Bono and Rogue One

Bono from the band U2 recently gave an interview that has been circulating around the internet.  You can read it here: Bono and Christian Music.  While I don’t necessarily agree with the notion that there is a level of “dishonesty” in modern Christian music, I do understand the point he is trying to make.

As a Christian music culture, we seem to be very much fixed on a singular viewpoint of our faith and music.  God is good, and we are to remember that at all times.  This attribute of exultation is hugely important to our beliefs and who we are as Christians.  There is no dishonesty in that.  However, if we only worship in that manner, it may appear to those who do not believe in God that we are being fake.  Are we not living in a world of sin?  Is there not spiritual battles being fought as we live in a fallen world?  This is where the Psalms come in that Bono mentions.

We are created as emotional beings, with valleys of struggles that collide with mountaintop experiences of exhilaration.  Our art is an expression of our experience, and when we create art, we should not limit it to a singular emotion or experience.  It doesn’t tell the whole picture.

We are to be the salt of the earth and a light to the darkness.  As salt makes everything taste better, we are to make everything have more flavor.  The Creator has inspired us to create.  How much more artistic and profound our music and art should be!  It should be an endless drawing of inspiration for expression.  In the same way, we are light to the darkness.  The darkness cannot become light unless we go out and extend that light we have been given in a real and relatable way to the darkness.

This is why Unbroken Light made an album… this is why I create.  I sometimes feel like our forthcoming album will be the “Rogue One” album of Christian music.  Rogue One was a movie that kept consistent with the Star Wars universe and ideals, but presented them in a much more realistic and palpable way.  Similarly, Unbroken Light is drawing from the same roots as other modern Chrstians songs, but we are opening it up to more reality and allowing the listener to experience some sadness.  We are allowing the listener to hear that we have struggles of our own and that we cry out to God when we are in despair.  The Christian walk is one filled with doubt, expectation, longing, and excitement.  My hope is that our album encompasses many of these emotions, and that it takes the listener through a journey of celebration, struggle, and reliance on God, that He may ultimately be glorified.

-Josh