The book -Blue Like Jazz

[Richard King]

Anybody else read this? I read it knowing it is all the rage among the college guys here in Lubbock and as a 50 year old I gotta say I wasn't as impressed as they are.
The writer is funny and fairly clever but his writing just reminded me of stuff I used to write when I was 20 ish.
That is NOT a compliment.
It was the observations of a man in the process of gaining maturity as we all are at that age but fairly over-valuing his own opinion and experiences as most of us do at that age. In his examinations he was way harder on the church people than he was on the liberals he is hanging with. His generalizations about believers didn't ring true to the experiences I have had. Anyone else read it and see that I missed something?

 

[turmeric]

He's hanging with Evanjellyfish, for one thing. I read it, he's about our age but writes for younger people. I trust he's getting more mature, he's kind of a Jellyfish himself.

 

[Me Died Blue]

The May/June issue of byFaith had an article on Donald Miller and his writing entitled, "Honest, Funny, Flawed, and Profound" by Walter Henegar. It can be read here.

 

[Bryan]

The book is huge at the university I'm attending as well, most people in the IVCF have read it and there is an actor comming later this year to act it out. I'll likely read it sometime over Christmas.


Bryan
SDG

 

[Laura]

Richard, Don Miller spoke in my university's chapel service today. As far as his personal character, I'm sorry to say he came across as considerably immature (however, I don't think he's much older than us...?), joking around about some things that just aren't to be made light of. He would also have us believe that the liberal agenda is all about humanitarian goodness, while he soberly warned us about not "being had" by the Republicans. In fact, I wrote down some exact qutoes - "Their [Liberals] agenda is so very, very similar to your [audience of professed Christians] agenda, it's unbelievable. You have so much in common." Also, he prescribed the Church's most fundamental problem to be her isolation from the rest of the world. While I see how some sects could be so accused, and I understand that there are two senses in which he could be saying this (the world as a mission field vs. the world as the enemy of God), certainly the problem of the majority would be letting in *too* much of the world! What was perhaps most troubling was when he told us to think of the following as something that could be rather humorously linked together: a homosexual is watching CNN, and he sees an Islamic terrorist beheading a white man. He knows that Muslims hate Americans for their immorality. The next segment contains an evangelical leader speaking against the rulings for gay marriage in MA. Now do you see, Miller said, how both the Islamic terrorist and the evangelical leader are their own kind of moral fundamentalist? (To be honest, I'm not sure where the homosexual watching CNN came into play in this enlightening illustration.)

So...as for the book itself, I've read lengthy excerpts, and I wasn't impressed either. I think it's the vague, permissible, and again, immature tone that is so disturbing in light of the popularity of this book among people who are generally very accepting of such ambiguity.

Looking back over this I can see how my comments could be misconstrued as judgmental or overly critical; however, I am genuinely sad to have observed these things, and I offer my criticism humbly and hope to be corrected.

 

[Laura]

I should also add that while I haven't perceived Miller to be in any sort of grave error, what bothers me is that he writes books with that kind of message. It's the same thing with McLaren - they can hold their own off-the-wall opinions and keep them to themselves if they really want, but...why must they publish books about it?

 

[Me Died Blue]

Originally posted by Laura
I think it's the vague, permissible, and again, immature tone that is so disturbing in light of the popularity of this book among people who are generally very accepting of such ambiguity.

Honestly, its extreme and sudden popularity in the evangelical world is largely why I'm not surprised by that at all, and in fact because of that popularity I would be shocked to see it full of sound, biblical, truly useful material.

 

[Puritanhead]

Originally posted by Laura
He would also have us believe that the liberal agenda is all about humanitarian goodness, while he soberly warned us about not "being had" by the Republicans. In fact, I wrote down some exact qutoes - "Their [Liberals] agenda is so very, very similar to your [audience of professed Christians] agenda, it's unbelievable. You have so much in common."

Did he say, Jesus was a socialist too? So called Liberals believe in charity at gunpoint by the coercive hand of the state, whereas a Christian perspective on charity emphasizes that the individual act out his acts of compassion and his humanitarian obligations to his fellow man. Liberals have difficulty conceiving of any charity without some collectivist measure under the auspices of the omnipotent state. How does that cliche go? Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day, and teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. True Christian compassion does not subsidize idleness and sloth or poverty and failure. People go through tough times, but we should never lose sight of what true charity is... that's something that Liberal cannot conceptualize.

 

[Richard King]

[ He would also have us believe that the liberal agenda is all about humanitarian goodness, while he soberly warned us about not "being had" by the Republicans. In fact, I wrote down some exact qutoes - "Their [Liberals] agenda is so very, very similar to your [audience of professed Christians] agenda, it's unbelievable. You have so much in common."

yeah that is another thing. I don't consider myself a republican...I am pretty much libertarian but it REALLY bugged me how quickly he generalized in his book and toe taggedevery republican in this one little box. Sometimes you just want to scream out...just tell me something about GOD and keep your politics and your personal guilt about homosexuals getting their feelings hurt for chats with your other buddies in the yurt.
Here is my suspicion.
It sounds like conspiracy theory but commies and libs have known for years that if you get the kids in college you can change everything because they will be the teachers and leaders of the next wave. So...this author is really laying it on the college kids.

 

[Covenant Joel]

I wrote a rather lengthy point by point review of the book after I read it this summer. The file got messed up on my hard drive, but if I can get it back, I'll post it.

Joel

 

[Laura]

Originally posted by Covenant Joel
I wrote a rather lengthy point by point review of the book after I read it this summer. The file got messed up on my hard drive, but if I can get it back, I'll post it.

Joel

Meredith told me you wrote a review when we were talking about it last night. By the way, thanks for getting us connected here!