I’m proud to be one of the half-billion people who received the free U2 album “Songs of Innocence.” The album is a gift from Apple to all 500 million iTunes users. Though I was not real familiar with the music of U2, I have long admired Bono, the famous face of the band. And I do love free gifts. So I downloaded the album and listened.

I liked it!

The sound has a hard edge and driving beat that carries lyrics that seep deep within and rock my soul. That’s because U2 is really a Christian band in disguise, though not the kind of Christian band that puts out the 7-11 (7 words sung 11 times over) drivel of much contemporary Christian music. Instead U2 sings out of the passionate depths of humanity in search of God, honestly proclaiming both doubt and discovery and all points in-between. Most importantly, the music of U2 flows out of the personal experience of Bono and the other band members growing up in Northern Ireland during “The Troubles.”

Born in Dublin to an Anglican mother and Catholic father, Paul David Hewson (Bono) met his future fellow band members while attending Mount Temple Comprehensive School, a multidenominational school in Clontarf. Like Hewson, the other musicians (David “The Edge” Evans, Adam Clayton and Larry Mullen, Jr), came from different national and religious backgrounds. Growing up in Northern Ireland during the violent sectarian fighting between Protestants and Catholics, the teenagers questioned their familial religious roots and gradually broke away. This rejection of religious strife became a dominant theme as their music developed. However faith became alive for them as they became involved with a group of Christians called the Shalom Fellowship that lived on the streets and tried to live out the commands of Jesus. But while this experience brought the group to a strong faith in Jesus, the Fellowship became too structured and restrictive and so they left. In a recent article in The New Yorker, Joshua Rothman observes, “Their break with organized religion was probably inevitable. But it was still traumatic, which is perhaps why almost every U2 album contains a song about their decision to belong to a band rather than a church.”

I love that line – they decided “to belong to a band rather than a church.” That decision has resulted in tens of millions of people who would never step into a church getting to hear the Gospel in a language they understand. More importantly, the Gospel they hear is not the candy-coated, self-help, me-centered crap that flows out of a lot of pulpits these days. It’s a hard, edgy, driving-beat Gospel that meets you where you really are, in all your flawed humanity – full of despair and hope all at once, seeking a God who really does care about the world and a faith that dares to act boldly creating justice and peace.

By the way, Paul David Hewson got his stage name – Bono – from a friend who nicknamed him “Bono Vox.”

That means “good voice.”

I think the music of Bono and U2 is a “good voice” to listen to.

Give them a listen.

But be sure to wear earphones!