Miller's book is less a treatise of emergent thinking as a conversational and diary-like experience. He values transparency and authenticity and is transparent himself as he talks about his own failings with honesty and humor. This thing he calls Christian spirituality (because Christianity has bad PR) is personal and introspective. One thing I like about Don Miller and the emergents, in general, is how they want to get rid of the cliché in the church and that is often needed.

But this introspection has them turning to narrative truth instead of propositional truth, and you find sensitive passages like this one: "...for so long religion was my false gospel. But there was no magic in it, no wonder, no awe, no kingdom life burning in my chest." In other words, no feeling there. The postmoderns that we call emergent love to talk about their feelings and experiences, and here is another exchange where he's talking about a friend who is thinking about God and Christ: "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." "I love this about Christian spirituality. It cannot be explained, and yet it is beautiful and true. It is something you feel, and it comes from the soul."

There is a lot of heart talk and not much head talk. Truth be told, they mistrust the head and intellect. At one point, he writes, "My most recent faith struggle is not one of intellect," and it makes me chuckle because not once in this entire book does he discuss his intellect in relation to this Christian spirituality. Where the head can't understand, the heart feels wonder. And if those are reversed, he will simply label it "religion" and try to get the heart (feelings) back.

He doesn't touch on the cross much and what the atonement is for (this is a contested area in emergent circles), but he does touch on the Bible and doesn't seem to think much of its answers. In a period of doubt, he writes, "I suppose what I wanted...is what every Christian wants...I wanted tangible interaction. I believed if I could contact God, He would be able to explain who and why I was." And approaches God in prayer to say, "I'm sorry God...I don't really know who I am, who You are, or what faith looks like. But if You want to talk, I'm here now."

As for the missional aspects of his existence, it is strained through this paradigm: "For me, the beginning of sharing my faith with people began by throwing out Christianity and embracing Christian spirituality, a nonpolitical system that can be experienced but not explained. And I could not in good conscious [sic] tell a friend about a faith that didn't excite me. I couldn't share something I wasn't experiencing. And I wasn't experiencing Christianity." And speaking of apologetics, he says, "Ravi Zacharias says that what the heart is really longing to do is worship, to stand in awe of a God we don't understand and can't explain." Would Ravi say that we don't understand and can't explain God? I doubt that, because if he did, what would that mean for his apologetics enterprise?

And for all this, probably the worst thing about this book is the amount of silly, immature thinking enclosed. I don't know how wide Miller is in his thinking, but this book is about an inch deep, and you will come across passages like "It never occurred to me that if Christianity was not rational, neither were other religions" and "America is one of the most immoral countries in the world" and in a surprised way that "we have a sin nature, like the fundamentalist Christians say." By my reckoning, Don Miller was in his early thirties when he published this book and I would be ashamed to say things like I'm afraid to read the Bible because I don't want to become like Pat Buchanan. Though he talks about truth, for Miller, and the emergent Christians he's aligned with, it is really about the experience. And what happens when those experiences cease and the feelings subside?

Lives up to the hype. Not for everyone, but I credit this with one simple thing: it made me want to read the Bible. It made me want to know Jesus with a deeper fullness. By any measure, that's a success.

I like Miller's honesty and writing style better then his postmodernism.

n  n    The real issue in the Christian community was that it was conditional. You were loved, but if you had questions, questions about whether the Bible was true or whether America was a good country or whether last week's sermon was good, you were not so loved. You were loved in word, but there was, without question, a social commodity that was being withheld from you until you shaped up. By toeing the party line you earned social dollars; by being yourself you did not. If you wanted to be valued, you became a clone. These are broad generalizations, and they are unfair, but this is what I was thinking at the time. Bear with me, and I will show you what I learned.n  n

I would love to write a long, thoughtful, eloquent review of this book, but I honestly don't have the energy?? So you're going to get the short and sloppy version instead.

I have mixed feelings. I didn't necessarily feel as though I learned much of anything from it (although I was challenged by a few sections, which was good). But I did feel as though a lot of the things that I've been thinking and realizing for years were shared here, by someone on more or less the same page as I am.

n  n    The churches I attended would embrace war metaphor. They would talk about how we are in a battle, and I agreed with them, only they wouldn't clarify that we were battling poverty and hate and injustice and pride and the powers of darkness. They left us thinking that our war was against liberals and homosexuals. Their teaching would have me believe I was the good person in the world and the liberals were the bad people in the world. Jesus taught that we are all bad and He is good, and He wants to rescue us because there is a war going on and we are hostages in that war. The truth is that we are supposed to love the hippies, the liberals, and even the Democrats, and that God wants us to think of them as more important than ourselves. Anything short of this is not true to the teachings of Jesus.n  n

I loved parts of it and didn't love other parts of it. I thought he brought up some good points and some not so good points. I thought he presented well in some areas and not so well in others.

He exhibited a strange sort of attitude towards women throughout the book, for one thing, and contributed to some rather problematic stereotypes in so doing. (We're not all Darcy-obsessed romantics who prefer bad boys and believe our husbands' warm fuzzies for us will last forever, you know.)

It was really refreshing to see him combat the flaws of our current conservative evangelical culture so bluntly, however. He didn't sugarcoat anything, which I appreciated. He also deliberately and pointedly rejected the idea that it's okay to dismiss or despise our conservative evangelical neighbors. We can't be looking down upon anyone. We can point out problems, stand up to hypocrisy, refute biblically inaccurate rhetoric -- but we can't pretend to be better. As he takes the time to point out -- we are the problem. Every individual human being is part of "the problem". I appreciate that honesty, too.

It was clear that I was to love everybody, be delighted at everybody's existence, and I had fallen miles short of God's aim. The power of Christian spirituality has always rested in repentance, so that's what I did. I repented. I told God I was sorry. I replaced economic metaphor, in my mind, with something different, a free gift metaphor or a magnet metaphor. That is, instead of withholding love to change somebody, I poured it on, lavishly. I hoped that love would work like a magnet, pulling people from the mire and toward healing. I knew this was the way God loved me. God had never withheld love to teach me a lesson.{emphasis mine}

Great book, I really like Miller as an author. I loved the scene at the Reed College baccanal where Miller and his Christian friends offered the reverse confessional, brilliant!

Even for the non-religious, this book may restore a little faith in humanity.

If you find that your faith is somewhat unconventional, this may be a good book for you.

Wish I had read it more consistently to remember :) - made me think and challenged the way I view God

This is a beautifully written and compelling book. It is a little dated, and to be honest I have spent the last 15 years avoiding reading this book. I knew instinctively it was grabbing at ideas I wanted to think through. It just took me a while to get here.

This is my favorite book in the world, my own personal bible. It's not very long, and offers a lot of insight onto many different topics in life- college, relationships,etc. My whole book is highlighted in amazing quotes and I try to get all my friends to write in my copy as well. It's so great because Donald Miller explores the idea of fiding Christianity and himself in a crazy world of skeptics and hypocrits. But most importantly, he isn't trying to sell anything. His style of writing is easy to read and fun, with chapters of titles like "Faith: Penguin Sex."

I feel as though a few of the quotes speak for themselves:

"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 to an ant."

"In fact, I would even say that when I started in faith I didn't want to believe; my intellect wanted to disbelieve, but my soul, that deeper instinct could no more stop believing in God...There are things you choose to believe, abd beliefs that choose you. This is one of the ones that chose me."

"Self-discipline will never make us feel righteous and clean, accepting God's love will."

"I think it is interesting that God designed people to need other people...the soul needs to interact with people to be healthy."

"It is always the simple things that change our lives. And these things never happen when you are looking for them to happen. Life reveals answers at the pace life wishes to do so. You feel like running, but life is on a stroll. This is how God does things."

If you pick up Miller's book looking for writing that is chock-filled with passages of Scripture or full of deep and nuanced passages of doctrine and theology then you will be disappointed. But if you approach the book as one man's journey to faith told in a friendly and humorous manner then you will enjoy Blue Like Jazz. Admittedly I approached the book from my very Conservative Evangelical subculture with a little trepidation. Miller uses ideas, terms and political viewpoints that will make the majority of conservative Christians bristle and he pokes at some of the "sacred cows" e.g. Republicanism is next to godliness. But Miller will take you on a journey worth the price of the book and asks some very needful and poignant questions about what baggage we saddle the Gospel with to it's detriment. Are there things in the book that maybe Miller will re-think as the Holy Spirit works in his life? Probably, but hopefully that can be said of you and I as well. I like the book enough to potentially give it to a seeker or someone turned off by the small C "christianity" that subscribes to a group think-you must be assimilated mentality. Miller didn't write it to be a definitive treatise on theological or doctrinal truths...he wrote it to express the need for a little more humility and a bolder testimony before the watching world.

I wish that reviewers on this site would review books for what they are meant to be and not insist that they be something else. "Blue Like Jazz" is not meant to be a deep theological treatise. If you thought it was supposed to be, then of course it doesn't compare to Augustine or C.S. Lewis. Miller's book is instead meant as a memoir of one man's walk with God, his struggles along the way, and what he's learned from them. I enjoyed this read a lot because I related to many of his struggles. While I understand those who complain he placed too much emphasis on "feelings," I think for me it was actually a good reminder that Christianity is about more than just head knowledge. Having grown up in a church that is heavy on doctrine and probably somewhat mistrustful of feelings, Miller's book reminded me of the command we see in Matthew 22:37: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind."

Yes, Jesus does say to love him with "all your mind." Yes, I think it's great for people to read theological classics. But I hope that along the way, we don't forget that Jesus does say to love him with "all your heart." The heart is the seat of our emotions and it's also where we keep the things dearest to us. I think it's important for Christians to cultivate that sense of the awe and grandeur of God, and also to cultivate a deep and affectionate love for Christ. If we don't have those things, how will our lives reflect the love that Christ has shown for us?

One of the saddest things for me is to see people who continue to outwardly live "good" lives, but who have lost their passion for the things of God. I know we all go through dry seasons where sometimes all we can do is put one foot in front of the other, and I have sympathy for that, but I hope that's not the place we stay. I think we ought to be striving to maintain closeness to God as much as we can, and do our utmost to keep Him in the center of our hearts, souls and minds.

Years ago when asked, "What is your favorite book?" I would respond that I do not have a favorite but that I mostly identified with Holden Caulfield and if you wanted to understand me you should read "Catcher in the Rye". That was a long time ago. A friend of mine, who had gone to Bob Jones University, took up the challenge and read the book and was soon conscerned that maybe she ought not to hang out with me. Sometime later Mel Gibson did a movie "Conspiracy Theory" where he was sort of a psyco and kept a multitude of copies of the book. Moreover I learned that real psycos like John Hinkley and Timmy McVeigh carried copies of the book. I guess I was starting to scare myself so I have not read it in the last fifteen years. And now after reading Don Miller's "Blue Like Jazz" I can keep "Catcher" on the shelf and just re-read "Blue". Both deal with the inner workings of the mind, sarcastic musings, and the out right double-mindeness of self-righteous people named Holden, Don, and me. Buy a copy or steal your wife's copy like I did and do not let her know that she is sleeping with a very deranged person.

"All great characters in stories are the ones who give their lives to something bigger than themselves."

I really enjoyed this book a lot - Donald Miller has a really intriguing writing style and it is hard to put the book down because of it!
I loved all of his stories and thoughts on Christianity - he explains everything in ways that are so easy to understand but still challenge your thoughts on the matter.
Overall fantastic read that I would definitely recommend!