Bono

Good article this morning in the NY Times Magazine on Bono. Give it a read. Yeah, he's a big celebrity, and you might not like his music or think his sunglasses are ridiculous. But I have great respect for him. He has spent a lot of time becoming a better expert on global poverty and hunger than most of the pundits on American tv, radio, and blogland. And he has used his unique position as global celebrity to push the message, recruiting others to do the same. I happened upon a Davos dialogue broadcast on C-Span earlier this year -- Tony Blair, Bill Clinton, Olusegun Obasanjo, and others, moderated by respected French journalist Christine Okrent with Jeffrey Sachs sitting in the front row and a hall filled with political leaders. Bill Clinton, of course, is impressive as always. The guy simply knows his stuff -- facts and figures, methodologies, and also the moral arguments and, of course, his famous (or infamous) political skill. But... Bono holds his own with all of them.

In many ways, Bono has single-handedly educated a younger generation in the problem of global poverty and the tragedies of globalization. He has done so with knowledge, hands-on experience, intelligence, and passion. Compare that rich Christian with our rich American Christians -- the Pat Robertsons, Jerry Falwells, even Jesse Jacksons,.... If you're out there being Christian yourself, pay attention, for God's sake (or, rather, Jesus' sake). Bono, rock star and celebrity figure, fits the message far better than mega-church-owning, media conglomerating, diamond mine-owning (with workers in slave-like conditions, and corrupt officials), assassination-threatening, money-demanding, political-demagogues who paint the picture of God that best represents the image they prefer of a world in which they tell others how best to place them on ever-higher pedestals they want to own and to accumulate more and more and more....

UPDATE:

Why not have Rushdie make the same call for Bono-style modernization of Christianity that he demands of Islam? I mean, our great debate in the great pluralistic Christian nation of the United States is currently over whether to institute an archaic medieval argument into schools as a legitimate alternative to modern scinetific knowledgeand good sense. What's the difference, Rushdie?