Two rocks stars and their Christian journey
“It’s impossible to meet God with sunglasses on” — Bono “Hope is optimism with a broken heart” — Nick Cave Two rock music world’s most enduring frontmen have published long, exploratory memoirs in the lead-up to Christmas. Nick Cave’s Faith, Hope and Carnage record conversations with journalist Seán O’Hagan during the lockdown months of 2020. The epigraph to the book is a biblical quote from the Old Testament book of Isaiah: “A little child shall lead them.” Bono’s nearly 600-page book, Surrender , is a reflective journey through his life in music, beginning and ending with his birth — in fact, the penultimate chapter is a poetic imagining of his own entry into the world. For these famous rockstars, both books read like adult Sunday school lessons. Both artists see their art and lives intertwined with the Christian faith's spirit, history, and eschatology. Both were “catechised” in different ways as teenagers, endured significant trauma in their personal lives at similar tim