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Bono's spirituality is more than just a reflection of antisectarianism, said Steve Stockman, a chaplain at Queens University in Belfast, Northern Ireland, and author of Walk On: The Spiritual Journey of U2 (Relevant, 2001). "At the time Bono was involved with Shalom, something unique was happening in Dublin," he explains. "There was a movement of the Holy Spirit that you simply cannot deny. In some ways I think it was the Jesus Movement hit Dublin eight years late. That radical, almost hippie attitude at some level, that this is a radical thing to live in the Spirit … It gave Dublin something that was vibrant and exciting and trendy, almost. Bono and [Alison] were certainly caught up in the middle of that. They've never been able to get over that, no matter how their faith has changed. The roots of what they're doing now are in whatever the Spirit was doing back then."

When expressed in private, one-on-one conversations, Bono's faith in Christ is anything but trendy.

"The idea that there's a force of love and logic behind the universe is overwhelming to start with, if you believe it. Actually, maybe even far-fetched to start with," Bono said. "But the idea that that same love and logic would choose to describe itself as a baby born in s— and straw and poverty is genius, and brings me to my knees, literally. To me, as a poet, I am just in awe of that. It makes some sort of poetic sense. It's the thing that makes me a believer, though it didn't dawn on me for many years."

And though he tends to distrust religion, he appealed to religious institutions during his recent weeklong speaking tour of the American Midwest with his humanitarian organization, Debt, AIDS, and Trade in Africa (DATA). At Wheaton College, students couldn't help trying to read between the lines of his challenges to intervene on behalf of Africans devastated by AIDS.

"I had students afterward ask me, 'Do you think he's a Christian?' " said Ashley Woodiwiss, a political science professor at Wheaton who helped organize Bono's appearance at the college.

"I just said, these times of prayer that I took part in and observed, these were off-stage. This was the man, not the performer at all. To see that vitality, and yet, he's not going to be captured by anybody. He's not going to be 'Our Saint.' He's not going to be an evangelical for us."

A few weeks before Christmas, the singer also met with Bill Hybels, pastor of Willow Creek Community Church in South Barrington, Illinois, during the Chicago stop on his Heart of America tour.

Hybels told Christianity Today about his impression of the rock star: "After a two-hour private meeting in my office, I came away convinced that Bono's faith is genuine, his vision to relieve the tragic suffering in Africa is God-honoring, and his prophetic challenge to the U.S. church must be taken seriously."

"This is the defining moral issue of our time," Bono repeatedly told church congregations during the tour, which was designed to raise people's awareness of the one-two punch of AIDS and profound poverty that is claiming the lives of 6,500 Africans every day.

"This generation will be remembered for three things: the Internet, the war on terror, and how we let an entire continent go up in flames while we stood around with watering cans. Or not," he would say, sometimes pounding his fist for emphasis. "Let me share with you a conviction. God is on his knees to the church on this one. God Almighty is on his knees to us, begging us to turn around the supertanker of indifference on the subject of AIDS."

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March 2003, Vol. 47, No. 3