Blue Like Jazz (review)

First, I must say I blew through Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz. It's that easy to read...in the good sense. There were a few times I cocked my head to one side and went "Huh?", but Miller's book is not a theological treatise or doctrinal statement. It's a collection of thoughts from a man on a spiritual journey.

Miller describes how he came to faith, not in one huge epiphany, or black-and-white revelation in which all things fell into perspective, but rather his journey through doubts, denials, questions, accepting, believing, more doubts, questions, etc. You get the idea.

For the areas where he has things figured out for the time being, Miller does a great job of describing spiritual truths in every day vernacular. Which is a good thing.

I mentioned in a previous post that I read John MacArthur's The Truth War. In that book, MacArthur casts the entire Emerging Church movement in one broad-brush stroke of post-modern heresy. At one point he cites a passage from Miller's book. But when I read that passage--in context--I discovered it didn't say what MacArthur said it did. In fact, Miller makes it very clear he doesn't support the very thing of which MacArthur accuses.

There are some places where readers may scratch their heads, or wonder what Miller was smoking at the time. But one has to remember, Miller isn't trying to itemize and prove the Christian faith. His book provides glimpses into the lives of the Christ-followers Miller surrounds himself with, including Rick McKinley, pastor of Imago-Dei, a church in Portland, Oregon. McKinley wrote This Beautiful Mess (which I read a year ago or so), which considers what living in the kingdom of God means here, on this side of eternity. All that to say that Miller's stories show a very human side of McKinley. Like all of us, neither Miller nor McKinley have everything figured out.

I highly recommend this book as reading for anyone wishing to understand the post-modern mind, and how it is possible for such a thinker to actually come to faith.