Many people have argued that U2 is really a christian band that has achieved the ultimate crossover success. Others say they were a christian band that have fallen away from their faith. I argue that they are a band that express their whole lives in their music, faith, love, dirt, everything. It shouldn’t surprise people when someone who has a lot of faith then expresses it in their music. Many people see the Joshua Tree album as the defining moment in the argument, particularly the song I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For. Critics point to this song as U2’s declaration of faithlessness (This was a hot topic when I was younger and one of the reasons my mom didn’t want me to listen to U2). I say it is only a natural response to the difficulties of maintaining faith. I consider myself a very strong christian but I struggle at times. I believe C.S. Lewis’s metaphor of faith as a journey around a mountain, in A Grief Observed, is the best analogy. If you start at the top of a mountain traveling to a village in the valley, as you wind your way down the trail you sometimes reach points you don’t see your destination anymore. Sometimes during these times it seems hard to travel on but when you see your destination again you receive renewed energy and pick up the pace. I think U2 in …Looking For are describing one of those moments you find yourself on a particularly long stretch of road were you can’t see the village below. The point is, though, you keep walking and you will reach it eventually.
But as to the idea of christian lyrics in U2 songs check out this site compiled by Angela Pancella. And this quote by Bono
“We’ve found different ways of expressing it, and recognized the power of the media to manipulate such signs. Maybe we just have to sort of draw our fish in the sand. It’s there for people who are interested. It shouldn’t be there for people who aren’t.”—Bono on faith, quoted in “U2 at the End of the World”
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