Gay Byrne is an Irish television personality/reporter with a show called ‘The Meaning of Life‘ in which he interviews celebrities about . . . the meaning of life. In this interview, Bono is asked about his life and Christian faith.
You can watch the YouTube video of the interview below, but I don’t think the audio is that great. However, you can listen/download the audio version which I included beneath the YouTube video in two parts.
I think the first half is more biographical about his life and the band and how he came about his Christian faith, and the second half is more about how he goes about living his faith today.
If there’s any part that jumps out, it’s the start of the second half of the interview to the 2:36 mark. He’s a transcript I made of it:
Burne: You are obviously a believer, but not in the church as the church . . .
Bono: Oh, but I am a believer in the church. I do believe in the church, I just think the church . . . I don’t think there are loads of different churches, I think there’s one church. It’s just smashed into loads of different pieces. And . . . and I think that the Spirit, you know, the Holy Spirit, if you want to call it that, is much more “anarchistic?”¹ than we think. It says, it comes like a wind, you don’t know where it comes from, you don’t know where it goes, scripture says. And it continually renews itself. It leans forward and I think religion is a slightly different thing. And I think people have to be very careful thinking they have a monopoly on the truth.
You know, there’s a thing everyone reads out at their wedding, that beautiful scripture in Corinthians. Love is this, love is patient, love bears all things, love believes all things. You know, then it says faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these things are love. Well, why is that? Why is love more important than faith? And the answer is just found a few verses later. Which is that beautiful, beautiful passage, especially beautiful in the King James, where it goes see through a glass, darkly; but then we shall see face to face’ we know in part; but then I shall know even as I know myself, even all I shall be known.
You see through the glass darkly. And whenever you see religious people where their faith is more important than love, they got it the wrong way around, in my view.
The Scriptures are very eloquent about love and you know, I can’t really figure it out, um, how people have so maligned Christ, you know. And by the way, we don’t even know that Christ tended to set up a religion. We know he asked much bigger questions of people. Questions about surrender, and I think that would be a better preoccupation than doctrinal matters.
The Meaning of Life with Bono Part 1 – Ignore the first 26 seconds as a commercial was overplaying with the audio.
Meaning of Life with Bono Part 1
The Meaning of Life with Bono Part 2
Meaning of Life with Bono Part 2
¹ I couldn’t make out what that word was coming out his Irish mouth and that was my best guess.
Well spoken. I don't think being "in the church" requires showing up at a specific type of building. Rather, it involves living life in the manner demonstrated and discussed by Christ, with love toward God, others, and ourselves being paramount over all else. Being a Christian isn't fulfilled by simply showing up at XYZ Church every Sunday. You have to be Christ-like.
I've always loved the verse in Corinthians he refers to, because it has such deep meaning and is so poetically written (in the KJV). But it is only in recent years that I have truly found and embraced the message that it gives that none of us has THE answer to all of this.
A man I respect recently told me "Hold on to your faith tightly, but to your "beliefs" loosely," meaning that while your faith should be constant, the way you think things "must" be done should not be set in stone. Because as we journey, we find that things aren't always as we think they should be. In reality, we are seeing through a glass, darkly.
Great stuff, Geeding! Love the transcript.