Conversations with Bono - Part 1

These days I'm really enjoying reading a book called "Bono on Bono" which is not a typical biography but a series of conversations that he had with a friend of his who is a french journalist. I thought it would be interesting to post small bits of the book.

Correct. But you've also never seen a skeptic or an atheist smash himself to pieces in order to kill as many people as possible. I mean, atheists would organize concentration camps or would plan collective starvation, but this kind of terror we are dealing with now is of a spiritual nature. You can't hide from that.

It's true. Yeah, smashing other people to pieces doesn't need the same conviction. Most terrorist want to change the material world. Well, add eternity to that, and people can go a lot further to pursue their ends. It's a big prize, isn't it, eternity? It's not a two-term presidency. (laughs) But of course, this is always a corruption of some holy thesis, whether it's the Koran or the Bible. My understanding of the Scriptures has been made simple by the person of Christ. Christ teaches that God is love. What does that mean? What it means for me: a study of the life of Christ. Love here describes itself as a child born in straw poverty, the most vulnerable situation of all, without honor. I don't let my religious world get too complicated. I just kind of go: Well, I think I know who God is. God is love, and as much as I respond in allowing myself to be transformed by that love and acting in that love, that's my religion. Where things get complicated for me, is when I try to live this love. Now, that's not so easy.

What about the God of the Old Testament? He wasn't so "peace and love."

There's nothing hippie about my picture of Christ. The Gospels paint a picture of a very demanding, sometimes divisive love, but love it is. I accept the Old Testament as more of an action movie: blood, car chases, evacuations, a lot of special effects, seas dividing, mass murder, adultery. The children of God are running amok, wayward. Maybe that's why they're so relatable. But the way we would see it, those of us who are trying to figure out our Christian conundrum, is that the God of the Old Testament is like the journey from stern father to friend. When you're a child, you need clear directions and some strict rules. But with Christ, we have access in a one-to-one relationship, for as in the Old Testament, it was more one of worship and awe, a vertical relationship. The New Testament, on the other hand, we look across at a Jesus who looks familiar, horizontal. The combination is what makes the Cross.