Barry's Blog

Francis Schaeffer, the longtime apologist for the Christian faith, who sought to understand and interpret the faith through the lens of culture, was often fond of saying, "Christianity must be interpreted afresh for each new generation." Donald Miller, best known for his book, Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality, is clearly a leading spokesman among the new vanguard of influencers in evangelical Christianity. Miller, often described as "irreverent" and "bohemian," is a frequent speaker at mainstream conservative, evangelical events across America. His book, Blue Like Jazz, described recently in a Christianity Today Magazine article as a "youthful, angsty collection of personal essays," has sold more than 800,000 copies since its publication in 2003. The book takes its title from the notion that jazz music does not resolve, which Miller sees as a metaphor for the ambiguities of the life of faith in God.

Many have suggested, and I think rightly so, that Miller's writing style is casual, conversational, even lackadaisical. When you read his words, much of his writing seems more like long emails written to a friend, than substantial prose intended for mass consumption. His writing seems to represent a new kind of "casual" -- read it aloud, it sounds like speech. Hence the attraction, especially to a younger generation of evangelicals.

Whether or not most evangelicals like his writing style, his encounters with an institutional, legalistic Christianity, reflected through his books, echoes the sentiments of thousands of evangelical Christians today. He compares his writing to the experience of the apostle Paul speaking to the Athenians on Mars Hill in Acts 17, where Paul made a winsome appeal for truth in a way the Greeks would receive. Miller offers, "I actually believe that I'm setting people free from something that is frustrating them." He believes fans of Blue are "people who don't want to be in evangelical culture, but don't want to reject it either." As one writer has observed, "he is a sotto voce critic of evangelicalism, telling anxious audiences that it's okay to question the faith, yet keep it."

While some are critical of his writing because it's solipsistic (navel-gazing!) tendencies, I'm reminded that genuine Christian spirituality will involve both deep self-examination as well as integration with the world outside. Through his gifted narrative storytelling, maybe he is helping culturally conflicted Christians make peace with their faith. If Miller calls readers to greater sympathy and compassion for others,  the interests of the community, and a deeper fatih in God, can we really find fault?

Excerpts from Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality:

"For me, there was a mental wall between religion and God. I could walk around inside religion and never, on any sort of emotional level, understand that God was a person, an actual Being with thoughts and feelings...To me, God was more of an idea. It was something like a slot machine, a set of spinning images that dolled out rewards based on behavior and, perhaps, chance...The slot-machine God provided a relief for the pinging guilt and a sense of hope that my life would get organized toward a purpose...What I was doing was more in line with superstition than spirituality. But it worked. If something nice happened to me, I thought it was God, and if something nice didn't, I went back to the slot machine, knelt down in prayer, and pulled the lever a few more times. I liked this God very much because you hardly had to talk to it and it never talked back. But the fun never lasts."  (Chapter 1, "Beginnings, God on a Dirt Road Walking Toward Me," pages 8-9)

"I love to give charity, but I don't want to be charity. This is why I have so much trouble with grace. A few years ago I was listing prayer requests to a friend. As I listed my requests, I mentioned many of my friends and family but never spoke about my personal problems. My friend candidly asked me to reveal my own struggles, but I told him no, that my problems weren't that bad. My friend answered quickly, in the voice of a confident teacher, 'Don, you are not above the charity of God.' In that instant he revealed to me that my motives were not noble, they were prideful. It wasn't that I cared about my friends more than myself, it was that I believed I was above the grace of God...It isn't that I want to earn my own way to give something to God, it's that I want to earn my own way so I won't be charity. As I drove over the mountain that afternoon, realizing that I was too proud to receive God's grace, I was humbled. Who am I to think myself above God's charity? And why would I forsake the riches of God's righteousness for the dung of my own ego?" (Chapter 7, "Grace, the Beggar's Kingdom," pages 84-85) 

"I want to tell you something about me that you may see as weakness. I need wonder. I know that death is coming. I smell it in the wind, read it in the paper, watch it on television, and see it on the faces of the old. I need wonder to explain what is going to happen to me, what is going to happen to us when this thing is done, when our shift is over and our kids' kids are still on the earth listening to their crazy rap music. I need something mysterious to happen after I die. I need to be somewhere else after I die, somewhere with God, somewhere that wouldn't make any sense if it were explained to me right now. At the end of the day, when I am lying in bed and I know the chances of any of our theology being exactly right are a million to one, I need to know that God has things figured out, that if my math is wrong we are still going to be okay..." (Chapter 17, "Worship, the Mystical Wonder," pages 205-206)

For FinishingWell,

Barry Morrow