Belief and longing

There’s a nice piece about the U2 preaching book I’ve mentioned before, at Next-Wave. Beth Maynard pointed me to it, and also quotes author Marshall:

It seems a dangerous place, to have belief and longing in the same heart. It can only be at the point of desperation that mystery can have a seat at the table. This is the space where U2 has lingered in for years, drawing people to their passionate story and a longing for a different Kingdom here on earth. It is only natural that many would resource this voice to find a prophetic word for the world we live in now.

If this is so, I wonder what the particular combination of belief and longing is, that is contributing to the experience that people are having with the Mel Gibson film? Audiences make meaning with films, and I wonder if the enormous sense of pain and fear that exists in the world, just under our collective consciousness, is part of what is contributing to the resonance of this film?