WordUp by Chad Gramling

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Yesterday, I finished reading Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller. I had heard from several others that it was a good book – and maybe even significant –with regards to this “modern” era of Christianity we now inhabit.

I’ll admit, it is a good read – in a Catcher in the Rye sort of way. But that’s where my satisfaction with the book ends. I guess I was looking at it for reason’s to believe that the church as I know it is evolving to reach today’s generations while maintaining a Christ-centered focus.

But really, it just a book about what Mr. Miller does not and has not liked about the church. It’s quite amusing when you think about it. He spends so much time talking about how he needs and desperately seeks to become more selfless and to truly love everyone as though they are Christ. It’s an admirable point that is well taken and one I agree with.

But then he fails to really look into the mirror.

The whole book is “Here’s why I will never marry,” “Here’s why I no longer fit in with the church folk,” “Here’s why I feel more accepted by the hippies,” “Here’s why I . . .”

My good friend Bill and I used to sit at my kitchen table when we were in junior high and most of high school and have what we called our “Deep Talks” where we pretended to be intellectual about life. We weren’t, but that’s besides the point.

Ultimately, we talk for hours and it would end when he would call me a hypocrite for saying many things but never following through on them. While I argued that fact for a long time, it was true. Today, it is still true in many regards, but at least now I am trying to make that change and truly put what I preach into practice.

And maybe that is the point of Blue Like Jazz. Maybe the book was more therapeutic for Mr. Miller. Maybe he desperately seeks to become the J.D. Salinger among contemporary religious authors.

I don’t know. But that’s my two cents. My be worth a little less than that, but that’s more for you to decide.

[tags]Catcher in the Rye, Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller, J.D. Salinger, Hippies, Book Reviews, Religion, Christian, Christ Follower[/tags]