Campus CrossWalk Magazine: 2005 Fall Issue -- Blue Like Jazz, Book Review

I read Blue Like Jazz upon the enthusiastic recommendation of a delightful young lady I met at our last National Campus Ministry Seminar in Oklahoma. How could I not read it? Blue is popular among young people interested in spirituality. It's a hot seller and its author, Donald Miller, is on the Christian speaking circuit, big time.

First, the good stuff:

1. Miller's thought-life is the body and soul of this book. His memories and musings are a spiritual playground he shares with the reader. It's a fun read.

2. We meet the author first as a child, trying to figure out God, sin, guilt and the human condition. Like God's little spy, he searches out the mysteries of the universe, or at least those of his neighborhood. Growing up, he actually solves some big ones. He discovers that other people actually exist despite his youthful obsession with himself. He learns the hard way that goodness does not come natural. And he learned that God is not a slot machine.

3. Deep inside the Grand Canyon, Miller recalled listening to the music of the river and speaking with God. He wrote, "There's something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. (They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz.)" It occurred to him, a college Bible class leader, that God was up there. Even teachers sometimes need to close their mouths and listen to God.

Yet, there were some unhealthy hazards in Miller’s autobiographical playground, besides the fact that his subtitle is oxymoronic.

1. Miller overplays the "Christianity-stinks-but-Jesus-is-cool" card. His apologies for the Crusades, televangelists and our neglect of the poor were gratuitous. He was sorry for genocide, Columbus and for well-dressed preachers who support Republicans. He and his friends even set up a booth on a college campus to apologize for Christianity. They asked people to express their hostility against Christians. He said, "It felt kind of cool, kind of different. It was relieving." (p 127).

Instead of Christianity, Miller believes in "Christian spirituality." Fine, but it's too easy to confess the distant sins of others and feel superior as a result.

2. Miller trafficked in too many stereotypes about big-haired preachers and heartless Republicans. He complained about how little work there is in the Christian writer’s market "if you don't write self-righteous conservative propaganda" (p. 188). Yet, his own success defies his resentment. He lost me when he quipped, "Republicans did not give a cr-p about the causes of Christ." (p. 132).

3. Looking back, he expressed admiration for "Mark the cussing pastor," who led a cool church "filled with hippies, yuppies, artists and people who listened to public radio." Mark earned a reputation for cussing "a lot," said Miller. Fortunately, he did not share specifics. But Mark’s church made Miller feel like he "could breathe for the first time in years." (p 133).

Full disclosure: This reviewer doesn't appreciate profanity. I try to advocate decent speech without coming off as the Grand Inquisitor. Call me a stick-in-the-mud, but pastors who cuss to be cool are unworthy of their profession. Give me big hair and a clean mouth any day.

4. Miller’s personal discoveries of grace were insightful. But sometimes, his picture of grace looked like a choice between love and self-discipline. He made the muscular side of Christianity look silly and knocked it over with a warmer fuzzier version. Grace and self-discipline may tug at each other, but they should end up as partners in God's scheme, with love in the lead.

5. The phrase, "I feel…", dominated the book. I began circling all the "feel" words, which kept my hand very busy. Cover to cover, he saw Christian spirituality as more or less what Donald Miller "feels." In the final chapter, he wrote, "I think Christian spirituality is like jazz music. I think loving Jesus is something you feel… Everybody sings the song the way they feel it." (p 239).

Remember his Grand Canyon moment? Gazing at stars, he recalled, "The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart." (p 100). He occasionally reminded the reader that feelings can fade, but a heart & head balance was not there. He saw faith as a mystery, a radar of the heart "that says to believe in Jesus." For Miller, belief in God was like falling in love. Perhaps, but we need a few other cards in our deck. In Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote,

: “By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over us like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth.”

CONCLUSION:

Perhaps I was the wrong guy to review this book. I actually do think that cussing is rude, that Catcher in the Rye was an insulting book, that the institutional church is worth its salt, and that love runs deeper than feeling. As a reader, I began to mistrust his narrative color commentaries as if it meant more to him to entertain than to tell stories accurately. The hippies were too angelic, the conservatives too inhuman, the women all too beautiful and the Republicans too plastic. And he was a bit too cynical about things I value. I often wanted to say, "Speak for yourself."

But in fairness, that’s just what he was doing.

Joel Mark Solliday, M.Div., is the editor of Campus CrossWalk and the pulpit minister of the Brooklyn Center Church of Christ in Minnesota. A Pepperdine graduate, he later worked in their Campus Life Office and at ACU as a Missionary in Residence. He earned his M.Div. at Fuller Theological Seminary. In Minnesota, he met his lovely wife, Katie.