Blue Like Jazz—Donald Miller

WHAT I’M READING…

David Drury

Many people have written about the postmodern world. Donald Miller actually lives a postmodern life. As such, he doesn’t even use the word in his book, Blue Like Jazz: Non-Religious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality. His life seems postmodern enough to lack the need for that title. The Pacific northwestern writer takes us through a bloggish self-revelatory journey into his spiritual development. That journey is a fun ride. His writing style is at times surprising in its angle as much as for its brutal honesty. While certainly giving the stereotypical evangelical a window into his postmodern life, the writing never seems to be “let me show you” in its crafting. It is honesty without the forcedness of so much postmod window writing.

However, his repeated struggle with the post-fundamentalist journey is the same ground on which readers will struggle. Those Southern Baptist Survivors or members of the Legalism Exodus would no-doubt find a kindred soul in Donald Miller. His journal-like tale helps redeem the world for those, if not redeeming the church. But for the rest of us it may be less applicable. The rest of us includes those that grew up in a church running from legalism headlong into antinomianism, with few “do’s and don’ts” as baggage. It includes those who are not only postmodern but post-Christian, with no church background to speak of, and therefore only media-baggage in relation to the church. The rest of us include post-fundamentalists turned neo-conservatives… who have redeemed the social contract value that comes through churches deciding “we’ll do this, but we won’t do that.”

Ironically, Donald Miller’s own model church, where he seems to be an active member and teacher, has become very fundamentalist in other issues. It seems that his pastor practically forced him to move in with other single men in a commune like setting. The author hated this transition but felt he had to do it to “really be a part of this church.” It was just something the pastor was passionate about and made everyone do. He “just hates it when someone is alone.” This “radical community lived out” is about as legalistic as it gets. Perhaps every movement comes up with radical stipulations that turn into practical suggestions, then legalistic qualifications. Every effective movement feels freeing in its radicalism up front and feels forced in its marginalism by the end.

I suggest reading Donald Miller’s book for the good writing and the honest look into an authors spiritual questioning and wanderings. It’s reassuring to talk with someone who has looked over the cliff, then came back to tell you about it. His discovery that we often turn our changing “beliefs into trend statements” is an insightful indictment of the way we postmoderns often think. As he says, “what we believe is what we do.”

He drives into his concluding chapters very well by finding great value in the most fundamental portions of Christian belief. He worries that many new church plants are “passionate about nothing” and that much of what we say “points passion back at ourselves.” This warning about the self-congratulatory and narcissistic tendencies we have is needed. The irony is that the warning comes within one of the most self-reflective books on the shelves. It has been suggested that the book could be titled “Blue Like Narcissism.” But the book points a finger at all of us at the same time. Perhaps it is worthwhile for the opportunity to look into the mirror and discover your Echo. That all along your name was Narcissus too.

"As he tried to quench his thirst ... he saw an image in the pool, and fell in love with that unbodied hope, and found a substance in what was only shadow."

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