U2's Political, Unstoppable, Grating Cheerfulness

MechaHitler and HiddleSwift, meet RefuJesus. In one of the passages on U2’s , during which the band tamps down its cheerful noisemaking and lets some anxiety show for a few measures, Bono breaks the gloom with a yelp: “Will you be our sanctuary / Ref-you-jeez-us!”  Wait, RefuJesus might be the Statue of Liberty, welcoming the tired and huddled. Or it could be the West as a whole. Or just Jesus. Or, naturally, Bono himself. What’s clear is that the religious and political concerns that have threaded through U2’s career are