Sinead O’Connor made headlines in the early ’90s when she tore up a picture of Pope John Paul II on national television. So it might surprise readers to learn that she was featured in Christian Music Today, a sister publication to Christianity Today, recently. Her new album is called Theology, and from interviews it becomes clear that she hasn’t left her “girl rebel” attitude behind, but her faith is real. Christianity Today writes:
It’s not the kind of thing you hear on a typical Christian album, even one focusing on Scripture. Nor is it the kind of verse you hear taken seriously in liberal pulpits. O’Connor told Christianity Today sister publication Christian Music Today, “I don’t think God judges anybody,” but her music specifically says otherwise. The songs here are full of both the pain of sin and forgiveness from it.
O’Connor says Jeremiah is her favorite book of the Bible—not usually something said by those who believe God doesn’t judge. Still, she knows the message of Jeremiah and the prophets is not “God will hunt you down,” but “God is coming for you.”
“I hope this record would make someone think that perhaps God is not an angry, punishing, warmaking God and is in fact a gentle and compassionate God who actually is upset at the loss of us,” she said.
In the end, because it is so drenched in Scripture, Theology offers anything but a tragic God. It offers an active God who is tearing down kingdoms to bring people to him. He seems to be chasing Sinead O’Connor down, too.
Interviews with O’Connor: