Week 22: Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

From the beginning of this blog project, I promised myself that if I reviewed religious books, I would attempt to review the writer’s style and ability to address the subject, rather than discuss privately held beliefs that I may maintain.

Blue Like Jazz brought sharp focus to some of the major difficulties that most “Christians” deal with, such as hypocrisy and cronyism within the church institution. The author looks at Christianity from an independent viewpoint, after having realized that many people choose to ignore Christ because of the rotten reputations of many evangelists, or the way they perceive church establishments. The author also discussed how people may have been “burned” by a church and given up on Christianity altogether.

Miller provided some wonderful real-life metaphors that helped him creatively illustrate his bullet points. I found his candid humility refreshing, funny, and at times, uncomfortable. I put the book down and thought, “TMI, dude!” more than once. Sometimes the inner workings of a man’s mind should stay right where it is. Out of sight.

Obviously missing from this book – thankfully – was loads of blabity-blah theology. Most of you know that I despise stuffed-shirt loudmouthed Cadillac preachers (a term coined by my good friend Aaron), and I frequently tune out whatever they say. Because really, what the hell do they know, anyway? That's all I'll say about that.

I liked that the author took the intellectualism out of spirituality and put the emphasis on faith instead. So whatever I believe (which is irrelevant for the purposes of this blog), I respect the author’s ability to separate the two.

Thanks, Lost Lunatic, for the recommendation.