Surrender: 40 Songs, One Story

by Bono

I remember hearing the American evangelical Tony Campolo explaining that there are 2,003 verses of scripture that relate to the poor, that poverty is second only to redemption in the priorities of the God found in the Old and New Testaments. It’s a theme you can trace from Moses to Doubting Thomas, from the Torah through the beatitudes. Strikingly, only once does Jesus speak about judgment, and when he does, it’s about how we treat the poor: And they too will reply, “Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?” Then the King will answer, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for Me.” And yet for some reason even now people of faith think that what’s going on in their—or other people’s—pants is more important to God than, say, what’s happening to the homeless. The lives of the poorest people are at the heart of Christianity, but sometimes religion seems to be what happens when Jesus, like Elvis, has left the building. It becomes a bless me club for the Holy Rollers and navel gazers.