COMMENTARY: How Bono Models Humility on His Knees

c. 2005 Religion News Service (UNDATED) U2’s sold-out “Vertigo” world tour opened just after Easter in San Diego, spent the summer in Europe _ where the band also performed at the Live 8 African aid concert in London _ returned to North America (Toronto and Chicago) in September and will wrap up just before Christmas […]

c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) U2’s sold-out “Vertigo” world tour opened just after Easter in San Diego, spent the summer in Europe _ where the band also performed at the Live 8 African aid concert in London _ returned to North America (Toronto and Chicago) in September and will wrap up just before Christmas in Portland, Ore.

The tour offers plenty of high-energy music and potent spiritual messages, as Bono kneels during some of the band’s songs.


“I don’t know if I can take it,” he sings at one point. “I’m not easy on my knees.” But on his knees is precisely where this world-renowned leader of the world’s reigning rock band frequently finds himself.

He isn’t the first performer to kneel on stage. Soul legend James Brown’s concerts featured an elaborate ritual of kneeling and rising. But with Bono the gesture conveys something more than stagecraft, in part because of his radical Christian commitment, which is more evident during the “Vertigo” tour than in many previous U2 outings.

We’re accustomed to seeing rock stars preening or strutting, but when Bono kneels, there’s a sense that he’s humbling himself _ both before God and before his many fans, some of whom have criticized his crusading about social issues like AIDS in Africa by calling him “St. Bono.”

Celebrity and humility make an unusual mix, but not as unusual as you might think. Bruce Springsteen made the connection during his U2 induction speech at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in March.

Springsteen acknowledged that Bono possesses “one of the most endearing naked messianic complexes in rock and roll,” but then he completed the picture.

“His voice is shot through with self-doubt,” said Springsteen. “The constant questioning in Bono’s voice is where the band stakes its claim to its humanity and declares its commonality with us: `Here we are, Lord, this mess, in your image.”’

Perhaps Bono is helping us clarify some of our misunderstandings about humility and pride as suggested by Irish-born writer C.S. Lewis in his book “Mere Christianity.”


“If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step,” wrote Lewis. “The first step is to realize that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.”

Bono has been able to acknowledge his own rock-godness, confront his own massive ego, and move on, as I saw myself firsthand over a decade ago.

I had been asked to speak at Greenbelt Festival, an English Christian arts and music festival that brings together thousands of people every summer. Bono came to Greenbelt that year, but not to perform or pose. He came to attend the workshops and enjoy the music.

Whenever someone told him he looked like Bono, the singer responded: “I hear that often. That’s why I bought these shades, to complete the look.”

And when the event’s organizers complained that their staff was too overworked to untangle an on-site traffic jam, Bono volunteered to help direct the angry drivers to their parking spots.

Such humility is a far different thing from humiliation, which is something we see quite regularly today. This year has seen a string of greedy corporate executives lowering their heads before judges and admitting that they ripped off their companies and their investors. Michael Jackson, formerly hailed as the “King of Pop,” has seen his own carefully honed image self-destruct.


The difference between humility and humiliation is that one is a voluntary admission that God _ not you _ is the ruler of the universe. The other is involuntary, and painful.

Bono’s humility is also seen in his willingness to serve something more significant than his own ego. As a multimillionaire, he could easily pursue unbridled self-gratification. But ever since he and his wife, Ali, visited Africa following 1985’s Live Aid benefit concerts, he has used his growing celebrity to serve those whose names will never make the headlines.

“I genuinely believe that second only to personal redemption, the most important thing in the Scriptures _ 2,103 passages in all _ refers to taking care of the world’s poor,” the singer told The Los Angeles Times.

So can a rock superstar really teach us anything about humility? Things more amazing than that can happen for those who heed the words of him who, 2,000 years ago, said, “Many who are first will be last, and many who are last will be first.”

MO/PH END RNS

(Tony Campolo is an author and international speaker whose latest book is “Speaking My Mind.” His Web page is http://www.tonycampolo.org. Author and journalist Steve Rabey assisted in the writing of this column.)

Editors: To obtain a file photo of Bono, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject, designating “exact phrase” for best results.


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