Why U2’s Songs Shouldn’t Be Sung In Church
I’m loving listening to U2’s The Best of 1990–2000 and B-Sides. What lyrics, creativity and serious tunes. Plus gotta love a remix! But I don’t think they’re intended to be songs of worship and praise in the way that hymns and songs of praise and worship are in church services. So should a U2 Eucharist be a thing?
But at the same time they are songs of praise, worship and faith in that Bono and other members of U2 have faith and are seeking to use the talents and creativity that God has given them to discuss emotional and spiritual things; issues of justice even. And some may argue Wesley, Jesus People etc took contemporary music and used it in religious services — surely this is just the same thing?
I think U2 are more like parables — in the Bible Jesus (like any good Rabbi or Jewish Prophet) used everyday examples (case studies if you will) to compare and contrast, laying one side along another to let us look at them closely and see the truth within them. Often these might include an object lesson too! Although literacy was important in Jewish and early Christian cultures, so too was memory, remembering and the visual, and parables and stories were strongly used.
And this is what U2 do — not only do they give us great lyrics, but we get powerful visual images (in concerts, performances and in the songs themselves). We are invited to compare emotions, scenarios and situations and connect emotionally, spiritually and visually. I.e. ‘Happiness is a Warm Gun’ — is it? Well for some people it isn’t and for some people it is, leading us to then think about issues of gun control, war, defense and society, and well, what is happiness really — where does it come from, or who/what?
Therefore, I would strongly suggest that we scrap the U2 Eucharist and stop singing U2’s With or Without You in church services; instead we can and should use secular music to reflect and think, just as Jesus did with the parables.
“It’s not why you’re running
It’s where you’re going
It’s not what you’re dreaming
But what you’re gonna do
It’s not where you’re born
It’s where you belong
It’s not how weak
But what will make you strong”
U2, Summer Rain,
