part 1

This is the second part of a series where I am excerpting extensively from the book Bono: In conversation with Michka Assayas. In my earlier post on Bono and his faith, I focused mostly on his reaction and thoughts on “fundamentalism” , both Islamic and Christian.

In this post I knew I wanted to post a few paragraphs from the book I had remembered where he talked about when he was in a radically obedient fundamentalist-like community and how he loved being able to hear excellent teaching from the bible. Well, I was having a hard time finding that passage in the book and my 14 year old son, said to me “Why don’t you use Amazon’s “Search Inside the Book” feature? What a smart boy he is. I found the passage in about 1 minute.

<RabbitTrail> Because of this and other incredibly useful features at Amazon, as well as for being totally bleeding edge and innovative when it comes to utility computing and web services (which I will blog about soon), I officially forgive Amazon for screwing me and my son last year and will lift the personal Amazon boycott I have been engaged in. However, I don’t think my wife is ready to do the same. I’ll have to ask her.</RabbitTrail>.

The background to this story is that Bono and Edge are young and poor and have gotten involved with a very communal, anti-materialistic, radically obedient church led by a former missionary kid to China named Chris Rowe. Anyway here’s Bono talking about that experience . . .

Bono on poverty, music, worship and the Bible

BONO: At that time I lived that way. I lived with no possessions. We were part of a community. Everyone helped each other out sharing what little money we had. I wasnt earning very much . What I had, I’d pass it on. It was like a church that was really commited to chaging the world, really. Not in a gigantic way, en masse, but in small ways: individual by individual. I was very influenced by a man called Chris Rowe and his beautiful wife, Lillian. I think he had spent a lot of time in China, the child of a mission there before the Communists threw his family out. He was an older man. He relied on the Lord to provide them with everything they needed. They were living hand-to-mouth, this community. I guess he would have been what you would call the pastor of the church, but he’d be much to radical to wear a collar or anything like that. This wa sthe real deal: a radical group. And I said, “Look, you shouldn’t have to worry about money. We’re gonna earn plenty of money. I’m in a band, and I know we’ll be able to help. We’re gonna make it.” He jsut looked at me and laughed. I remember he said to me: “I wouldn’t want money earned that way.” And I said “What do you mean by that?” He revealed to me that, even though he had known we were serious about being musicians, and being in a rock group, that he was only really tolerating it. He didn’t really believe that our music was an integral part of who we were as religious people unless we used the music to evangelize. I knew that he didn’t really get it, and that indeed he was missing out on our blessing. Such a zealot he was, and such a fundamentalist, he didn’t want a part of this rock’n’ roll thing. Maybe its a compliment to him: we could have been a cash cow.

MICHKA: So he was not the Maharishi.

BONO: He was certainly not the Maharishi. He was a great teacher of the Scriptures. For a couple of years, every few days, I would get to listen to him. I learnt a lot. These are ancient great texts, and you can learn a lot from them if you have somebody who can open them up, who has the intellectual capacity, but also the spiritual capacity. Because in the end, they’r more than just books. It was hard to leave, but he didn’t understand we were kind of shunned.There was a moment where myself and Edge sat around and we thought: “Well, maybe we should knock this group on the head. Maybe it is frivolous, maybe these people are right, maybe this is just bollocks, this being in a band, and maybe its just ego and mabe we should put it behind us and get to the real work of trying to change our own lives, and just get out into the worl. There’s much to do there.” For a couple of weeks, we were at that place. Then we came to a realization: “Hold on a second. Where are these gifts coming from? This is how we worship God, even though we don’t write religious songs, becasue we don’t feel God needs the advertising.” [laughs] In fact, we ended up at a place where we thought: “The music isn’t bollocks. This kind of fundamentalism is what’s bollocks”

part 3