Dealing with Donald

Donald Miller's book Blue Like Jazz has been sweeping through my church since summer, like a wildfire unchecked. It has been read to our students in high school--the students are now reading it on their own, voluntarily. The college group has begun three book groups, all centered around Blue.

Now, Mr. Miller seems like a great fellow. Easy to get along with, sufficiently opinionated, moderately eloquent. My heart connects with Miller when he makes statements such as "Perhaps, I thought, Christian spirituality really was the difference between illusion and magic." Yes! it is magic--real, deep magic, the magic before time. And Christianity really does fit the "story formula" because it is the greatest story of all. Delightful! All of this talk of story and magic is vaguely reminiscent of G.K. Chesterton's "Ethics of Elfland," a chapter in his story of discovering Christianity for the first time, Orthodoxy.

Yet...yet. There's something about this whole movement that gives me the willies. Miller's approach is similar to Chesterton's in Orthodoxy. Similar, for that matter, to Sheldon Vanauken's in A Severe Mercy. All three men make their point by sharing with the reader slices of life, little vignettes that tell far more than an exposition of doctrine could do.

I am comfortable with Vanauken and Chesterton's approach. (Comfortable is, of course, not quite the right word. For, as Chesterton says, Orthodoxy is far from being safe! Real orthodoxy is dangerous and alive.) Vanauken and Chesterton use story, use life experiences, use personal beliefs and anecdotes, to help the reader connect with Christ.

I think that is what Miller is trying to do as well. Near the end of his book, Miller says:
"I thought that was beautiful because, while it [jazz music] is music, it is very hard to put on paper, it is so much more a language of the soul. It is as if the soul is saying something, something about freedom. I think Christian spirituality is like jazz music. I think loving Jesus is something you feel; I think it is very difficult to get on paper. But it is no less real, no less meaningful, no less beautiful."

Yes, Christian spirituality is something difficult to get on paper. And it is something you real, meaningful and beautiful, that, at times, should be felt and not explained.

But my faith is so much more than a feeling. It is a delightful--magical, if you will--blend of feeling, intellect and action. My head, my heart and my hands must understand my faith and acquiesce to its premises. Leaving one's intellect or behavior unmoderated by one's faith while increasing an emotional affection is like a king asking all of his knights to stand guard at the front of the castle while leaving the back and sides unmanned.

My conclusion: read Blue Like Jazz, but also read Elizabeth Eliot, Augustine, the Apostolic Fathers. Cultivate your emotion, but also cultivate your mind.

Check out a far better review on Blue at Challies Dot Com.