c. 2005 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) As I sat in Murrayfield Stadium in Edinburgh at the “Final Push” concert of the Live 8, I began to have flashbacks to the 1970s. As Bono gave one more impassioned plea for the needs of Africa and Annie Lennox read her manifesto against poverty following a couple of rousing rock and roll anthems, it was deja vu for aging baby boomers like myself. Could talk of peace, love and harmony be coming back into fashion?

Less than 12 hours later, I sat in the terminal in Edinburgh awaiting take off for London when the news reports of the train explosions confronted my idealism. I was abruptly returned to the current reality of terrorism and hatred.

And yet, in the aftermath of both experiences the world seems to be forging yet a new reality. It is not one of passive idealism but neither is it reactionary isolationism. What might have seemed at first like a naive attempt to organize average citizens against global poverty was actually further galvanized by terrorists in London.

The Live 8 concerts and the other efforts succeeded because they were aggressively inclusive of liberals and conservatives, religious and secular. The terrorist attacks made the loose movement seem even more concrete.

In a world where it has become popular to define yourself by who you are against, the Live 8, the European “Make Poverty History,” and its American counterpart the “One Campaign” actually had the audacity to bring people together and aggressively promote a culture of unity.

Many of us knew something was different a month ago when we saw George Clooney and Pat Robertson appearing in the same ad. But we discovered it was really serious when Clooney appeared last week in Edinburgh to chat up One Campaign volunteers and refused to answer questions that seemed to ask for criticism of Bush.

“I’m not here to talk about things that divide us,” he said firmly, although he had campaigned actively against Bush in the last election.

And then he excused himself to go to an interview with Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network while the BBC reporter and CNN crew were left behind in shock.

“My parents will laugh when they hear about this,” he said, smiling wryly.

It was one of many counter-intuitive experiences in a week that had begun on a Virgin Atlantic flight with founder Richard Branson offering free seats to fly religion and secular writers (including this columnist), conservative bloggers and an assortment of celebrities and ordinary volunteers to attend the run up to the G-8 summit. Branson, Bono and Live 8 producer Bob Geldof had all joined together to support the appeal for more aid to Africa.

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On the flight over many of the representatives of the conservative and religious press confessed that they at first thought it was a joke when they were offered the trip. But soon it became clear that the One campaign and the affiliated efforts were actually going out of their way to include conservatives and those who reported for religion media.

In one of the first sessions open to the press, Richard Curtis, who defined himself as “the one who does the Hugh Grant movies” (including “Love Actually,” “Notting Hill” and others) spent most of his time establishing his Christian credentials.

Seeming almost in awe of American pastor Rick Warren, he spoke about how Warren had been enticed to support the anti-poverty efforts. Invoking the names of John Stott, Billy Graham and other religious leaders, Curtis spoke about the power of one person to change the course of history.

“What the ___ is he talking about?” asked one secular reporter loudly. “I lost him at Hugh Grant.

By the end of the week reporters from the secular press had learned to ask their religion colleagues for help in spelling names and identifying the new stars of the movement.

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Perhaps the most defining event happened Thursday night after our charter flight brought us to London and the group of One campaign volunteers and media representatives were stuck together watching the television in a bar at the airport hotel. By this point a conservative Christian blogger had become friends with a gay liberal writer, an avowed atheist liberal volunteer was rooming with another volunteer motivated by her evangelical faith and the labels many of us had brought into the trip were beginning to lose their punch.

As we shared food and drinks with one another and watched the events on television it became clear that whatever differences we might have had did not define us as deeply as we once imagined.

Said one secular journalist, “I used to be scared of those religious people. I didn’t know they cared about poverty, I thought they were just against gays and abortion.” He could hardly contain his disappointment at having his story tempered by the realization.

This was only a start, of course. The goal of increasing aid to the poor has been achieved _ at least in theory _ and the organizers are left to find another rallying point. But out of the events of last week came a remarkable tempering of the differences that often divide religious and secular, conservative and liberal. Perhaps that will be the greatest legacy of the events surrounding this G-8 summit.

MO/JL END RNS

(Dale Hanson Bourke is the author of “The Skeptic’s Guide to the Global AIDS Crisis” and a consultant to humanitarian organizations.)

Editors: Search the RNS photo Web site at https://religionnews.com for photos of Live 8 organizers and the concert. Search by subject or slug using “exact phrase” button.