I’ve posted a couple pieces dealing with Donald Miller’s book, Blue Like Jazz, and the phrase he coins, “Christian spirituality”—and you people seem to be digging it. So here, for your reading enjoyment, are a handful of carefully selected Donald Miller quotes. Initially, I’m providing very little commentary, but I’ll wade in if the opportunity rises. Enjoy them, despise them, debate them, discuss them. The choice is yours…
I was a fundamental Christian once. It lasted a summer. I was in that same phase of trying to discipline myself to “behave” as if I loved light and not “behave” as if I loved darkness. I used to get really ticked about preachers who talked too much about grace, because they tempted me to not be disciplined. I figured what people needed was a kick in the butt, and if I failed at godliness it was because those around me weren’t trying hard enough. - Blue Like Jazz, 79
My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect. I don’t really do that anymore. Sooner or later you just figure out there are some guys who don’t believe in God and they can prove He doesn't exist, and there are some other guys who do believe in God and they can prove He does exist, and the argument stopped being about God a long time ago and now it’s about who is smarter, and honestly I don’t care. - Blue Like Jazz, 103
For me, the beginning of sharing my faith with people began by throwing out Christianity and embracing Christian spirituality, a nonpolitical mysterious system that can be experienced but not explained. Christianity, unlike Christian spirituality, was not a term that excited me. I couldn’t share something I wasn’t experiencing. And I wasn’t experiencing Christianity. - Blue Like Jazz, 115
And in conclusion, Donald Miller on Bittersweetness:
It was as if we were broken, I thought, as if we were never supposed to feel these sticky emotions. It was as if we were cracked, couldn’t love right, couldn’t feel good things for very long without screwing it all up. We were like gasoline engines running on diesel… From a very early age our souls are taught there is a comfort and a discomfort in the world, a good and bad if you will, a lovely and a frightening. - Blue Like Jazz, 14
Filed in: Books Controversy
8 comments:
Hey Grace, good to hear from you. I appreciated the freshness of Miller's book. He approaches Christian faith in an experiential, no-holds-barred way that dispenses with the type of cultural religiosity I despise.
I did have some reservations, mostly because I felt his writing sometimes lacked vital nuance.
I fleshed out my thoughts more in my review of Blue Like Jazz. Overall, I came away liking Miller's approach and juiced to keep writing myself. I recommend the book...as the above quotes may suggest, his writing is provocative - but to a worthwhile end, I think.
Now...is anyone going to take a stab at the Donald Miller quotes I penciled in for you? C'mon, I thought there was some good discussion fodder!
Well since you laid down the gauntlet...
I'll tackle the first quote. We just discussed this in the HS Sunday School class I teach with BLJ - it's a typical trap that many new Christians can find themselves in - the idea of doing good works to get to faith versus using faith to get to good works.
We can never be perfect - too attempt to do so WILL doom us to failure. What we can do is ask God to help us to become more like Him, and ask His forgiveness when we sin, knowing the Grace that He freely has given us through Christ's death and resurrection.
Religiously respectable action - the spectre that has haunted us ever since...well, ever since Adam ate the apple and tried to write it off as humanitarian service. I like your clarifying thoughts, Andy.
I'm slightly leery of Miller's take here, because it could almost come off as a condemnation of discipline. Spiritual discipline is essential (later Miller writes about praying and serving). Raise-your-soul-by-your-own-bootstraps discipline is always ugly.
Keep in mind, too, that when Miller talks about "being a fundamental Christian" it was at a point in his journey when he didn't understand what grace really meant. It's in that same chapter when he discusses the conversion of his pastor Rick that Miller realizes that he truly can accept the free gift of grace.
That quote, taken out of context, certainly can imply what you mentioned, Ariel. But we know as we follow along Miller's journey that he finds the spiritual discipline so necessary in his life - especially as he starts discussing Worship, Belief, and Confession (my favorite chapter, by the way).
Grace, I relate to your thought here:
Not that I want to prove or disprove God, more that I want to find some kind of tangible proof to back up the way I feel these days.
Miller makes a needed point - that belief in God will not ultimately happen because someone constructs the irrefutable proof. The world is filled with God's grandeur, and clues to his nature are everywhere. But he has not given us this information in a clinical, empirical way. God wanted faith to be in play.
My take may be different from Miller's in that I believe that reason and careful observation can lead us directly toward God. Belief in Christ is not silly or blind. But the final step must be taken on the basis of trust.
About Miller's reaction to bittersweetness... Miller identifies sin as the cause of the world's brokenness. And he suggests that loving Jesus and serving him is the only way to make sense of this fractured existence. Ultimately, though, Miller points out that there has to be more going on than meets the eye, and there is. Heaven is the final resolution:
I need wonder to explain what is going to happen to me, what is going to happen to us when this thing is done, when our shift is over and our kids’ kids are still on the earth listening to their crazy rap music. I need something mysterious to happen after I die. I need to be somewhere else after I die, somewhere with God, somewhere that wouldn’t make any sense if it were explained to me right now. - Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz
On the bittersweetness thing, Miller and I pretty much see eye to eye.
Thanks for the take on discipline, Andy. I agree that Miller goes on the imply that you can't live the Christian life without studied effort. I just wish that he had removed the "fundamentalist" stigma from spiritual discipline more deliberately, since most of us are eager to write off so-called "artificial" exertion at the slightest provocation.
I love love LOVE Donald Miller!!! It's good to see someone discussing his books and not just accepting them, but really wrestling with them...He's really awesome, the way he always changes your perspectives about stuff, and puts a twist in everything.
Megan
i love this book. i also love his other one, searching for god knows what. check this site out as well. http://www.everystudent.com
Post a Comment