Description: Bono, The Edge, Adam Clayton, and Larry Mullen Jr., members of the Irish rock band U2 that marked the fiftieth anniversary of its founding in 2026, have sold over 170 million albums and won twenty-two Grammy awards. They are also theologians, individually and collectively. They think about God and God's world, and they do so with the intention of articulating this thinking publicly through their musical art. U2's Theological Imagination is an introduction to the constructive theological framework of U2's Christian imagination. The book is also an account of the author's experience of that theological framework as both an academic theologian and a fan of the band's music along with members of his family. U2's Theological Imagination is an invitation to readers to try out this theological framework for themselves as a means of envisioning a world that can move beyond the visible world in its present condition.
Brief description: Steven R. Harmon is Professor of Historical Theology at Gardner-Webb University School of Divinity in Boiling Springs, North Carolina. An ordained Baptist minister, he is the author or editor of nine other books, including Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for Christian Unity (Cascade).
Review Quotes: "Like U2 themselves, Harmon mixes personal, political, artistic, and spiritual realms in this carefully researched and copiously documented book. Particularly valuable is his detailed account of the theological structure undergirding the band's fifty-year output, something often missed by listeners."
--Beth Maynard, Co-editor of Get Up Off Your Knees: Preaching the U2 Catalog
"When passion meets passion something wonderful can ignite. And that's exactly what we find in U2's Theological Imagination. Steven Harmon's dual passions for Christian theology and the music of U2 make this book rattle and hum. I thoroughly enjoyed it!"
--Brian Zahnd, author of Unseen Existences