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 A must read Nov 02, 2009
This is a great book for people who want to understand that Christianity is more than a philosophy or code of beliefs or ethics. This book shows the heart not only of Christianity but of God, Jesus Himself. It also shows that heart that Christians should be showing to the world.
An Honest Memoir Oct 20, 2009
I'd never read Donald Miller before. This book made me a huge fan! I really enjoyed his honesty about his private world on several topics, mainly his spiritual faith in God. As I was reading, I could identify with so much of what he was saying in his book. It also made me laugh to myself in several places because of his sharp sense of humor and the eclectic group of friends that he mentions in the story. His writing is very personal and intimate. You feel as if you know him at the end of the book and he would be someone that you'd like to share a beer with at some local artist hotspot. He discusses his imperfect nature and his internal battles that he's faced. He is explaining why he believes in Christ, yet never seems to want to push an agenda on you. He simply is telling you his belief system and why he thinks what he thinks. Miller openly admits his confusion at times in that belief system, which reinforces the strength of it. He doesn't believe in a routine fashion. He questions everything, but he lets his heart lead him to the truth. I found the book very refreshing and felt I wanted to share my experience reading the book with my friends and family. Whether you are a Christian or not, people of all types would find his tone and prose entertaining and engaging. I would definitely suggest this book as a must read.
1 of 1 found the following review helpful:
Blue Like Jazz! Oct 19, 2009
This one's for you Tom Bombadil. And for anyone else who cares about this sort of thing as much as I do. Or even if you don't.
Tom has been recommending a certain book by a certain "Christian" author to me for quite some time now and I have been telling him for quite some time now that I would get it to it. Well, I finally got to it. The book is Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller and I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed it. I devoured this little 250 page or so book in about 5 or 6 hours, almost at one sitting.
It was just so refreshing to finally see a "thinking" Christian, someone who has wrestled with the same issues that I have been wrestling with for so long. If more Christians were like Don, I truly believe there would be more Christians in the world.
Donald Miller is basically not your Grandma's Christian. My own mother would probably call him a heretic. For you see he loves Jesus, but he drinks beer and smokes cigarettes, cigars and pipes. He even attended what he termed the most liberal college in all of America, while auditing a few courses, Reed University in Portland, Oregon.
To me, Donald Miller's version of Christianity is MUCH closer to that originally envisioned and taught by Jesus Christ himself. I can't really put it all into words, Don did such a fine job of it himself.
But... not to rain on the parade, there were still some problems with all that he had to say, things I didn't quite agree with.
For one, he says at one point, that the story of the Fall of man, whether viewed allegorically or as actual historical fact, is the ONLY explanation for why man is the way he is, why mankind is so selfish, mean, etc. Hold on a minute, Don. Is it REALLY the ONLY explanation around? I think not. Maybe the only explanation he has ever heard of but certainly not the only one. Maybe the only one that makes sense to him, but certainly not the only one. Evolutionary biological theory explains it all pretty well if you ask me. As does the Buddhist way of looking at the concept of suffering. Even IF the Fall of man in the garden of Eden WERE the only explanation around, where does that leave us? All 3 Abrahamic faiths, Judaism, Christianity AND Islam believe this same story. But they each have very different views on the way to salvation, only one of which believes Jesus is the one and only way.
So even if I concede that the story of the Fall of Man IS the only explanation around, great, now we have narrowed the field down to 3 different religions, each of whom believes the other two are going to hell. We still haven't progressed much past ground zero, have we?
Also, he says that it doesn't really matter if the story is taken allegorically or as fact, it is still the only explanation. But... it DOES matter if the story is allegory or not, doesn't it? Truth matters, does it not? Are we merely subscribing our beliefs to what makes us feel good? If the story is not really true but just an allegory, just myth, then it explains nothing. Some cultures have stories about how the earth is suspended on the back of a giant tortoise and when you ask them what holds the tortoise up, the answer is another tortoise, ad infinitum. This story explains things, does it not? But it's not the truth. There are lots of theories around the world relating to creation, they all explain what is observable, but they can't all be the truth.
Another minor point of contention, is that Don at times, resorts to old Christian cliches. You can readily tell that he was raised in a more conservative Christian surroundings. When he was in the mountains at one point in the book, he is staring up at the stars and all of a suddent has an epiphany. He says that God holds the stars and the heavens static in the sky. Apparently, he didn't audit any basic astronomy courses at Reed or else he would have known that nothing in the universe is static, not even the stars which appear to be static. God does not hold anything in the heavens static, everything is in constant flux.
Lastly, it all just appears to me as if, not only him but his many friends who were once skeptics but become Christian, do so as a sort of intellectual giving up, so to speak. It's as if they have just given up. The questions were just too difficult for them to bear, and the society in which we live tells us that Christianity is the answer, so after much internal wrangling and fighting, they just gave up and defaulted back to the religion of their youth. His friend Penny had some major issues with Christianity, as far as I can tell from the book, none of them were answered, she just called him one day to say, "Hey, I love Jesus now too."
Having said all of that, if I was to become a Christian again one day, this would be the kind of Christian I would be. Don seems like a really cool guy, a really smart guy who loves the arts and is not afraid of intellectualism. I really loved the fact that he once fell in love with Emily Dickinson. Here is a man that understands that just because one loves Jesus does not mean they have to be a monk. There is still much beauty in this world to behold, much to enjoy, and that includes reading, the arts, a good beer, and even watching South Park.
I am not saying that this book totally convinced me, as I said, there were some issues that I had with it, but it's come closer than anything in a really long time to showing me that it's ok to be a Christian and that the Christianity I grew up is not necessarily all there is to Christendom.
I understand what he means when he says that believing in Jesus is not something he can intellectually explain to someone, but it is just something he feels in his gut. I can understand that. I can respect that. I can relate to that. Even as I have run away from the Church, I have still always found myself believing in God, I have NEVER been able to make the leap to Atheism and I have always admired and revered Jesus Christ, even if I haven't always admired and revered the Church that sprang up after his death.
0 of 1 found the following review helpful:
 Don't forget it is a personal memoir!! Sep 24, 2009
I liked this book more than I originally anticipated. It is well written, entertaining, and contains some decent insights. It is strong on addressing poverty, not confusing Christianity with Jesus, and living humbly before God and man.
It is crucial that the genre of personal memoir is kept in mind. It is not a systematic theology or manifesto for the church! One concern is that many immature Christians read this as a blueprint for Christian living rather than the personal memoir that it is.
The stream of conscious approach made for some rough transitions. The author's repetitious use of "cool" gets a bit annoying and the common use of "I" is a bit ironic considering that the author is seeking to push back on individualism. The memoir genre is vulnerable to self-indulgence and the author may fall prey to that particular vulnerability.
I appreciate that the author is clear on sin, but his view of sanctification may be a bit sketchy.
0 of 2 found the following review helpful:
 Jesus? or Don Miller? Sep 22, 2009
I realize this is a work of apologetics (an argument for the Christian faith), though not in the traditional sense. It's not like Augustine's City of God or more modern works such as G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy, or C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity. I really wanted to like the book, but in the end I couldn't. When I read Augustine, or Chesterton, or Lewis, or Oswald Chambers or any of several dozen others I could name, I hear Jesus speaking. When I read Blue Like Jazz, all I can hear is Don Miller, with a big dose of smug self-righteousness perched on his shoulder. I know he ends the book with a chapter on Jesus, and I trust that he really does know Jesus, and more importantly, that Jesus knows him; but I couldn't see Jesus because Don Miller kept getting in the way.
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