Blue Like Jazz Blues

I love 9 Marks Ministries. Let me say it again. I love it. Mark Dever's work has tremendously blessed the church. We are using his materials, and we will continue to do so. I love 9 Marks of a Healthy Church and The Deliberate Church. I can't say enough good things about Dever and his work. I even had him in a class at Southern. He's as real as they get.

However, I hated the recent review on their site of Donald Miller's book, Blue Like Jazz. You can read it here. Miller is a part of the Imago Dei Community, a part of the Acts 29 Network, founded by Mark Driscoll. The churches of this movement are profoundly God-centered, gospel-focused, and word-driven. For example, try to find a flaw in Mark Driscoll's Mars Hill Church. People there (and in most Acts 29 churches) are getting way more Bible than in 98% of SBC churches across America. Driscoll preaches hour-long expositional messages every week there, largely to young men-- a group in the Northwest seen as unreachable by most evangelicals. Now, I know that Driscoll didn't write Blue Like Jazz. Miller isn't in his church. I'm just saying that Donald Miller isn't necessarily Brian McLaren. He's in a movement of God-centered, gospel preaching churches. So, just because a guy uses modern slang, preaches in a t-shirt, and listens to U2, it doesn't mean he's a religious relativist who hates propositional truth. So, my point is this: we need to educate ourselves before we throw stones. Perhaps those toward whom we hurl things are our friends more than we realize.

However, the author of the review doesn't mention any of this. He just hates the book. Let me say, this isn't my favorite book. But I like it. It is just Miller's attempt to share his religious pilgrimage. It isn't complete. Things are left out. This makes people nervous. But if you sit down with a person and say, "Tell me about your relationship with Jesus," he's going to leave some things out. If you respond by saying, "Well, Miller should have been more responsible, as millions of people are reading and are being influenced by the book," I say this: praise the Lord God that not everybody is just like me, thinking in bland, linear, bullet-points. Thank Jesus that everybody out there is not a theological blockhead like myself. Thank God that there are believers out there who are artists, painting strokes that aren't necessarily neat and pretty, yet reflect the beauty of God. Miller's book is like that. If it were a concise Wayne Grudem, nobody would be reading it. But it's not heresy either. It just smells "emergent." It questions the dominant evangelical Christian subculture (how could a Christian be opposed to the war?). This makes people nervous.

Rich Mullins once said that young songwriters typically attempt to say everything they believe in one song. I, for one, am thankful that there are Donald Millers out there. There are enough uptight people out there. Thankfully, not everybody's brain is heavy to the left. This book isn't the enemy. 9 Marks, keep fighting. We need you. Just look before you throw.