There have been many headlines last week about Emerging Church pop-icon Bono (most recently seen partying with Lady Gaga following Hollywood Bowl gig). When U2’s longtime manager Dennis Sheehan was found dead last Wednesday morning, the band brought in Pastor Rick Warren to lend spiritual support. Warren called Sheehan, the former tour manager for the bands Led Zeppelin and U2, a “calm and kind Christian man.”
Also in the news last week, Bono celebrated the Irish vote for homosexual marriage. He said, “It’s a moment for us to thank the people who bring us peace to our country. We have peace in Ireland today … and in fact on this very day we have true equality in Ireland.” Bono said, “Millions turned up to vote yesterday to say love is the highest law in the land - love … And in the biggest turnout in the history of the state, to say love is the highest law in the land … If God loves us, whoever we love, wherever we come from, then why can’t the state?”
Bono believes Jesus is “the Son of God,” but his heretical and destructive views are nothing new, and reveal that he is in fact a wolf in sheep’s clothing. In the article U2’s Bono, Unorthodox Superman, I summarized the “family values” of U2 frontman Bono, the professing Christian rock-n-roll superstar.
Ironically, Bono, though a guest on Focus on the Family, holds to many ideas destructive to the family unit such as his support of homosexuality and abortion. Bono stated, “My bottom line on any sexuality is that love is the most important thing. That love is it. Any way people want to love each other is OK by me. That’s different from abuse, be it homosexual or heterosexual.”When asked, “How do you feel, for instance, about abortion?” Bono responded, “I just have my own ideas. I believe that it’s a woman’s right to choose. Absolutely.” (Adam Block. “Bono Bites Back,” Mother Jones, May 1, 1989)
While Daly exalted Bono as a strong family man, FoxNews reports with photographic evidence on how Bono was busted partying with teenage girls. The article says:
The curse of Facebook has now hit U2 lead singer Bono. . . Pictures of the 48-year-old rocker with his arm around two bikini-clad teenagers in St Tropez were posted on the popular social site complete with diary details. Bono was on vacation with long-time friend Simon Carmody, a musician and former member of Irish band Golden Horde. The Irishmen met up with two 19-year-olds, American fashion student Andrea Feick and her British friend Hannah Emerson. . .
The images show Bono wearing his trademark hat and sunglasses while drinking with the two girls at the Nikki Beach bar in St Tropez. Later that evening, they took a stroll along the beach, then made their way to a luxury yacht, thought to be the Cyan, a $12 million, 140ft yacht with six cabins owned by U2 guitarist The Edge. Bono, Carmody and the girls partied into the night on the yacht. Bono’s 26-year marriage to wife Ali is famously strong. (“Busted: Facebook Pictures Show Married U2 Singer Bono’s Rendezvous With Sexy Teens” Fox News, October 27, 2008)
Almost always, Bono challenges taboos in his public speeches with profane language. Appearing on the Golden Globe Awards broadcast live in 2003, Bono shouted the f-word. The incident was investigated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which declared Bono’s language “profane” but decided not to fine the stations (“U2’s Bono & Edge: F***ing Brilliant,” YouTube video posted by Bibien, June 9, 2007).
The Huffington Post reports: “Irish officials announced Saturday that 62.1 percent of voters favored changing the nation’s constitution to define marriage as a union between two people, regardless of their sex. This makes Ireland the world’s first country to approve same-sex marriage by popular vote.” Reporting on Bono’s vote for homosexual marriage, The Irish Times says it all:
The band dedicated Pride (In The Name of Love) to the cause of marriage equality. Bono introduced Beautiful Day by stating: “We’re putting the gay back in Gaelic!”
Speaking in Vancouver ahead of the start of the iNNOCENCE + eXPERIENCE earlier this month, Bono endorsed a Yes vote in the referendum.
He said “trying to co-opt the word marriage is like trying to co-opt the word love.
“Marriage is not owned by any church, but instead owned by the community who should decide who it does and does not apply to.”
The definition of marriage had changed through the millennia, he pointed out. Jesus was not married and many characters in the Bible had several wives.
He described commitment as “one of the most impossibly great human traits, the hardest to hold on to.
“Anything that enshrines that is a wonderful thing. Marriage is nearly impossible. Wherever it is occurs it should be encouraged.”
Bono uses the word “marriage” very broadly, and even applies it to polygamy and homosexual marriage. Biblically speaking, marriage is first and foremost a covenant between a man and a woman (Malachi 2:14). Jesus approved of God’s creative plan for sexual union of one man and one woman. Jesus also affirmed the command: “Honor thy father and mother” (Matthew 15:4). He is asserting that a child’s parents consist of a father and a mother. This assertion rules out the possibility for homosexual union. Again, Jesus said, “A man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh?” (Matthew 19:5). In this single declaration, Jesus does not leave the options for people to be brought up with homosexual parents or marry a person of the same sex. He says more specifically: “Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female” (Matthew 19:4). First of all, Jesus explains that this design was intended for procreation because God created a man and a woman. Secondly, Jesus acknowledges that parents consist of a father and a mother. Thirdly, Jesus conveys God’s intent that proceeding generations would follow the same pattern of procreation with a spouse of the opposite sex. Because Jesus approves God’s plan for sexual union in conjunction with the creation of the universe and nature, we can safely say that Jesus condemned homosexuality as sin because it is against God’s good design revealed in nature.
Jesus’ comments on God creating the man and woman, and the man leaving his father and mother to be joined to his wife was in response to a question from the Pharisees about divorce. They asked him if it was lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause (Matthew 19:3). Jesus said, “He who made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate” (Matthew 19:4,6). Therefore, the Christian view of marriage is rooted in the creation of one man and one woman at the very beginning of time (Genesis 1:27; 2:24: 5:2). Bono has once again shown himself to be an antichrist, this time in his attack against the biblical definition of marriage.
See Also:
U2’s Bono, Unorthodox Superman
U2 Frontman Bono: Christian or antichrist?
The Submerging Church (Bonus DVD entitled “The Emerging Church and the Bono-Screwtape Connection”)
