As lunch ended in the ornate U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee conference room, Sen. Jesse Helms struggled to stand and bid farewell to the guest of honor. <\/p>\n\n
Bono stayed at the conservative patriarch\u2019s right hand, doing what he could to help. For the photographers, it would have been hard to imagine a stranger image than this delicate dance between the aging senator and the rock superstar. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cYou know, I love you,\u201d Helms said softly. <\/p>\n\n
The singer gave the 79-year-old Helms a hug. This private session with a circle of senators during U2\u2019s recent Washington stop wasn\u2019t the first time Bono and Helms have discussed poverty, plagues, charity and faith. Nor will it be the last. Blest be the ties that bind. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cWhat can I say? It\u2019s good to be loved \u2014 especially by Jesse Helms,\u201d Bono said two days later, as his campaign for Third World debt relief continued on Capitol Hill. <\/p>\n\n
The key to this scene is that Bono can quote the Book of Leviticus as well as the works of John Lennon. While his star power opens doors, it is his sincere, if often unconventional, Christian faith that creates bonds with cultural conservatives \u2014 in the Vatican and inside the Beltway. Bono has shared prayers and his sunglasses with Pope John Paul II. Don\u2019t be surprised if he trades boots and Bible verses with President George W. Bush. <\/p>\n\n
The hot issues right now are red ink and AIDS in Africa. An entire continent is \u201cin flames,\u201d said Bono, and millions of lives are at stake. God is watching. <\/p>\n\n
The bottom line is that the Bible contains 2,000 verses about justice and compassion. While it\u2019s crucial to answer political and economic questions linked to forgiving $200 billion in Third World debts, Bono said this also must be seen as a crisis of faith. The road into the heart of America runs through its sanctuaries. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cWhat will really wake people up,\u201d he said, \u201cis when Sunday schools start making flags and getting out in the streets. \u2026 Forget about the judgment of history. For those of you who are religious people, you have to think about the judgment of God.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Bono knows that this bleak, even melodramatic, message sounds bizarre coming from a rock \u2018n\u2019 roll fat cat. In a recent Harvard University commencement address, he said the only thing worse than an egotistical rock star is a rock star \u201cwith a conscience \u2014 a placard-waving, knee-jerking, fellow-traveling activist with a Lexus and a swimming pool shaped like his own head.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
This is old news to Bono, who has had a love-hate relationship with stardom for two decades. In U2\u2019s early days, other Christians said the band should break up or flee into \u201cChristian rock,\u201d arguing that fame always corrupts. Bono and his band mates decided otherwise, but the singer soon began speaking out about his faith and his doubts, his joys and his failures. <\/p>\n\n
\u201cI don\u2019t believe in preaching at people,\u201d he told me, back in 1982. A constant theme in his music, he added, is the soul-spinning confusion that results when spirituality, sensuality, ego and sin form a potion that is both intoxicating and toxic. \u201cThe truth is that we are all sinners. I always include myself in the \u2018we.\u2019 \u2026 I\u2019m not telling everybody that I have the answers. I\u2019m trying to get across the difficulty that I have being what I am.\u201d <\/p>\n\n
Eventually, Bono acted out this internal debate on stage. In the 1990s he celebrated and attacked fame through a sleazy, macho, leather-bound alter ego called The Fly. After that came Mister MacPhisto, a devilishly theatrical take on mass-media temptation. The motto for the decade was, \u201cMock Satan and he will flee thee.\u201d <\/p>\n\n