Bono, The Bible & The Blues, by U2's Bono

Welcome to a New Year of Reform-Shire postings. I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are ready to go for another year. I've known for some time now that Bono of U2 has some good theological background and understanding of the Bible. Although, he doesn't always present himself in a manner of what "cookie-cutter" shape that we think he should. I think he's right on with a lot of what he says below. I hope you enjoy it. <>"In the Name of Love!" Coram Deo!!! Chris Leave a comment: ______________________________________ Psalm Like It Hot What Elvis was to rock'n'roll, David was to the blues. Bono, U2's singer and a campaigner to end Third World debt, argues that the psalms truly rock the soul. The Guardian (U.K.), October 31, 1999 Bono Explaining belief has always been difficult. How do you explain a love and logic at the heart of the universe when the world is so out of kilter with this? Has free will got us crucified? And what about the dodgy characters who inhabit the tome known as the Bible, who hear the voice of God? Explaining faith is impossible: vision over visibility; instinct over intellect. A songwriter plays a chord with the faith that he will hear the next one in his head. One of the writers of the psalms was a musician, a harp-player whose talents were required at "the palace" as the only medicine that would still the demons of the moody and insecure King Saul of Israel. It is a thought that still inspires: Marilyn sang for Kennedy, the Spice Girls for Prince Charles. At the age of 12, I was a fan of David. He felt familiar, like a pop star could feel familiar. The words of the psalms were as poetic as they were religious, and he was a star. Before David could fulfil the prophecy and become the king of Israel, he had to take quite a beating. He was forced into exile and ended up in a cave in some no-name border town facing the collapse of his ego and abandonment by God. But this is where the soap opera got interesting. This is where David was said to have composed his first psalm -- a blues. That's what a lot of the psalms feel like to me, the blues. Man shouting at God -- "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far from helping me?" (Psalm 22). I hear echoes of this holy row when un-holy bluesman Robert Johnson howls, "There's a hellhound on my trail" or Van Morrison sings, "Sometimes, I feel like a motherless child." Texas Alexander mimics the psalms in "Justice Blues": "I cried Lord my father, Lord kingdom come. Send me back my woman, then thy will be done." Humorous, sometimes blasphemous, the blues was backslidin' music but, by its very opposition, it flattered the subject of its perfect cousin, gospel. Abandonment and displacement are the stuff of my favourite psalms. The Psalter may be a font of gospel music, but for me it's despair that the psalmist really reveals and the nature of his special relationship with God. Honesty, even to the point of anger. "How long, Lord? Wilt thou hide thyself forever?" (Psalm 89), or "Answer me when I call" (Psalm 5). Psalms and hymns were my first taste of inspirational music. I liked the words, but I wasn't sure about the tunes -- with the exception of Psalm 23, "The Lord is my Shepherd." I remember them as droned and chanted rather than sung. But they prepared me for the honesty of John Lennon, the baroque language of Bob Dylan and Leonard Cohen, the open throat of Al Green and Stevie Wonder. When I hear these singers, I am reconnected to a part of me I have no explanation for -- my "soul" I guess. Words and music did for me what solid, even rigorous, religious argument could never do -- they introduced me to God, not belief in God, more an experiential sense of GOD. Over art, literature, girls, my mates, the way in to my spirit was a combination of words and music. As a result, the Book of Psalms always felt open to me and led me to the poetry of Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, the book of John...My religion could not be fiction, but it had to transcend facts. It could be mystical, but not mythical. My mother was Protestant, my father Catholic. Anywhere other than Ireland that would be unremarkable. The "Prods" at that time had the better tunes and the Catholics had the better stage-gear. My mate Gavin Friday used to say: "Roman Catholicism is the Glamrock of religion" with its candles and psychedelic colours -- cardinal blues, scarlets and purples -- smoke bombs of incense and the ring of the little bell. The Prods were better at the bigger bells, they could afford them. In Ireland, wealth and Protestantism went together. To have either was to have collaborated with the enemy -- that is, Britain. This did not fly in our house. After going to Mass at the top of the hill, in Finglas on the north side of Dublin, my father waited outside the little Church of Ireland chapel at the bottom of the hill, where my mother had brought her two sons. I kept myself awake thinking of the clergyman's daughter and let my eyes dive into the cinema of the stained glass. These Christian artists had invented the movies. Light projected through colour to tell their story. In the Seventies the story was "the Troubles," and the Troubles came through the stained glass, with rocks thrown more in mischief than in anger. But the message was the same: the country was to be divided along sectarian lines. I had a foot in both camps, so my Goliath became religion itself: I began to see religion as the perversion of faith. I began to see God everywhere else. In girls, fun, music, justice and still -- despite the lofty King James translation -- the Scriptures. I loved these stories for the basest reasons. These were action movies, with some hardcore men and women, the car chases, the casualties, the blood and guts. There was very little kissing. David was a star, the Elvis of the Bible, if we can believe the chiselling of Michelangelo. And unusually for such a "rock star," with his lust for power, lust for women, lust for life, he had the humility of one who knew his gift worked harder than he ever would. He even danced naked in front of his troops -- the biblical equivalent of the royal walkabout. David was definitely more performance artist than politician. Anyway, I stopped going to churches and got into a different kind of religion. Don't laugh. That's what being in a rock 'n' roll band is. Showbiz is shamanism, music is worship. Whether it's worship of women or their designer, the world or its destroyer, whether it comes from that ancient place we call soul or simply the spinal cortex, whether the prayers are on fire with a dumb rage or dove-like desire, the smoke goes upwards, to God or something you replace God with -- usually yourself. Years ago, lost for words and with 40 minutes of recording time left before the end of our studio time, we were still looking for a song to close our third album, War. We wanted to put something explicitly spiritual on the record to balance the politics and romance of it; like Bob Marley or Marvin Gaye would. We thought about the psalms -- Psalm 40. There was some squirming. We were a very "white" rock group, and such plundering of the scriptures was taboo for a white rock group unless it was in the "service of Satan." Psalm 40 is interesting in that it suggests a time in which grace will replace karma, and love will replace the very strict laws of Moses (in other words, fulfil them). I love that thought. David, who committed some of the most selfish as well as selfless acts, was depending on it. That the scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers and mercenaries used to shock me. Now it is a source of great comfort. "40" became the closing song at U2 shows, and on hundreds of occasions, literally hundreds of thousands of people of every size and shape of T-shirt have shouted back the refrain, pinched from Psalm 6: "How long (to sing this song)." I had thought of it as a nagging question, pulling at the hem of an invisible deity whose presence we glimpse only when we act in love. How long hunger? How long hatred? How long until creation grows up and the chaos of its precocious, hell-bent adolescence has been discarded? I thought it odd that the vocalising of such questions could bring such comfort -- to me, too. But to get back to David, it is not clear how many of these psalms David or his son Solomon really wrote. Some scholars suggest that the royals never dampened their nibs and that there was a host of Holy Ghost writers. Who cares? I didn't buy Leiber and Stoller -- they were just his songwriters. I bought Elvis. The Book of Psalms, with this introduction by Bono is published tomorrow by Canongate as part of a new series of pocket canons. © 1999 The Guardian. All rights reserved.

Related Article(s): September 13 1999 - The Scotsman - Small Print August 04 1999 - The Irish Echo - The Bible, According to Bono July 25 1999 - New York magazine - Abraham, Moses, Isaiah, Bono?

Reformation Study Bible

Merry Christmas!!!

To a dear friend and his family.

Gotta love that Bible.

Dr. Steve Larson - Doctrines of Grace

You MUST see this video interview about the Doctrines of Grace by Ligonier Ministries.
Grace and Peace,

Chris Allen
Sola Deo Gloria!!!

The Atonement

The Atonement

Why is the atonement necessary? Because God is holy and we are not. Follow the outline below which leads us through scriptures that demonstrate the reason, the problem, and the solution for our sin problem.

1. God - is the standard of righteousness
1. Is holy (1 Sam. 2:2; Isaiah 43:3,14,15; Rev. 4:8)
2. Just (Deut. 32:4; Psalm 89:14; 97:2; 145:17)
3. Righteous (Psalm 145:17)
4. Judge (Psalm 50:6; 96:10,13; Isaiah 33:3-4)
5. Visits wrath on the ungodly (Rom. 1:18)
6. Too pure to look upon evil (Hab. 1:13)
2. The Law - is a reflection of His character
1. Comes from God (Exodus 20:1-26; Isaiah 33:22; James 4:12)
2. Is holy (Rom. 7:12)
3. Is covenantal (Deut. 4:13,23)
4. Inaugurated with blood (Heb. 9:18-23)
5. Brings the knowledge of sin (Rom. 3:20)
6. Is perfect (Psalm 19:7)
7. Cannot make man perfect (Heb. 7:19; 10:1)
3. Man - is the Sinner or Law Breaker
1. Sin is breaking the Law of God (1 John 3:4)
2. Man is a law breaker (Rom. 3:23)
3. Original Sin - Our inherited sinful nature from Adam (Gen. 3:1-6; Rom. 5:12)
4. Human nature - We are by nature children of wrath because we are sinners (Eph. 2:3)
1. Heart is wicked (Jer. 17:9; Mark 7:21-23)
2. Spiritually blind (1 Cor. 2:14)
3. Does not seek for God (Rom. 3:11).
4. Is lawless, rebellious, unholy, and profane (1 Tim. 1:9).
5. Suppresses the truth of God in unrighteousness (Rom. 1:18)
6. Futile in heart and mind (Rom. 1:21 )
7. Man is at enmity with God (Rom. 5:10)
4. Judgment - is God's lawful action upon the sinner
1. God punishes evil (Exodus 20:5; Isaiah 11:4)
2. According to the Law (Deut. 29:21; Joshua 8:34; Rev. 21:8)
3. Eternal punishment (Matt. 3:12; Rev. 14:11)
4. Separation from God (Isaiah 59:2)
5. Reconciliation - Man's Need before God
   1. Reconciliation is the means God has ordained to make peace between Him and ourselves.
   2. We need our sin removed.
   3. We need to regain fellowship with God.
   4. We need to find God's favor.
   5. We need to escape God's lawful judgment.
6. Atonement - The Means of Reconciliation
   1. The Nature of the Atonement is in the shedding of blood (Lev. 17:11)
   2. Law requirements of the atonement
   3. The sacrifice must be unblemished (Lev. 22:19)
   4. By appointed priests (1 Sam. 2:28)
   5. The High Priest had to be lawfully clean (Exodus 29:1-9;19-35)
   6. Jesus as the Atonement, the Sacrifice
   7. Unblemished (1 Pet. 1:19)
   8. According to the Law (Heb. 9:22; Lev. 17:11 )
   9. As the High Priest (Heb. 4:14; 6:20)
   10. Substitutionary (1 Pet. 2:24; Isaiah 53; Eph. 5:2)
   11. Our propitiation - He removed God's wrathful judgment (1 John 2:2; 4:10)
   12. Jesus as God and Man (Col. 2:9; Phil. 2:5-8)
   13. Man - to atone for men (Heb. 2:14; 5:1)
   14. God - to offer an infinite and satisfactory sacrifice to God (Eph. 5:2,10)
7. Justification - Result of the Atonement
1. We are lawfully righteous before God (Rom. 3:24-26)
2. We are clothed in righteousness (Isaiah 61:10)
3. We have Imputed righteousness (Rom. 4:6)
   1. Active - Christ's obedience to the Law and his fulfillment of it (Rom. 8:3-4)
   2. Passive - Christ being led to the cross to atone for us (John 19:16-18; 1 Pet. 2:24)
4. We escape the judgment of God (Rom. 8:1)
5. We are restored to fellowship (1 Thess. 5:9-10)
6. We are at peace with God (Rom. 5:1)
7. We are reconciled to God (2 Cor. 5:19)
8. We are righteous before God (2 Cor. 5:21)
9. We have access to God (Eph. 2:18)
10. We have an advocate with the Father (1 John 2:1)

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CHRISTIAN APOLOGETICS AND RESEARCH MINISTRY
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Communicating the Gospel - Overview - Chapters 1-4

Below is my assessment assignment for my Residency Class: Communicating the Gospel with Covenant Theological Seminary.

_____________________________

Communicating the Gospel
Communicating for Life
Author: Quentin J. Schultze

Chapters 1-4

The initial concept of Co-creation is that we are emulating or mirroring our creator by co-creating our culture with our communication, which is a gift from God. I also found the idea of being symbolic stewards of creation that echo God’s reality. It describes the impact of our communication that defines how we see others and ourselves as well. Second, is the concept of shalom. Peace and love should be the banner in which we as sharers of this great gift called the Gospel should never forget where we were when we had not received such amazing Grace packaged with the Gospel. Thirdly, the author presents the ideas of transmission theory and cultural theory in communication. These distinguish between communication (transmission)to the masses in a generic broad sense without regard to specific cultures and just wanting to be effective. Compared to (cultural) which focuses on being interpretive and creative. Lastly, there is a challenge in the use of symbols and the possibility of those symbols to mean different things to different people. Many Christians will align themselves in groups that agree on the same symbols when interpreting scripture or establishing doctrines and confessions.

The four relationships that the author mentioned reminded me of the Ten Commandments and the greatest commands that Jesus talked about in Matthew 22:34-40
The Greatest Commandment
34Hearing that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, the Pharisees got together. 35One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question:
36"Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?" 37Jesus replied: " 'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.'[b] 38This is the first and greatest commandment. 39And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'[c] 40All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments."
I really like this as it reminds me how God gave us these Ten Commandments as expressions of love. Love for God and love for our neighbor. Communication is also a gift from God so that we can communicate this love and the Holy Spirit helps us with communicating with God and Communicating the Gospel to our neighbors. Even when we don’t communicate perfectly we have one that somehow gets the message across. So, I don’t have to worry if I’m going to mess it up. We can “co-create” together.

One area that made me think to myself, “What did he say?” It was in Chapter 2 when the author wrote.

“Every time we identify with someone else we practice what God perfected in Christ. God took the form of a human being in order to identify with humankind.”

Now I know this may be a small part or a by-product of why God took human form. But, I think more can be said about how before the foundations of the world, that God pre-ordained Jesus to come not only to “identify” with us but mainly to be a Lord, Savior, Redeemer, Master, Teacher, Servant and our High Priest. He brought us Peace. Not Peace to make a better world in “time” but peace for us in eternity with Him.

Acts 10:36
36You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all.
Romans 5
Peace and Joy
1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we[a]have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we[b] rejoice in the hope of the glory of God.

Shalom! Peace, be with you. This theme of peace throughout these four chapters reminds me how we are to be always ready to give an answer for the hope that is within us, with gentleness and respect. (1 Peter 3:15). The idea of God graciously giving us the gift of communication is really a great idea. I have always thought that we wouldn’t understand the love of God and the relationship between Jesus and the church unless God instituted marriage. And now I would like to add communication to that. We can see that throughout scripture there are occasions when the Father and the Son are communicating and displaying the love that they have for each other and also for the humanity that God has created for the Son. Lets create man in our image (Gen 1:26). It is a challenge for us in our culture to remember to be gracious in our communication. Especially, with those that are unbelievers. We have to remember that they are the mission field and we are to be reconciling them to Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17-19 17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! 18All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: 19that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.

Grace and Peace,

Chris Allen

Coram Deo!!!

Online Store???

Ok, I thought I would do something just for fun. And my kids are going to design a Reform-Shire logo for me, and then we'll add it to the blog and the store. So, for now all I have to offer is a picture of the Stained Glass my wife designed for last years Christmas Musical.

The Sovereignty of God. This video Demonstrates how 2 Peter 3:9, which is often used as a proof text against Calvinism, actually proves Calvinism