U2 Churches

I read this article about a church in Tuscon, Arizona that sings U2 songs during its worship service. Apparently it's part of a larger trend to use the u2 canon as the basis for a church's worship.

I don't know what I think about these things. I mean, yeah U2 obviously have a spiritual message - even a Christian message - but come on. For one thing, there's other stuff out there. The church that I pastor has used U2 songs during our services for contemplative purposes – we've even used songs by Death Cab for Cutie, Patty Griffin, Jimmy Eat World, to name a few - but all that was in small doses. Secondly, wouldn't it be appropriate to sing songs that are representative of the larger church (geographically, culturally, historically, etc.), rather than just ones written by four guys from Dublin.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of U2. My walls were covered with posters from their "War" and "Joshua Tree" days when I was a kid, but the idea of labeling your service a "U2charist" (honestly, that's what they call it) seems pretty silly to me. It seems like people will look back on this in 10 or 20 years and say, "Remember when we did that U2 mass thing? Man was that lame!" It reminds me of some older friends of mine who told me about a service back in the '80s where someone very sincerely broke into a rendition of the Eagles' classic "Desperado" - you know, Elaine Benes' boyfriend's "song" (she eventually chose "Witchy Woman").

I wonder what Bono, et al think about their apparent deification.