“I don’t doubt God. I have firm faith absolutely in God. It’s religion I’m doubting.”
“I find solace in places I never could have imagined: the quiet sprinkling of my child’s head in Baptism, a gospel choir drunk on the Holy Spirit in Memphis, or the back of a catherdral in Rome watching the first cinematographers play with light and colour in stained glass stories of the Passion. I am still amazed at how big, how enormous the love and mystery of God is -- and how small are the minds that attempt to corral this life force into rules and taboos, cults, and sects.”
--Bono, from the forward of Adam Harbinson’s “They’ve Hijacked God”
“Coolness might help in your negotiation with people through the world, maybe, but it is impossible to meet God with sunglasses on. It is impossible to meet God without abandon, without exposing yourself, being raw. That’s the connection with great music and art, and that is why it’s uncomfortable, that is why cool is the enemy of it, because that’s the other reason you wanted to join a band: you wanted to do the cool thing. Trying to capture religious experiences on tape wasn’t what you had in mind when you signed up for the job.”
–Bono in conversation with Michka Assayas
“Well, you know, I am not a very good advertisement for God. So, I generally don’t wear that badge on my lapel. But it is certainly written on the inside. I am a believer. There are 2,103 verses of Scripture pertaining to the poor. Jesus Christ only speaks of judgement once. It is not all about the things that the church bangs on about. It is not about sexual immorality, and it is not about megalomania, or vanity. It is about the poor. ‘I was naked you clothed me. I was a stranger and you let me in.’ This is at the heart of the gospel. Why is it that we have seemed to have forgotten this? Why isn’t the church leading this movement? I am here tonight because the church ought to be ready to do that.
--Bono in response to Thunderstruck’s question about how faith motivates his activism, asked during a press conference at Northeast Christian Church in Louisville, Kentucky
“Q: Money. Irishness. God. Which one couldn’t you live without?
Bono: Wow. Well it’s an easy question to ask but... here’s a thing. When I was 16, my head was exploding. I just felt my life was going nowhere. I didn’t fit in. I couldn’t get a job. I didn’t know how I could do my exams and I wasn’t even sure I could concentrate at college. In those days, I remember, a prayer came up inside me. I said “I don’t know what I’m going to do with my life but if there’s a God out there, and I believe there is, and You want me to do something, then I’m ready. I don’t have any plans for myself and I’m available for work.” Pretty much within a few months of that epiphany I had joined U2 and started going out with Ali. A pretty good two months! Now had my destiny been -- if the God in heaven had said I want you to become a fireman and run up very dangerous buildings and save people’s pets, I’d like to hope I’d have gone at it with the same gusto. So -- I couldn’t let go of my faith. But what’s more interesting is that I don’t think God will let go of me. I love it when people on bar stools rub their chins and say do you believe in God? That’s so presumptuous. A much more important question is does God believe in us?
Q: That sounds like you believe you were chosen.
Bono: No, no, no, I don’t believe that. I do think God gets a laugh out of using some very poor materials. I volunteered is what I’m telling you.”
--Bono in Q Magazine
BONO ON FAITH WALK: “And this wise man asked me to stop. He said, Stop asking God to bless what you’re doing. Get involved in what God is doing -- because it’s already blessed.”
“As an artist, I see the poetry of it. It’s so brilliant. That this scale of creation, and the unfathomable universe, should describe itself in such vulnerability, as a child. That is mind-blowing to me. I guess that would make me a Christian. Although I don’t use the label, because it is so very hard to live up to. I feel like I’m the worst example of it, so just kinda keep my mouth shut.”
“At a certain point, I just felt, you know, God is not looking for alms, God is looking for action.”
BONO ON BILLY GRAHAM: “At a time when religion seems so often to get in the way of God’s work -- with its shopping mall sales pitch and its bumpersticker reductionism -- I give thanks just for the sanity of Billy Graham, for that clear, empathetic voice of his in that Southern accent. Part poet, part preacher -- a singer of the human spirit. Yeah, I give thanks for Billy Graham. Thanks Billy Graham.”
--Bono on Pat Boone’s new video tribute to Billy Graham
BONO ON WORSHIP: “I believe being a worship leader is the highest of all art forms, to worship and call people into the presence of God.”
-- Bono, discussing Christian and secular music with a group of reporters after the National Prayer Breakfast
BONO ON FATHERHOOD: “A lot of people thought having kids would chill me out. Far from it. I got more intense in a lot of ways about the way I saw the world, my determination to get to grips with it. It’s the lengths you would go to protect your children. My pacifism, my hallmark in the 1980s, was challenged by having children. I try to channel that into activism.”
--Bono in Rolling Stone
BONO ON SELF: “I’m a scribbling, cigar-smoking, wine-drinking, Bible-reading band man. A show off (laughs)...who loves to paint pictures of what I can’t see. A husband, father, friend of the poor and sometimes the rich. An activist traveling salesman of ideas...Chess-player, part-time rock star, opera singer, in the loudest folk group in the world...”
--Bono’s self description in Bono: In Conversation with Michka Assayas
(Courtesy: Thunderstruck)
