[Dialogue] Bono's speech at the Presidential prayer breakfast

[LAURELCG@aol.com]

>Forwarded by Jann McGuire.  I don't know if the odd line endings are part of 
the speech, like poetry, but decided to leave them.  Enjoy!

> The National Prayer Breakfast is normally a time for reaffirming

> spiritual truths and testifying to the power of faith in

> people's individual lives, but not so much a moment for

> prophetic and controversial social utterances. There have been

> exceptions - when Sen. Mark Hatfield spoke courageously about

> the moral "shame" of the Vietnam War in the presence of Richard

> Nixon and Henry Kissinger (I know a lot about that prayer

> breakfast speech because I helped write it when I was a

> seminarian in Chicago); when Mother Theresa spoke about the

> sacredness of life and raised the issue of abortion with the

> Clintons on hand; and yesterday, when Bono spoke like a

> modern-day prophet about extreme global poverty and pandemic

> disease and called upon the American government, with George

> Bush and Congressional leaders present, to do much more.

>

> The speech, published below, was the most explicit about

> religion and the role of faith that I had ever heard Bono

> deliver, and his insistence on the biblical requirements of

> justice and not just charity was reiterated over and over again.

> In a small session with religious editors afterward, Bono spoke

> about how the churches had led on the issue of debt cancellation

> with the Jubilee 2000 campaign, on HIV/AIDS, and now on global

> poverty reduction. "You're the bigger crowd," he said, "much

> more than my stadium audiences." He said the church will just

> hear "fanfare" from musicians.

>

> But Bono is offering far more than fanfare, as his talk below

> demonstrates. To the religious editors he stressed how the

> justice issue is "really it," and said that the churches had to

> figure out how to make that clear to people and that "movement

> is the way" we will finally succeed. Bono said he believed that

> something is moving now and we have to create the momentum to

> accomplish our goals. On the way to the car afterward, we spoke

> together about how really crucial that movement building is, how

> nothing else will suffice to make the changes in our world that

> are so vitally and morally necessary, and how the strategy in

> the religious community is so key. We also talked about the

> Isaiah 58 passage he had quoted in his speech - that when we

> respond to the poor as the prophet instructs, "God will cover

> your back." This is one speech you will want to read and pass on

> to your friends.

>

> - Jim Wallis

>

> --------------------------------------------------

>

> Religion and Politics

> ++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

> Bono's best sermon yet: Remarks at the National Prayer Breakfast

>

> [RUSH TRANSCRIPT: CHECK AGAINST DELIVERED REMARKS]

>

> If

> you're wondering what I'm doing here, at a prayer

> breakfast, well, so am I. I'm

> certainly not here as a man of the cloth, unless that cloth is

> leather. It's certainly not

> because I'm a rock star. Which

> leaves one possible explanation:

> I'm here because I've got a messianic

> complex.

>

> Yes,

> it's true. And for anyone who

> knows me, it's hardly a revelation.

>

> Well,

> I'm the first to admit that there's something

> unnatural...something unseemly...about rock stars mounting the

> pulpit and preaching at presidents,

> and then disappearing to their villas in the south of

> France. Talk about a fish out of

> water. It was weird enough when Jesse

> Helms showed up at a U2 concert...but this is really weird,

> isn't it?

>

> You

> know, one of the things I love about this country is its

> separation

> of church and state. Although I have to

> say: in inviting me here, both church and state have been

> separated

> from something else completely: their mind.

>

> Mr.

> President, are you sure about this?

>

> It's

> very humbling and I will try to keep my homily brief. But be

> warned - I'm Irish.

>

> I'd

> like to talk about the laws of man, here in this city where

> those

> laws are written. And I'd like to

> talk about higher laws. It would be

> great to assume that the one serves the other; that the laws of

> man

> serve these higher laws...but of course, they don't

> always. And I presume that, in a sense,

> is why you're here.

>

> I

> presume the reason for this gathering is that all of us

> here - Muslims, Jews, Christians - all are searching our

> souls for how to better serve our family, our community, our

> nation, our God.

>

> I know

> I am. Searching, I mean. And that, I suppose, is what led me

> here,

> too.

>

> Yes,

> it's odd, having a rock star here - but maybe it's

> odder for me than for you. You see, I

> avoided religious people most of my life. Maybe it had something

> to do with having a father

> who was Protestant and a mother who was Catholic in a country

> where

> the line between the two was, quite literally, a battle

> line. Where the line between church and

> state was...well, a little blurry, and hard to

> see.

>

> I

> remember how my mother would bring us to chapel on Sundays...

> and my father used to wait outside. One

> of the things that I picked up from my father and my mother was

> the

> sense that religion often gets in the way of God.

>

> For

> me, at least, it got in the way. Seeing

> what religious people, in the name of God, did to my native

> land...and in this country, seeing God's second-hand

> car salesmen on the cable TV channels, offering indulgences for

> cash...in fact, all over the world, seeing the

> self-righteousness roll down like a mighty stream from certain

> corners of the religious establishment...

>

> I must

> confess, I changed the channel. I

> wanted my MTV.

>

> Even

> though I was a believer.

>

> Perhaps

> because I was a believer.

>

> I was

> cynical...not about God, but about God's

> politics. (There you are,

> Jim.)

>

> Then,

> in 1997, a couple of eccentric, septuagenarian British

> Christians

> went and ruined my shtick - my reproachfulness. They did it by

> describing the millennium, the year

> 2000, as a Jubilee year, as an opportunity to cancel the chronic

> debts of the world's poorest people. They had the audacity to

> renew the Lord's

> call - and were joined by Pope John Paul II, who, from an Irish

> half-Catholic's point of view, may have had a more direct

> line to the Almighty.

>

> 'Jubilee' - why

> 'Jubilee'?

>

> What

> was this year of Jubilee, this year of our Lord's favor?

>

> I'd

> always read the scriptures, even the obscure stuff. There it was

> in Leviticus

> (25:35)...

>

> 'If

> your brother becomes poor,' the scriptures say, 'and

> cannot maintain himself...you shall maintain

> him.... You shall not lend him your

> money at interest, not give him your food for

> profit.'

>

> It is

> such an important idea, Jubilee, that Jesus begins his ministry

> with this. Jesus is a young man, he's met with the rabbis,

> impressed everyone, people are talking.

> The elders say, he's a clever guy, this Jesus, but he

> hasn't done much...yet. He

> hasn't spoken in public before...

>

> When

> he does, is first words are from Isaiah: 'The Spirit of the

> Lord is upon me,' he says, 'because He has anointed me

> to preach good news to the poor.'

> And Jesus proclaims the year of the Lord's favour, the year

> of Jubilee (Luke 4:18).

>

> What

> he was really talking about was an era of grace - and

> we're still in it.

>

> So

> fast-forward 2,000 years. That same

> thought, grace, was made incarnate - in a movement of all kinds

> of people. It wasn't a bless-me

> club... it wasn't a holy huddle. These religious guys were

> willing to get out in

> the streets, get their boots dirty, wave the placards, follow

> their

> convictions with actions...making

> it really hard for people like me to keep their

> distance. It was amazing. I almost started to like these church

> people.

>

> But

> then my cynicism got another helping hand.

>

> It was

> what Colin Powell, a five-star general, called the greatest

> W.M.D.

> of them all: a tiny little virus called AIDS. And the religious

> community, in large part, missed

> it. The ones that didn't

> miss it could only see it as divine retribution for bad

> behaviour. Even on children...even [though the] fastest growing

> group of HIV infections were married, faithful

> women.

>

> Aha,

> there they go again! I thought to

> myself judgmentalism is back!

>

> But in

> truth, I was wrong again. The church

> was slow but the church got busy on this the leprosy of our

> age.

>

> Love

> was on the move.

>

> Mercy

> was on the move.

>

> God

> was on the move.

>

> Moving

> people of all kinds to work with others they had never met,

> never

> would have cared to meet...conservative church groups hanging

> out with spokesmen for the gay

> community, all singing off the same hymn sheet on

> AIDS...soccer moms and

> quarterbacks...hip-hop stars and country

> stars. This is what happens when

> God gets on the move: crazy stuff happens!

>

> Popes

> were seen wearing sunglasses!

>

> Jesse

> Helms was seen with a ghetto blaster!

>

> Crazy

> stuff. Evidence of the

> spirit.

>

> It was

> breathtaking. Literally. It stopped the world in its tracks.

>

> When

> churches started demonstrating on debt, governments

> listened - and acted. When churches

> starting organising, petitioning, and even - that most unholy

> of acts today, God forbid, lobbying...on AIDS and

> global health, governments listened - and acted.

>

> I'm

> here today in all humility to say: you changed minds; you

> changed

> policy; you changed the world.

>

> Look,

> whatever thoughts you have about God, who He is or if He exists,

> most will agree that if there is a God, He has a special place

> for

> the poor. In fact, the poor are where

> God lives.

>

> Check

> Judaism. Check Islam. Check pretty much anyone.

>

> I

> mean, God may well be with us in our mansions on the

> hill. I hope so. He may well be with us as in all manner of

> controversial stuff. Maybe, maybe not. But the one thing we can

> all agree, all faiths and

> ideologies, is that God is with the vulnerable and

> poor.

>

> God is

> in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play

> house. God is in the silence of a mother who has infected

> her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God

> is in the cries heard under the rubble of war. God is in the

> debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we

> are with them. "If you remove the

> yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking

> wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy

> the

> desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness

> and

> your gloom with become like midday and the Lord will continually

> guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched

> places."

>

> It's

> not a coincidence that in the scriptures, poverty is mentioned

> more

> than 2,100 times. It's not an

> accident. That's a lot of air

> time, 2,100 mentions. (You know, the

> only time Christ is judgmental is on the subject of the

> poor.) 'As you have done it

> unto the least of these my brethren, you have done it unto

> me' (Matthew 25:40). As I say, good news to the poor.

>

> Here's

> some good news for the president. After

> 9/11 we were told America would have no time for the world's

> poor. America would be taken up with

> its own problems of safety. And

> it's true these are dangerous times, but America has not

> drawn the blinds and double-locked the doors.

>

> In

> fact, you have doubled aid to Africa.

> You have tripled funding for global health. Mr. President, your

> emergency plan for AIDS relief

> and support for the Global Fund - you and Congress - have

> put 700,000 people onto life-saving anti-retroviral drugs and

> provided 8 million bed nets to protect children from

> malaria.

>

> Outstanding

> human achievements.

> Counterintuitive. Historic. Be very, very proud.

>

> But

> here's the bad news. From charity to justice, the good news

> is yet to come. There is much

> more to do. There's a gigantic

> chasm between the scale of the emergency and the scale of the

> response.

>

> And

> finally, it's not about charity after all, is it? It's about

> justice.

>

> Let me

> repeat that: It's not about

> charity, it's about justice.

>

> And

> that's too bad.

>

> Because

> you're good at charity.

> Americans, like the Irish, are good at it. We like to give, and

> we give a lot, even those who

> can't afford it.

>

> But

> justice is a higher standard. Africa

> makes a fool of our idea of justice; it makes a farce of our

> idea

> of equality. It mocks our pieties, it

> doubts our concern, it questions our commitment.

>

> Sixty-five hundred

> Africans are still dying every day of a preventable, treatable

> disease, for lack of drugs we can buy at any drug

> store. This is not about charity,

> this is about justice and equality.

> Because there's no way we can

> look at what's happening in Africa and, if we're honest,

> conclude that deep down, we really accept that Africans are

> equal

> to us. Anywhere else in the world, we

> wouldn't accept it. Look at what

> happened in South East Asia with the tsunami. 150,000 lives lost

> to that misnomer of all

> misnomers, "mother nature."

> In Africa, 150,000 lives are lost every month. A tsunami every

> month. And it's a completely avoidable

> catastrophe.

> It's annoying but justice

> and equality are mates. Aren't

> they? Justice always wants to hang out

> with equality. And equality is a

> real pain.

> You

> know, think of those Jewish sheep-herders going to meet the

> Pharaoh, mud on their shoes, and the Pharaoh says,

> "Equal?" A preposterous

> idea: rich and poor are equal? And they say,

> "Yeah, 'equal,' that's what it says here in

> this book. We're all made in the

> image of God."

>

> And

> eventually the Pharaoh says, "OK, I can accept

> that. I can accept the Jews - but

> not the blacks."

>

> "Not

> the women. Not the gays. Not the Irish. No way,

> man."

>

> So on

> we go with our journey of equality.

>

> On we

> go in the pursuit of justice.

>

> We

> hear that call in the ONE Campaign, a growing movement of more

> than

> 2 million Americans...Left and Right

> together... united in the belief

> that where you live should no longer determine

> whether you live.

>

> We

> hear that call even more powerfully today, as we mourn the loss

> of

> Coretta Scott King - mother of a movement for equality, one

> that changed the world but is only just getting

> started. These issues are as alive as

> they ever were; they just change shape and cross the

> seas.

>

> Preventing

> the poorest of the poor from selling their products while we

> sing

> the virtues of the free market...that's a justice

> issue. Holding children to ransom for

> the debts of their grandparents...that's a justice

> issue. Withholding life-saving

> medicines out of deference to the Office of Patents...that's a

> justice issue.

>

> And

> while the law is what we say it is, God is not silent on the

> subject.

>

> That's

> why I say there's the law of the land¿. And then there

> is a higher standard. There's the

> law of the land, and we can hire experts to write them so they

> benefit us, so the laws say it's OK to protect our

> agriculture but it's not OK for African farmers to do the

> same, to earn a living?

>

> As the

> laws of man are written, that's what they say.

>

> God

> will not accept that.

>

> Mine

> won't, at least. Will

> yours?

>

> [

> pause]

>

> I

> close this morning on...very...thin...ice.

>

> This

> is a dangerous idea I've put on the table: my God vs. your

> God, their God vs. our God...vs. no God. It is very easy, in

> these times, to see religion

> as a force for division rather than unity.

>

> And

> this is a town - Washington - that knows something of

> division.

>

> But

> the reason I am here, and the reason I keep coming back to

> Washington, is because this is a town that is proving it can

> come

> together on behalf of what the scriptures call the least of

> these.

>

> This

> is not a Republican idea. It is not a

> Democratic idea. It is not even, with

> all due respect, an American idea. Nor

> it is unique to any one faith.

>

> 'Do to

> others as you would have them do to you' (Luke 6:30). Jesus says

> that.

>

> 'Righteousness

> is this: that one should...give away wealth out of love for

> him to the near of kin and the orphans and the needy and the

> wayfarer and the beggars and for the emancipation of the

> captives.' The Koran says

> that (2.177).

>

> Thus

> sayeth the Lord: 'Bring the homeless poor into the house,

> when you see the naked, cover him, then your light will break

> out

> like the dawn and your recovery will speedily spring fourth,

> then

> your Lord will be your rear guard.' The Jewish scripture says

> that. Isaiah 58 again.

>

> That

> is a powerful incentive: 'The Lord will watch your

> back.' Sounds like a good deal to

> me, right now.

>

> A

> number of years ago, I met a wise man who changed my

> life. In countless ways, large and

> small, I was always seeking the Lord's blessing. I was saying,

> you know, I have a new song, look

> after it¿. I have a family,

> please look after them¿. I have

> this crazy idea...

>

> And

> this wise man said: stop.

>

> He

> said, stop asking God to bless what you're doing.

>

> Get

> involved in what God is doing - because it's already

> blessed.

>

> Well,

> God, as I said, is with the poor. That,

> I believe, is what God is doing.

>

> And

> that is what he's calling us to do.

>

> I was amazed when I first got to this country and I learned how much

> some churchgoers tithe. Up to 10% of

> the family budget. Well, how does that

> compare with the federal budget, the budget for the entire

> American family? How much of that goes to the

> poorest people in the world? Less than 1%.

>

> Mr.

> President, Congress, people of faith, people of America:

>

> I want

> to suggest to you today that you see the flow of effective

> foreign

> assistance as tithing.... Which,

> to be truly meaningful, will mean an additional 1% of the

> federal budget tithed to the poor.

>

> What

> is 1%?

>

> 1% is not merely a number on a balance sheet.

>

> 1% is the girl in Africa who gets to go to school, thanks to

> you. 1% is the AIDS patient

> who gets her medicine, thanks to you. 1% is the African

> entrepreneur who can start a small family business thanks to

> you.

> 1% is not redecorating

> presidential palaces or money flowing down a rat hole. This 1%

> is digging waterholes to provide clean water.

>

> 1% is a new partnership with Africa, not paternalism toward

> Africa, where increased assistance flows toward improved

> governance and initiatives with proven track records and away from

> boondoggles and white elephants of every description.

>

> America gives less than 1% now. We're asking

> for an extra 1% to change the world. to transform millions

> of lives - but not just that and I

> say this to the military men now ¿ to transform the way that

> they see us.

>

> 1% is national security, enlightened economic self-interest,

> and a better, safer world rolled into one. Sounds to me that in

> this town of deals and compromises, 1% is the best bargain around.

>

> These goals - clean water for all; school for every child; medicine

> for the afflicted, an end to extreme and senseless

> poverty - these are not just any goals; they are the Millennium

> Development goals, which this country supports. And they are

> more than that. They are the Beatitudes for a globalised world.

>

> Now,

> I'm very lucky. I don't have to sit on any budget committees.

> And I certainly don't have to sit where you do, Mr.

> President. I don't have to make the tough choices.

>

> But I can tell you this:

>

> To give 1% more is right.

> It's smart. And it's blessed.

>

> There is a continent - Africa - being consumed by flames.

>

> I truly believe that when the history books are written, our age

> will be remembered for three things: the war

> on terror, the digital revolution, and what we did - or did not

> to - to put the fire out in Africa.

>

> History, like God, is watching what we do.

>

> Thank

> you. Thank you, America, and God bless

> you all.