A LONG Review of "Blue Like Jazz" by Donald Miller

Ah, Blue Like Jazz. This book has been very popular in discussions recently, partly because I think of its widespread impact on people of my generation. The moment I saw it I had reservations about it, some sort of an uncomfortable feeling you get when you are uneasy about something but don't really know why. Knowing, however, that I cannot trust my feelings, and that I didn't have a copy of the book at the time, I began to scour the internet in search of reviews of the book from people I could trust.

Another problem arose very quickly. I found about as many good reviews as I found bad. Some I found gave strong recommendations for the book, and others were positive though not quite as universal in their affirmations. Both of the people who reviewed this book in this light are people I love and respect very much.

On the other end of the spectrum, I went around the net and found this review by Tim Challies which left me with a cautious and somewhat negative impression. Furthermore, I dropped into 9marks, and read this review by a member of their staff. I referred a friend of mine to it, and his response was very negative toward the review, and in some way I can see why I think. He indicated that the reviewer over at 9marks got it wrong, not being true to what Miller was actually saying. Miller never intended to write a theology was the gist of his argument, I think (If he reads this and I'm wrong, please correct me; I couldn't find the quote).

I'll agree that Miller's intent wasn't to write some kind of Systematic Theology or something. In fact, the very subtitle of his book, "Non-religious thoughts on Christianity," conveys that entire idea. However, the reviewer over at 9marks made a point of identifying several theological implications in Millers book (though he didn't provide any quotes). Why did he do this?

I think that he did it because it was appropriate. The reason I say so is that no matter what we are saying our intentions are, when we begin to discuss the Christian life and God in any aspect, we are doing theology. When we express what we believe, even when we are telling it as part of our story (whatever it might be), we are explaining God as best as we understand Him. That being the case, Miller's theology *IS present in this book, though it is often embedded in his personal reflections and accounts of particular events.

So then, I read this book and decided to write a review of it -- a lengthy one at that. The other reviews I've read on it, both positive and negative, didn't analyze his statements directly (with a couple of exceptions). Most of the time, sweeping statements were made, summarizing what Miller had said, but didn't provide interaction with his statements on a point by point basis.

That last statement is my intention here. I must admit, I did find many things in this book that were good; however, I also found many that were not, and I think the latter outweighed the former.

I will go through the book chapter by chapter, making page references in each quote I identify. I won't do each chapter or review all of the items I made (thought this my original intent), simply it because it will take too long. I do hope that I will be able to provide a fairly accurate overview of much of the content from the chapters I do review.

With every citation I make, I will scrutinize each quote against the teaching of the Bible, often providing scripture passages and corresponding exgesis for each. This is likely be the longest post I've ever done, but I think it is necessary. Despite the good in the book, to give it a sweeping thumbs' up is, I believe, irresponsible, and I think that will come out clearly. So then, let's begin.

Chapter One -- Beginnings
My first note comes from Miller's retelling of an incident in his childhood relating to him not turning in homework:

"Where is your homework?" my teacher would ask.
"I lost it."
"You lost it yesterday. You lost it last week."
"I am terrible about losing things. I need to learn." (Always be self-deprecating.)
"What am I going to do with you, Donald?"
"I am grateful for your patience." (Always be grateful.)
"I should call your mother."
"She's deaf. Boating accident. Piranha." (Always be dramatic. Use hand gestures.)
page 5

This quote has absolutely no theological significance. :) It was merely amusing, and the truth is, we all need to laugh a little.

Chapter Two -- Problems

I believe the greatest truck of the devil is not to get us into some sort of evil but rather have us wasting time. This is why the devil tries so hard to get Christians to be religious. If he can sink a man's mind into habit, he will prevent his heart from engaging God. I was into habit. I grew up going to church, so I got used to hearing about God.
page 13

There is some good information in this quote. Simply going through the motions in some religious exercise is not true Christ-likeness. This quote can serve as a warning against such things.

"What you are really saying is that we have a sin nature, like the fundamentalist Christians say."
Tony took the pipe from his lips. "Pretty much, Don. It just explains a lot, you know."
"Actually," I told him reluctantly, "I have always agreed with the idea that we have a sin nature. I don't think it looks exactly like the fundamentalists say it does, 'cause I know so many people who do great things, but I do buy the idea that we are flawed, there there is something in us that is broken. I think it is easier to do bad things than good things. And there is something in that basic fact, some little clue to the meaning of the universe."
Page 17

I had a problem with this statement, and a big one. He says that we have a sin nature, but not like the "fundamentalists" say we do. Well, he didn't explain what that meant completely, but he did elude to it with his statement that he thinks that a lot of people do great things.
The problem here is the difference in man's way of looking at the "good" things people do over and against the way God sees it. The truth is, we are all sinners, rightly under the judgment of God because of Adam's sin. Not only that, how can he maintain the view he has in light of Scriptures that clearly indicate that NO ONE does good, such as this one, and that without faith we CANNOT please God? The Bible makes these things clear, and I've written about this on this blog before. There are serious implications from what Miller said here, and they are not good. On the other hand, this next quote was very good:

The genius of the American system is not freedom; the genius of the American system is checks and balances. Nobody gets all the power. Everybody is watching everybody else. It is as if the founding fathers knew, intrinsically, that the soul of man, unwatched, is perverse.
Page 18

Indeed, the founding fathers did know this. Many of them were Christians, with many of them coming from a biblical, Reformed perspective on man's nature, and that is a large reason why we do have our checks and balances. They saw how a system of government without such balances ended up in England, and didn't want it here.

I felt so far from me upbringing, from my narrow former self, the me who was taught the Republicans give a crap about the cause of Christ. I felt a long way from the pre-me, the pawn-Christian who was a Republican because my family was a Republican, not because I had prayed and asked God to elighten me about issues concerning the entire world rather than just America.
Page 19

...issues like what? Issues like bringing the Gospel to the nations so that they may know and worship the One True God, glorifying Jesus? Of course, this isn't the goal of either political party (sadly). However, I don't think this what Miller is referring to.

Given what else Miller talks about in this book, it would seem that he is meaning helping out the poor and taking care of the downtrodden. Apparently, the Republican party doesn't do this to his satisfaction. Of course, the Republicans and Democrats both are not perfect in this arena or any for that matter, but to make such a harsh statement and suggest that the Republicans don't care at all is unwarranted and not true. Are there some Republicans that don't? Well, probably, but I would contend that the party as a whole does not conform to Miller's negative portrayal (as I would contend that for the Democrats too). Miller over-generalizes here, and does so in a crass manner; not good.

With that said, it is good that he realized he needs to consult God in prayer for the right view of matters rather than just be a certain way because of the kind of family he was born into.


Chapter Three -- Magic

This quote bothered me a lot:

I associated much of Chrisitan doctrine with children's stories because I grew up in church. My Sunday school teachers had turned Bible narrative into children's fables. They talked about Noah and the ark because the story had animals in it. They failed to mention that thius was when God massacred all of humanity.
Page 30

Ok, granted his teachers could have done a better job explaining the narratives of the Bible, but what on earth is he trying to say with the term "massacred"? The modern definition of the word would suggest that Miller was saying that he thought God was being cruel or that He had committed an atrocity! That is pretty much tantamount to saying that God wasn't just in doing what he did. Of course, this might fits Miller's understanding of our sin nature that I referenced in a quote above. If this is not Miller's meaning here, he sure wasn't very careful to communicate the opposite. At the very least, and I say this out of concern for him and his readers, he was careless with his words.

Chapter Four -- Shifts

"Racism, not an issue?!" she questioned very sternly.
"Well, not that it's not an issue, only that it is a minor issue."
"How can you say that?" She sat back restlessly in her chair. "Don, it is an enormous problem."
I was doing a lot of backpedaling at first, but then I began to explain what I meant. "Yeah, I understand it is a terrible and painful problem, but in light of the whole picture, racism is a signal of something greater. There is a larger problem here than tension between ethnic groups."
"Unpack that statement," Laura said.
"I'm talking about self-absorption. If you think about it, the human race is pretty self-absorbed. Racism might be the symptom of a greater disease. What I mean is, as a human, I am flawed in that it is difficult for me to consider others before myself. It feels like I have to fight against this force, this current within me that, more often than not, wants to avoid serious issues and please myself, buy things for myself, feed myself, entertain myself, and all of that. All I'm saying is that if we, as a species, could fix our self-absoprtion, we could end a lot of pain in the world."
Pages 40-41

This was a very good statement. Our problem is definitely greater than any one sin, and the problem comes back to the major issue -- we are looking out for ourselves, and want to do things for ourselves, and apart from Christ, that is ultimately our goal. Without faith, we cannot please God, and we don't do anything for His glory apart from it. It takes an act of God to change that about us too; we as a species cannot change it. However, God, through His Gospel, does change people.

Next, he is recounting a story a friend of his told him, and I think it was part of her testimony. Anyway, part of it was very insightful as to how her friend, Nadine, talked about God:

"Nadine and I would sit for hours in her room," she began. "Mostly we would talk about boys or school, but always by the end of it, we talked about God. The think I loved about Nadine was that I never felt like she was selling anything. She would talk about God as if she knew Him, as if she had talked to Him on the phone that day. She was never ashamed, which is the thing with some Christians I had encountered. They felt like they had to seel God, as if He were soap or a vacuum cleaner, and it's like they really weren't listening to me; they didn't care, they just wanted me to buy their product."
Page 46

I found that VERY good and very insightful. Do we, when we share the Gospel, reduce God to a product? Do we have to force ourselves to do it?

I understand that at times, everyone has periods of dryness. I've been going through one lately, and I continue to pray and repent of my sins and attitudes in it. God is gracious and loving to me in the midst of it as well; He's never left me, and I am comforted greatly by that.

That said, however, it shouldn't be the general rule. We should desire to share Jesus because of His infinite worth out an an experience of some of that worth. have we experienced this awesome, holy, righteous, powerful God or not? Do our words we share with others, and the truths from Scripture we declare say the same thing as our lives? Oh, that we would know Jesus so well that we about couldn't help but talk about Him! Oh, that the discipline of evangelism would be just getting ourselves around lost people to talk to them rather than having to beat ourselves up all of the time just to convince ourselves we should be sharing Jesus.

Chapter Five -- Faith

"I don't either really," I told her. "But I believe in God, Laura. Theer is something inside of me that causes me to believe. And now I believe God is after you, that God wants you to believe too."
(skip a few paragraphs)
"I can't get there. I can't just say it without meaning it." She was getting very frustrated. "I can't do it. It would be like, say, trying to fall in love with somebody, or trying to convince yourself that your favorite food is pancakes. You don't decide those things, they just happen to you. If God is real, He needs to happen to me."
Page 53

This was a pretty good quote. Miller was witnessing to a friend of his, and he makes a good observation; indeed, there is something inside of him that causes him to believe -- the same "thing" that caused him to believe when he trusted Jesus. The Holy Spirit of God indeed did that, and still causes true believers to continue to believe! Thanks be to God for that, or I would never have believed, and if He didn't sustain me, I would have fallen away a long time ago.

I had no explanation for Laura. I don't think there is an explanation. My belief in Jesus did not seem rational or scientific, and yet there was nothing I coudl do to separate myself from this belief. I think Laura was looking for something rational because she believed that all things that were true were rational. But that isn't the case. Love, for example, is a true emotion, but it is not rational. What I mean is, people actually feel it. I have been in love, plenty of people have been in love, yet love cannot be proved scientifically. Neither can beauty. Light cannot be proved scientifically, and yet we all believe in light and by light see all things. There are plenty of things that are true that don't make any sense. 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.
Page 54, emphasis mine

There are a few problems with this statement. Miller's topic sentence for this paragraph is at the end, and I have emphasized it. However, the analogy isn't complete. We're a lot more intelligent than an ant, but at the same time, proportionately, we'll know less about God than an ant will about us.

The reason is that the ant and I are both finite creatures. So then, since both are finite, there can be some standard of measurement between them. However, when you compare anything to God, the comparison immediately breaks apart, for He in infinite. There is no comparison, and since I am finite, God is infinitely greater than I am, while I am "XYZ" amount greater than the ant.

With that said, everything about God is not hidden, and there are certainly rational elements to faith, things we can surely understand. Who would argue that Paul knew a great deal about God compared to about anyone else who has lived since him? Inspired by God, Paul wrote a large portion of the New Testament. Surely these things (not to mention the rest of the Bible) are written for us to understand and to obey! James says as much in the first chapter of his letter. We have to understand the Word in order to obey it. Further, Paul made this powerful exclamation in his prayer for the Ephesian Christians:

Ephesians 1:16 I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, 17 that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him,
18 having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, 19 and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might 20 that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places,

At the same time, we need to strike a balance here. Even though Paul dripped with intelligence and understanding of God, an understanding far beyond mine, he said in probably his most important letter:

Romans 11:33 Oh, the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!

No matter how much we know about God we'll never know it all. However, while we are in this life, we should seek to know and understand Him as much as possible, for His glory will be increased when we do; understanding more of Him will lead to greater worship. If somehow it doesn't, than we haven't truly understood more.

The whole emergent/post-modern idea that we can't have true knowledge about what the Bible says or about God is really nonsense. We can know things about God and also can know what the Bible really means. We can know these two things for one simple reason: the Bible tells us we can. In that sense, there is nothing irrational about it. :)

And with that, I think I'll end my citations.

I have found that I agree with Tim Challies in the end. I'll let him say it, as he said it in his review of the book on his site I linked to at the beginning of this post:

While I can say that I did receive some benefit from reading it, I would be hesitant to recommend it to others. There is some value to be found, but one has to dig deep beneath layers of rambling untruth and poor theology to find them. There are many other books that contain far more treasure than this.

So then, I do not think I can recommend the book. Clearly there are many good things in this book -- but there are many bad things as well. Far too much bad theology is present that is only too easy to accept since there are some good things mixed in with it. Though I am sure Miller's intention was NEVER to deceive, this book has great potential to do just that, especially in a generation and a culture that is getting increasingly biblically illiterate and less comprehending of what is truly sound doctrine.


For God's Glory!