Sinéad O’Connor and grace

If you know anything at all about Sinéad O’Connor, you probably remember her ripping up a photo of the pope on Saturday Night Live 15 years ago. That’s pretty much all I knew about her.

So it surprised me to see Christianity Today do an interview and feature article on her. It surprised me more to read that O’Connor is releasing a CD called Theology, based on themes from the Old Testament, and that the CT articles are part of her publicity campaign. The biggest surprise, though, is how RIGHT she gets grace.

Sinéad O’Connor isn’t likely to win any Dove Awards with Theology. She’s still profane (I had to steer around an expletive in the quote below). But she shows real insight into grace, authenticity, repentance and the power of God when she speaks to CT about the Catholic church abuse scandals:

The reason they were afraid to fess up is because they knew their congregations would slaughter them, which means they haven’t taught forgiveness—they haven’t actually taught the Christian lessons to their own congregations. If they had taught forgiveness and understanding…people would have a lot more respect for them.

If they believed in God, they would’ve gone through this sexual abuse scandal a lot easier because they would’ve actually asked and employed God in order to sort things out. So they’re still swimming through it with no life support.

July 16, 2007 · Filed Under Culture, Grace, Music

Comments

4 Responses to “Sinéad O’Connor and grace”

  1. sumgirl on July 16th, 2007 6:52 pm

    i’ve always been a closet sinead fan. i am interested to hear the new cd. and if it’s theologically accurate, then all the better.

  2. josh on July 16th, 2007 11:48 pm

    very interesting. I also thought it was intriguing that she destroyed her career to get one message out- obviously its important to her.

  3. Marsha on July 17th, 2007 8:26 am

    This is a strange thought maybe. How much does the Catholic church influence us when it pertains to grace? I have a feeling that it is more than we realize. It’s embedded in our history. I know it is mine coming from a Catholic background. I know many Evangelical Christians that one might think are Catholic because of their ideas on grace.

  4. Sam Clark on July 30th, 2007 1:48 pm

    One day last week I sat with a guy that’s was an alcoholic for 40 of his 75 yrs but hasn’t drank a drop for the past 29. He has a trail of tears through abused family, divorce, and recent death of two of his children. I’d never met him before our visit but he spoke openly as one with not much to lose but everything to gain. We visited for an hour. He is a devout Catholic, and has attended mass twice a week all his life. We talked about Grace alot that day. He said he loves the Catholic church but thinks the teachers have been dead wrong about one thing - ours is a loving God and not one given to destruction no matter who says so. If a man that has been through as much as he has with the loss that he has can still love the Catholic church with all her faults I’m sure Jesus does too.

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