In Sunday's sermon for World AIDS Day, I mentioned that one of my own personal saints is Bono, lead singer of my favorite band, U2. Bono has decided to cash in whatever cache his celebrity status can give him to raise awarness about extreme poverty in developing nations, especially Africa, and the worldwide AIDS epidemic--again, especially in Africa. I quoted from one of the speeches that he's made over the last few years on the subject (if you follow the link you can watch the entire speech on video):This is not a cause, it’s an emergency…Six and a half thousand people dying a day may be Africa’s crisis, but the fact that it’s not on the nightly news, that we in Europe or you in America are not treating it like an emergency… that’s our crisis…Though Africa is not the front line in the war in terror, it could be soon…Despair breeds violence, we know this. In turbulent times isn’t it cheaper and smarter to make friends out of potential enemies than to defend yourself against them later? ...You see, the scale of the suffering numbs us into a kind of indifference. What on earth can we all do about this? Well, much more than we think. We can’t fix every problem, but the ones we can, I want to argue, we must. And because we can, we must. This is the straight truth, the righteous truth. It is not a theory. The fact is that ours is the first generation that can look disease and extreme poverty in the eye, look across the ocean to Africa and say this and mean it: we do not have to stand for this. A whole continent written off — we do not have to stand for this. History, like God, is watching what we do.
On Monday, The Washington Post ran a big story on Bono's lobbying work in Washington D.C. It's well worth a read. Here's a taste:
"I think knowing the Scriptures helped," Bono says of his conversations with more conservative legislators. His father was Roman Catholic, and it was his Protestant mother who regularly took him to church before her death when Bono was 14. "I think I could debate with them. I hope they had appreciated that, and they knew I had respect for their beliefs. Even if I wasn't the best example of how to live your life, they treated me with respect. I'm nervous of zealotism, even though I have to admit I'm a zealot for these issues of extreme poverty."
Bono seems to provide for many in official Washington a form of inspiration, reaching into those corners of the soul to find whatever remained of the sense of optimism and altruism that drove them into public service in the first place. What Bono demands in return is the means to save the lives of millions.
"Why are people listening?" Bono says. "Because I actually believe in America and they know it and I'm not sure if they do sometimes. It is a little odd and eerie to have an Irish rock star recite the Declaration of Independence like it's a great poem, but it is a great poem. And that poetry is what's missing from political dialogue right now. And this country is parched, parched from the lack of such political lyrics, and I'm going in saying, 'This is who you are.' "
Who are we as Americans? Who are we as Christians? Who are we as American Christians? It may take an Irish rock star to remind us these questions matter.
Feel like jumping on Bono's bandwagon? Check out the One Campaign and sign the pledge.
Grace and Peace,
Chase
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