"Blue Like Jazz" Book Review

by Terry Ivy
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"Blue Like Jazz," by Donald Miller, is basically a self confession by a person who is on a spiritual pilgrimage, and who is greatly confused over what the life of a Christian is all about. The honesty is refreshing, but the grasp of Christianity is both sad and lacking. Miller bounces from pillar to post along his quest to find meaning and understanding, but fails to ever investigate the biblical description of what is the spiritual reality of a genuine believer. Instead, he wallows around in his post-modern and subjective musings while attempting to present himself as a believer during the majority of this journey.

Miller presents himself as a lazy, selfish and introverted migrant. He constantly approves of several types of immoral behavior without any shame, all while claiming to belong to Christ. This book is a good representative of all that is 'out of whack' with the emergent church movement. While I applaude several of the honest observations of what is missing in much of the church world today, Miller's book offers neither a biblical solution or avenue for Godly change. He presents his own subjective and disjointed theology while bashing and looking down on historic Christian theology. In short, he sees himself as one who has discovered some new truth, while in fact, he is just presenting subjective existentialism clothed in biblical terms.

Let's take a look at some quotes from "Blue Like Jazz" to demonstrate the absurdity of Miller's statements. Bellow is just a small sampling of major problems in Miller's book.Following each quote, I give some thoughts from a Christian perspective.

(1)"The first day of school was exhilarating. It was better than high school. Reed had ashtrays, and everybody said cusswords" p.38

When we were unrgenerated, this would be understandable. But Miller presents himself as a Christian and yet feels 'exhilerated' with everyone cussing. He demontrates a lack of conviction concerning ungodly speech throughout the book.

(2)"The goofy thing about Christian faith is that you believe it and don't believe it at the same time." p.51

Foolish. Many times we question to understand something about God, but once we have met Christ through the new birth, not believing the essential of the 'faith' is never an issue. Unregenerate me must walk through the persuasion phase of the core tenets to determine if they will embrace the gospel as true. That is a persuasion we face while being draw to Christ, not after we become a genuine believer.

(3)"I think one of the problems Laura was having was that she wanted God to make sense. He doesn't. He will make no more sense to me than I will make sense to an ant." p.54

We begin to see Miller's existientialism revealed. He wants to separate reason from spirituality. He begins a continual tirade of self defeating statements concerning Christianity. For example, by making the above statement, he posits to know something about God, while stating we can't! He attempts to make sense about God, while saying God doesn't make sense!

(4)"And I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet is is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul." p.57

Ditto. He says Christian spirituality cannot be explained, then turns around and offers his explanation. The Apostles and early church sure did hold that their spirituality could be explained. In fact, to believe the gospel can be explained is a necessary prerequisite to preaching the gospel. If he 'really' believes that Christian spirituality cannot be explained, then why did he write a book?

(5)"Every year or so I start pondering at how silly the whole God thing is." p.87

No genuine believer would ever make such a infantile statement. Why? Because at salvation we conciously cast our life, sin and soul upon the truth that God was in Christ reconciling us unto Himself. Once the Spirit of the Living God comes into the heart of a believer, God never becomes a silly issue.

(6)"Peter finally believed the gospel after he got yelled at by Paul." p.106

Now we see his biblical ignorance come through. Peter preached at Pentecost. Paul's rebuke of Peter took place at Galatia 15-20 years after Pentecost. Peter had believed the gospel for twenty years. He was simply in error concerning the application of it to the Gentiles, and therefore Paul rebuked him for his lack of hypocrisy in practicing what he knew was true.

(7)"I am afraid of rejection, and I am afraid that I won't feel the same way tomorrow, and I have no faith in the system that God made." p.144

Two problems. Here he is 1) having no faith in God's system, and 2) he sees God's way as a system. Christianity is a relationship based upon revealed absolute truth.

(8)"I would read the poetry of Emily Dickinson out loud and pretend to have conversations with her. I asked what she meant by 'zero at the bone,' and I asked her if she was a lesbian. For the record, she told me she wasn't a lesbian. She was sort of offended by the question, to be honest. Emily Dickinson was the most interesting person I'd ever met. She was lovely, really, sort of quiet like a scared dog, but she engaged fine when she warmed up to me. She was terribly brilliant." p.155

Dickinson died in 1886! Miller could be a case study at a psychological hospital. The above reveals that because he has abandoned a standard to judge his existentialism, he is left to the prideful imagery within his own mind. This section of Miller's book borders on schizophrenia.

(9)"Trevor is one of my favorite people. He is my Nintendo buddy. We yell profanities at each other while playing NFL blitz." p.179

Gee, what a great friendship. Profanity toward each other! He seems to enjoy the freedom to cuss and use profanity throughout the book as an element within his 'make it up as you go' form of spirituality. He applaudes the ministry of 'Mark the cussing preacher' in another section.

(10)"When my friend Paul and I lived in the woods, we lived like hippies. Well, sort of hippies. They certainly smoked a lot of pot. They drank a lot of beer. And man did they love each other, sometimes too much, perhaps, too physically, you know, but nonetheless they loved;" p.207

Reveals he doesn't have a clue about Jesus' view of agape love. He mixes the secular view of love with the Christian view of love. Again, Miller's inneptness concerning biblical content and sound theology is seen constantly throughout this book.

(11)"I confess I enjoyed being different. I got more attention by being the hippie guy than I had when I was normal. I felt better in a lot of ways, more superior, because I was no longer sheltered. I had been in the world, and the world had approved of me." p.211

Jesus made it clear, the world would loves its own, but would hate believers. (Jn. 15:18-19)

(12)"The problem with Christian community was that we had ethics, we had rules and laws and principles to judge each other against." p.215

Paul said, "He that is spritual judgeth all things." (I Cor.2:15) Judgmentalism is sin, because if does not offer hope or mercy. However, judging is spritual and correct when properly done. Also, Miller spends his whole book judging Christianity with his own subjective feelings while standing against judging--self defeating again! Truth demands judgement, but we are to do it in the character of Christ. In fact, it is impossible to live without making judgments. The question is, what is our standard for judging and are we doing it from the compassion and mercy of Christ?

(13)"I wanted everybody to leave everybody else alone, regardless of their religious beliefs, regardless of their political affiliation. I wanted people to like each other." p.216

Again, Miller reveals his ignorance concerning the faith. Believers are called to take the gospel to the whole world. This necessarily includes confronting and exposing false ideas and false religious beliefs. God's love is not about getting along with all of religious beliefs. How will a man become a believer apart from hearing that he needs a Savior from his sin? Truth is exclusive. If a thing or fact is true, then its opposite is false. If Jesus is the only way to God, then all other claims of going to heaven are false!

Summary

Close to the end of his book, Miller gives the summary of all he has been attempting to convey about his view of Christianity. He does a good job summarizing it, and in so doing, he again reveals his lack of understaning of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

(14)"I think Christian spirituality is like jazz music. I think loving Jesus is something you feel. I think it is something very difficult to get on paper. But it is no less real, no less meaningful, no less beautiful. The first generation out of slavery invented jazz music. It is a music birthed out of freedom. And that is the closet thing I know to Christian spirituality. A music birthed out of freedom. Everybody sings their song the way they feel it, everybody closes their eyes and lifts up their hands." p.239

Miller's view of spirituality comes right out of the existential movement of the nineteenth century. This perhaps explains why Emily Dickinson and J.D. Salinger's, "The Catcher in the Rye" are so meaningful to him. Miller's ramblings are nothing new, nothing profound, nothing rooted in the reality of Christian spirituality. He has stolen some god words, attached them to his own spiritual journey, wrapped them in 'Jesus terms,' and then offered them to the undiscernng emergent church crowd.

While I applaude his desire to see the church be a living organism, he misses the mark terribly. He abandons the revealed truth of Scriptures as the standard for ethics, morality, spirituality and truth for Christians. Instead of looking into the answers offered by the Scriptures concerning the prevalent meanness and/or deadness of the modern church, he makes up his own solutions. And those who have met the risen Savior, through the new birth, will not follow Miller's 'strange' voice. He offers no answers, just subjective ramblings about his own insecurities and unbelief. Instead, genuine Christians will choose to follow the Lamb-who will deliever them from self delusion, forgive their sins and offer them a spiritual journey rooted, described and explained in the Bible, and one which offers rest in Jesus as our strength.

Because of His Grace,
Terry