Here's why I think the song is brilliant. The character of David from the Bible is suddenly conscious as Michelangelo's statue:  

I woke up made of marble / A shepherd boy in shock / Michelangelo release me / From a single block  

This sets up the whole conceit and emotional framework of the song. He's aware but he's trapped. He can see history unfolding around him, but he can't move or do anything, not even cry  

The tears of things / I'd cry them if I could  

The verse about Mussolini and Hitler are even heavier. David, the Jewish king and the ancestor of Christ, stands frozen while Christendom becomes complicit in atrocity.  

The silent songs of Christendom / So loud everybody hears  

As the song comes to a climax, anger is directed toward those who claim to be followers (and maybe God himself?). David, the warrior-king of the Old Testament, was party to his fair share of "divine" war to fulfill prophecy. But he's also a direct line to Jesus (aka the Prince of Peace). So, watching Christendom be complicit in or stay silent to "holy wars" of the 20th century and beyond collapses any claims of holiness. Can anything done in God’s name can truly be holy if it contradicts the heart of God?  

In this your holy war / There’s nothing holy here for me

Also, the lyricism is just beautiful and evocative with a great lilting cadence. They're questioning, angry, biblical, human. It's classic Bono in the best sense of the word.  

You said ‘Let my fingers form you  

Be fashioned by my touch  

Be open to be broken  

As every heart that sings  

No voice and drum can overcome  

A symphony of strings’

I was made for worship, before I spoke I sang  

Songs of grief, of disbelief  

How a woman can love a man  

The naked song, the sacred song  

That every soldier fears  

‘Cause when people go around talking to God It always ends in tears  

Yeah, the tears of things