U2's Theological Imagination: A Guide For Pilgrims on the Way"

In this case, the title alone-- "U2's Theological Imagination: A Guide For Pilgrims  on the Way"-- would have sold me on buying the book.

But that the author is Steven Harmon?  That clinched the deal.  Harmon, Professor of Historical Theology at Gardner-Webb School  of Divinity is (see p. 9 for "U2 as Theologians)an articulate theologian and deep fan  of U2.

He definitely has some ground beneath his feet, and the authority to write this book.

As you can see, it  sits on the honored top of my stack and stash of books this month...

"My own academic discipline of systematic or constructive  theology helps me discern in U2's music the theological framework of Christian doctrinal convictions about God, creation, the human condition, redemption  and the goals of God's community-making work in a world that longs for reconciliation." (pp. 3-4)

Suffice to say this is not a pop-culture , superficial .. let alone "tacky and vouyeristic" ...mass-market title on U2 and their faith.

Having said that..

I didn't  expect  to see my name on the first page (:

There, in the acknowledgements (p.ix), he expresses indebtedness to "rewarding conversations  about  the theological implications of U2's music ...[with]  Scot Calhoun, Cathleen Falsani, Derek  Hogan, John Inscore Essick, Beth Maynard, Will McDonald, Mark Medley. Tim Neufeld, Angela Pancella, Kenneth Tanner, Dave Wainscott and Andrew William Smith."

Well, as you can see by the mentions of several of those names on my blog, and on my Facebook, that is would be  dynamic cohort to hang  with for a few days! Next U2 Conference, hopefully! ...

.. As long as Megan Click is also there! Her wonderful review of U2's "Easter Lilly' blew me away, and I will brag on her and that in my next post.

Harmon's  book is of course an indispensable addition to the library of theologically-minded U2 fans, and I will commend the Amazon preview and reviews to you at this link, and simply  highlight here  two vital talking points...both related to The Edge...  from the first two  chapters  alone.

1) Edge's eschatological guitar

My brother and I, who first saw U2 in concert on the convert on War tour, (see my review "I am still living off this concert" , and see this  to check how electric it was ), and we  have often talked about  "The Holy Spirit on guitar!"  when listening  to The Edge's "swirling epiphanies," There are others who seemingly pray through their guitar, but no one emotes it like Edge,

 Harmon's discussion of a  more specific branch of theology, eschatology,  illuminates how Edge is a theologically-informed guitarrist/pray-er:

".. ['Gloria'] exemplifies what I've come to regard as theologically significant about The Edge's very tone: the amp pushed just to the edge of breakup without going fully over into distortion, expressing an urgent stretching forth toward something not quite reached, contrasting with those ethereal chiming harmonics that break in from somewhere transcendent. Both come together in this next song, The first verse voices frustration at efforts to sing, and stand up, and speak up that don't quite succeed, accompanied by a riff that's the rock guitar equivalent of a Baroque keyboard fugue, played with that yearning overdriven tone. Then comes the inbreaking of those transcendent chiming harmonics...(p.5)

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"The word that comes to mind when I try to come up with language for the sound of a U2 song is  yearning ..the music itself evokes yearning."(p. 6)

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"The reign of God is at hand and people have the opportunity to participate in it in the here and now, but it is not yet fully realized ar cannot become so without the participation of people in the rein of God. This tension is the key theological concept for understanding the spiritual significance of the whole of U2's music.

"...n the formative years of the band, U2 even found a way l express this tension through the distinctive instrumental sound they created. U2 remythologized the open-fifth power chord that eschews both major and minor thirds as a way of musically maintaining the eschatological tension between the now and the not yet...

..I. say that U2 "remythologized" the open-fifth power chord because, as one of my guitar-playing theology students noted when I mentioned this to him, the power chord commonplace in guitar-based rock music is by definition a root note, its fifth, and the octave of the root. But The Edge's rationale for utilizing this chord structure is theologically, in particular eschatologically, significant. When the neither-major-nor-minor fifths were combined with The Edge's frequent playing of ethereal-sounding chiming harmonics , his distinctive use of the delay effect not as an atmospheric effect= with trailing echoes but as a compositional technique to create notes that are not directly played but are integral to the music, and clean guitar tone overdriven to the edge of breakup without turning fully into distortion evoking urgency, the result was the yearning sound of the already/not-yet tension of Christian eschatology translated into the idiom of post-punk rock music."  (pp 22-23)

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-2)Edge's   Pádraig Ó Tuama and Methodist connections

"I've been reading a lot about the early period of Methodism...and George Whitfield who was..the first evangelist to take his sermons out doors," said the Edge to Pádraig Ó Tuama

Wait..what?

Double take..

How had I ever missed that Edge had been interviewed by  Pádraig Ó Tuama?
And that in the process, he expressed great interest in early Methodist DNA? (see"Wesleyan Vile-tality: Reclaiming the Heart of Methodist Identity")

Two of my favorite topics.

Methodism is my heritage and tribe, and that Edge ( "the "Zen Presbyterian") had been reading about it--- let alone " a lot"--- made my day...a lot.

And of course no surprise that fellow Irishmen  and fellow theologians O'Tuama and Edge (see p. 9 for "U2 as Theologians) got together and got  along.

I have been using a song (below)  of O. Tuama's  in teaching and seminars for years, a shocking (to evangelical sensitivities, anyway) song of lament (complete with F word ) for years.

I often wondered if O'Tuama knew U2.

I learned all this from Harmon's magnificent book (p.10). 

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All that to say, as a pilgrim on my way, I highly  commend and recommend..

nay, require..this book,

Suffice to say I am thankful for the theological imagination of pilgrim Steven Harmon himself.

  

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