STEVE STOCKMAN - THE ZOONATION INTERVIEW

Sat 31 Mar 2001

Tina Murphy from the U2 web site, ZOONATION, interviewed Stocki about the U2 book he is writing. Here it is. Check out the Zoonation site

THE ZOONATION INTERVIEW

TINA: What exactly is the book about?

SS: The book deals with U2’s Christian faith. Their faith has been so central to everything about the band and most of the interviews and articles I have read (and that has been a huge amount) about the band touch on their faithview.

However, the book is not just a spiritual companion. It is rooted in an evangelical Christian world where many have dismissed U2’s faith as weak or nonexistent. In some ways this book is an apologetic for their faith but it is also a sharp critique of the evangelical Christian world that has created a mindset that fails to recognise U2’s Christian stand. I’d also say that a band who hold to a deep Christian faith had to walk away from the Church to be able to stay true to their vocation and sense of mission.

The book takes a biographical shape, looking at the band’s entire recording work and looking at their tours. But the biography is only a skimpy framework on which I discuss many spiritual issues.

TINA: How long have you been thinking of writing this book?

SS: The book came out of articles on my web page. I have been writing various articles about U2 since the page began about five years ago. Some of those were a response to emails I had received that questioned how I could relate to U2 as Christian.

Relevant Media Publishing then came into my site and saw the articles. They were looking for someone to write a spiritual slant on U2 and I was very fortunate that they felt I might be able to do it.

That was around November and I have been writing it since late December. On the other hand I think I have been researching the book for twenty years. When I started to write I went up to my attic and brought down U2 articles from as far back as 1981! I am a Presbyterian minister by day, working as a University chaplain and I have been doing seminars on U2 for some years as well as quoting them in sermons and in all kinds of ways.

TINA: How is the book coming along?

SS: First draft went off today (March 31). It was a relief to get the content down, all the chapters shaped. There is some literary improvements to make now and I need to see if things need added or if some ideas need developed.

TINA: Is anyone helping you?

SS: No!!!! My editor, Kyle Minor, at Relevant Media will now tell me what he thinks but I haven’t even given it to friends to read at this stage.

TINA: Does U2 know you are working on it?

SS: No. They are on tour!!!!!!!! There was some talk at the start of interviewing them. The fact that the All That You Can’t Leave Behind circus had begun made that pretty much impossible.

I was actually not keen to talk to them. They have not talked very openly about their Christian lives in the press and so I was keen that this book would be about what they have said and done publicly. It’s not so much about U2’s spiritual lives as about what they have said about faith in their work. Indeed I was concerned that I would expose the faith that they have kept under artistic cover and that they might not like that. But they do say that whatever people get out of it – and this is what I get out of it. So there should be no crime in that!!!!!

There are also stories around Dublin that I have heard and know to be true that could be used in the book but I have kept these out of the book because they would infringe on their privacy.

TINA: Do you like U2 because of the music or the message?

SS: It’s hard to separate them. However, there are lots of bands whose message I might have some kind of agreement with that I cannot stand. U2 and maybe Bruce Cockburn are the two acts that best combine what I like musically and what I can best relate to on a Christian world view. I say in the preface of the book that there are times I have been more an admirer of what they do than being a fan. Howvere the U2 self indulgence for the book has made me love every album.

They simply provoke and inspire my faith by dealing allowing their beliefs to caress and collide with the world they live in, in their art.

TINA: What do you think of "Macphisto"

SS: Love him! There is no better way to get across the subtlety and dangers of evil in our world than dressing up as the devil and exposing him before the world. CS Lewis did this wonderfully well in The Screwtape Letters as featured on the Hold Me, Kiss Me, Thrill Me video. Os Guinness does it well in The Gravedigger File and Bono did it marvellously too.

I have done it at various times of my ministry too but not as well as Bono. He suits those horns and actually gets a wider audience than me too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Still off with the horns and on with the interview…

TINA: Which of U2’s albums do you feel has the strongest message?

SS: It is hard to say. They all say very profound things in very different ways. I mean October is different than Zooropa in that it looks in at light as opposed to looking out at darkness. What evangelicals fail to grasp is that asking questions is as useful to developing our faith as giving answers. Sometimes U2 do one and sometimes the other. I guess All That You Can’t Leave Behind is the most in your face message in a while. Doesn’t mean it is the strongest message. The book gives tie to all the albums and looks at the messages within.

TINA: Which of U2’s songs has the strongest message?

SS: I’d give a similar answer though at the moment I think songs like I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For, Mofo, Falling At Your Feet and Grace are very in your face Christian. Christian bands could cover those songs and the very theologically policed Christian music industry would allow them through. Well they may have problems with Still Haven’t Found and it’s maybe the strongest of the lot. These are maybe the ones I most wish I’d written.

TINA: Often fans on the wire and Internet refer to Bono as god? What do you think of that.

SS: I think it is semantics. I do not think that they are literally thinking he is omnipresent or omniscient or has any powers to redeem us or make us whole.

There is some danger I guess of setting someone up as an idol in your life. At the same time if you are looking across the landscape of music and looking for a hero, I think one with belief and compassion and social conscience, who is more interested in art than commerce, and isn’t into promiscuous sex and drugs is as good a hero as you might find

TINA: Fans on the wire and on the Internet have in the past debated as to whether or not Bono is an Antichrist. Do you think Bono could be an Antichrist? What/who is the Antichrist?

SS: He may be lots of things but the antichrist ain’t one of them. The anti Christ is a figure in the book of Revelation that many think will be an actual person who will emerge in the “last days”. He’ll be anti Christ and Bono happily cannot achieve anywhere near that. I is those kinds of people though that inspired this book. I am not sure where they go to Church or who are their spiritual gurus but they are profoundly deceived if they can seriously misunderstand U2 so much. The root of it though is not their misunderstanding of U2 but of Biblical Christianity and of who Christ is. Someone who copuld accuse Bono of being the anti Christ is someone who would be close to the kind of Jesus that the Pharisses wanted! The Pharisees were the legalistic fundamntalist Jews of Jesus day who couldn’t get his message of love and grace.

TINA: Bono so far has named his children after biblical people and places. Jordan, Eve, and Elijah. Who was Elijah and what did he do?

SS: Yeh, the antichrist giving his children Biblical names eh!!!!!!!! Elijah was a prophet who took on the false prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel and stood up for the one true God. It was quite a victory. The challenge was to get your god to light a fire on an altar. The hundreds of prophets of Baal marched and screamed and cut themselves and all kinds of things but not even a hint of smoke. Elijah then through water over his wood and all alone prayed and God did the business. He said “if Baal is God follow him but if God is God then follow him.”

He then found himself after such a high lying under a fig tree wanting to die in a serious fit of depression and doubt. When God went to speak to him he asked him to stand on the mountain. There was an earthquake but God wasn’t in it, a great wind but God wasn’t in it, a fire but God wasn’t in it but after the fire there was a gentle whisper and there was God. He isn’t always in the spectacular. Maybe Bono like the idea of the strength and vulnerability of faith in one man. I believe in the Kingdom come…but I still haven’t found what I’m looking for”

TINA: On All That You Can’t Leave Behind. There is a verse " Grace, it’s the name for a girl, it’s also a thought that changed the world" What is Grace? How could it change the world?

SS: Like Bono I believe Grace to be the maddest, most radical, most scandalise thing in the world.

We live in a graceless world where the first are first and so they should be. Imagine the team with the least points in the NHL or NFL or Premier League getting the Cup!!!!!!!!! That we get places by being the most talented, best looking or most intelligent leads to all our hang ups of insecurity, inferiority and is the cause of all our eating disorders and alcohol and drug addictions. We need love and when we haven’t the abilities to get love we screw up or look for escapes!!!!

Imagine if you will a radical alternative, a mad concept, a scandalous reality where you can be loved just as you are. Unmerited favour. The last can be first. That is grace. Jesus came with such a message. Christians believe that by Christ’s death and resurrection we are not able to know unconditional love. People often ask me what is the best thing about being a Christian. That is it. That God loves me as I am. No trying to impress him. From that foundation I can go on to become the person I have all the potential to be.

The last first! Enemies loved! Everyone accepted as they are and loved until they become their full human potential, which will include them loving everyone else unconditionally. Now that would change the world. You may say I’m a dreamer but I’m not the only one…

One of my other hobbies is writing lyrical poetry and I have just recorded an arty wee album that weaves songs and poems with a songwriter, Sam Hill. It is based on grace and is called Grace-Notes. It’s my obsession. The album is out in May – plug!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

TINA: On the Cover of All That You Can’t Leave Behind the band changed the flight number in the background to read J33-3 which refers to "Jeremiah 33:3" and states "Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know". What is U2 trying to say to their fans? What is the book of Jeremiah about?

SS: Bono says it’s God’s phone number. Call him. I think he’s maybe encouraging us to use the phone!!!!!

Jeremiah was one of the mad Old Testament prophets, poet preachers and performance artists who spoke into their culture about injustice and inequality and other things that God has a heart for. They were God’s messengers to warn against life without God and to try to bring God’s ways into the world of their day.

TINA: If you were to meet U2 what would you say to them?

SS: I actually have met the band at a signing for Joshua Tree, at midnight the night the album was released. They did a signing in Belfast. I got them to sign the album and my Bible which Bono said, “Great book!”

Bono and Larry also came to a youth event I organised while I was working as a youth worker in Dublin. Australian biker preacher John Smith, who the band knows, was speaking, and so they came. I spoke to them at the door to tell them when John would be around. It was a very functional conversation. I have been offered a chance to meet them but really do not want to until it is mutually beneficial. If we should meet I’d like it to be dialogue and not me just drooling. My mate, David Dark, says that you should have a question ready for every hero so that you can get over that drooling stage. A question to intrigue your hero. For Bono the question in Dave's arsenal is “How much Flannery O’Connor have you read?” The whole time I was speaking to him in that meeting in Dublin that question was running through my mind but I never got to ask it!!!!!!!!!!