It's Sunday bloody Sunday as U2 rocks the pews

Churches have latched on to the music of U2. Picture / Reuters

WASHINGTON - It is often said that the increasingly saintly Paul Hewson - aka Bono - would feel happier behind a pulpit than a microphone.

But until then, Bono and his band U2 are being used by churches across the United States as a means of helping to spread the word and to attract younger worshippers to their services.

From Maine to Georgia, churches are holding "U2 Eucharists" and using the Irish group's spiritually themed music to reinvigorate their congregations.

The idea was started by the Rev Paige Blair of St George's Episcopal Church in York Harbour, Maine.

She designed the service and drew up the playlist after discussions with lay members on the spiritual themes of the band's music. It helped that she is a fan and had recently seen them in concert.

"It often came up that their music was a spiritual resource and that we should do something about it. There are a lot of spiritual themes in the songs."

Three members of the band - singer Bono, guitarist The Edge and drummer Larry Mullen jnr - are acknowledged Christians.

Among the most popular U2 songs included in the service are the R&B number When Love Comes to Town with BB King, the eulogy to civil rights leader Martin Luther King (Pride) In the Name of Love and One which includes the lyrics "One life, But we're not the same, We get to carry each other, Carry each other."

Blair, who has taken her service to other churches, said she saw nothing wrong with incorporating rock music. "Christianity is about a lot more than what you wear," she said, when asked about Bono's seemingly unbiblical penchant for leather trousers. "Anyway, I have known some members of the clergy who have leather clothes."

The U2 service was recently held at the Grace Episcopal Church in Providence, Rhode Island, where the Rev Robert Brooks welcomed worshippers with the offer of earplugs. Ushers then handed out earplugs and fluorescent glow sticks for this communion service as multicolour streamers flew over worshippers' heads. Children danced by the altar and plasma-screen televisions illuminated the church.

"We absolutely need to grow in order to survive," Brooks said of the decision to try out the service.

A U2 Eucharist last November at All Saints' Church in Atlanta was reportedly equally popular. The organiser, Laurie Haynes Burlington, said she and her husband expected about 300 worshippers and got 500.

Christian Scharen, 39, a Lutheran pastor and professor at Yale Divinity School, has written a soon-to-be-published book about the spirituality of U2's music and said he argued to older colleagues that the band was heavily influenced by Christianity. "People who have these liturgical resonances in their bones, they go to a U2 concert and they just get it. In some sense, I think it was just a matter of time before this started happening."

Blair believes that it is only a matter of time before U2's music is included within the Episcopal church's authorised hymn book. "I seriously think the day will come. There's a gift they have in speaking to the human soul."

- INDEPENDENT