condition/nature to contend with until death (as we all do)...and yet had no viable, lasting recourse for overcoming let alone contending with such in one's self, but only in God's long-suffering mercy and sheer grace freely given to one and all in His Word, which is Christ for all.

Like others who grew up with U2 and love the 'honest' music/lyrics, one looks forward to sitting down with Bono (not to mention Eugene Peterson) in Heaven someday for a fireside chat, a harmonious Doxology like the Divinely-Inspired Psalms which is utterly honest, real as real can be, unlike the broken fragments we have now in this life, of what C.S. Lewis would call these "Shadowlands."