Blue Like Jazz:
Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality

Book by Donald Miller

Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003

Review by Phillip Bishop
Kinesiology, University of Alabama

Donald Miller and I share a common commission from the Lord. Similar to Jeremiah, we are called to summon the Christian Church in America back to its foundational principles. Unfortunately for me, any resemblance stops there, as Miller is a brilliant thinker and writer. Some people just have a knack for observing what’s happening and capturing it clearly in stories that explain life.

The conversational style of Blue Like Jazz reads like a stream of consciousness or entries in a diary. We follow the author’s life from when he “. . . started to sin about the age of ten” and on through his spiritual pilgrimage. Along the way he introduces us to his friends.

There’s Tony the beat poet, who isn’t a poet, and Andrew the protester, who is a protester.  We learn that Nadine established a relationship with the hippie Penny, and led her to Christ. Then Penny and Donald led atheist Laura to Christ, and so the chain goes, not in drama, but in reality.

Miller is an intellectual in his thinking, without the impediment of academic credentials. He lives in Portland, Oregon, the “most unchurched” city in the U.S. and attended Reed College, selected by the Princeton Review as “most likely to ignore God.” But in the midst of this darkness, he both sees and experiences the light of God shining brightly. I can relate to both Portland and to Reed. I describe our campus as the darkest place spiritually in our state. But sometimes I even see a glimmer of light here, too.

The most personally valuable part of the book is Miller’s brutal, unmitigated honesty about himself. At one point, with respect to America’s lack of interest in the poor and disenfranchised, Miller declares, “I am the problem.”

This brings to mind that the great Christian author, G.K. Chesterton, once entered a London Times newspaper essay contest on the subject of “What’s wrong with the world?” Chesterton’s entry contained just two words: “I am.” What’s the problem with Christianity on my campus? I am.

Miller highlights what may be the most pervasive sin in academia, self-absorption. As a professor, husband and father, and as a citizen, self-absorption describes me as much as Don Miller. We pray with self-absorption. We do or don’t do what we ought, often because of self-absorption. Miller confesses, “. . . for a moment . . . I imagined a life outside narcissism.” It’s hard for me to imagine freedom from narcissism, but the Holy Sprit gives me hope.

Miller’s brand of honesty is amazingly effective in our homes and in our classrooms. In the late 80’s I attended a CLM conference where Dr. Howard Hendricks of Dallas Seminary talked about teaching. He remarked that we could dispense pearls of wisdom every day and hardly attract our students’ interest. But, Hendricks said, when we talk about our weaknesses, students line up outside our door. As often as my narcissism allows, I follow his advice.

Being able not only to admit our weaknesses to ourselves, but to the world is a tough journey. Everything in the academy pushes us to present the best face—even if it isn’t ours. I want to be perceived as competent like the heroes in the movies. I don’t want to admit to professional or spiritual failures. Like Miller, “I don’t want to be charity,” even when it’s God’s grace that I most need. Perhaps that’s why people seem more intrigued by my failures than my successes. God didn’t call me to be perfect, but to be swaddled in grace and on the same pilgrimage fraught with missteps as Donald Miller.

Miller somehow is able to point out our mutual failures; making me aware of them without making me feel guilty. That’s why it’s in my top-five book list along with works by C.S. Lewis, Philip Yancey, and Ken Gire.

Which brings us to the Church, the Bride of Christ on our campus and in our community. Miller points out that people don’t really have much trouble with Jesus Christ, it’s Christianity that’s the big hurdle. What can we do to demonstrate Christ and separate true faith from our baggage?

This book is a vital read for those who want to be salt and light in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation (or campus). It exemplifies a Christ-like view of confession, grace, and redemption on my campus and yours. Miller gives this benediction to his book: “Ask Him (Jesus) to forgive you of self-addiction, ask Him to put a song in your heart.” I believe, Lord, help Thou my unbelief.

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