In 1976, a group of Dublin teenagers with questionable ability but unquestioned passion started making music.

Thirty-three years later, Bono, Adam Clayton, The Edge and Larry Mullen (now known to the world as U2), have sold more than 145 million albums and have won more Grammy Awards (22) than any other band. Rolling Stone magazine gave U2 the No. 22 spot on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.

Their lyrics are consistently influenced by their spiritual journey, and more specifically, by their Christian roots.

Early on, Bono, the Edge and Mullen were members of the "Shalom Fellowship," a Christian group in Dublin. They've wrestled with the relationship between their Christian faith, social conscience and rock 'n' roll ever since.

"The music that really turns me on is either running toward God or away from God," Bono once said. "Both recognize the pivot, that God is at the center of the jaunt."

Thankfully, Bono has not allowed his religious commitment to override his gifts as an artist and brooding Irish poet. The result is a fusion of lyrics laced with deeper meaning and overlaid on irresistible tunes.

Bono recently asked: "How do you puncture pop consciousness with a tune anymore? That's actually your first job as a songwriter." This is a band with something to say, and they entice massive numbers of people to hear it through great rock 'n' roll music.

U2's newly released 16th album, "No Line on the Horizon," reflects their prophetic lyrical and musical gifts. Produced by Daniel Lanois and Brian Eno and recorded over 16 months, the album was described by Rolling Stone as "Hymns for the Soul," saying it "fuses their spiritual uplift from the '80s with their future-schock sonics of the '90s."

Desiring to write songs that will last forever, and with a conscious decision to make each piece interdependent with the other, "No Line" is an album that needs to be listened to sequentially for a listener to absorb its full impact. Lyrically, the spiritual themes are hinted at; only occasionally are they overtly obvious.

In the track "Stand Up Comedy," the three pillars of Christian living are connected to the mysteries of faith and our tendency to put God in a box of our own theological making. "I can stand up for hope, faith, love, but while I'm getting over certainty, stop helping God across the road like a little old lady."

In "Unknown Caller," Bono returns to a verse of Scripture that regularly haunts him from Jeremiah 33:3: "Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know."

"I was lost between the midnight and the dawning," the song goes, "in a place of no consequence or company, 3:33 when the numbers fell off the clock face, speed dialing with no signal at all."

"Magnificent" recalls the prayer of the Virgin Mary in the Gospel of Luke: "Magnificent, Magnificent, I was born, I was born to be with you in this space and time. I was born, I was born to sing for you. I didn't have a choice but to lift you up and sing whatever song you wanted me to. I give you back my voice from the womb my first cry, it was a joyful noise ... Only love, only love can leave such a mark, but only love, only love can heal such a scar."

In "White As Snow," a song that The Egde said is influenced by the Seattle-based band Fleet Foxes, we find ourselves with the adulterous King David seeking forgiveness in Psalm 51: "Once I knew there was a love divine, then came a time I thought it knew me not. Who can forgive forgiveness where forgiveness is not? Only the lamb as white as snow."

When U2 speaks, people listen. Many will not know they are hearing the ancient Hebrew prophets or the words of Jesus and the Apostle Paul because they are hearing a new song in a new way, embodied and given an authentic voice through the artistry and imagination of some aging (but seemingly ageless) Dubliners who don't have a choice but to lift God up and sing whatever song God wants them to.

Dick Staub is the author of "The Culturally Savvy Christian" and the host of The Kindlings Muse (www.thekindlings.com). His blog can be read at www.dickstaub.com. His column is distributed through Religion News Service.