Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality (original 2003; edition 2003)

I really enjoyed this read. The story basically follows Don Miller's exploits as a Christian throughout his college years at Reed College in Oregon. My favorite part of the story was the confession booth setup by Miller and his friends on the campus of Reed College during the Ren Fayre festival. It wasn't a confession booth for non-believers to come and confess their sins, it was a booth for non-believers to come and listen to the confessions of these humbled Christians asking forgiveness for their wrongs of the past and the present misgivings associated with today's Christianity.

Miller writes like a masterful storyteller, with a lot of wit and charm. I appreciate Miller's transparency as he shares with us his struggles with shyness, women, love, money, and integrating into community. He shares with us how today's evangelical Christian has hopped on to the conservative Republican bandwagon and essentially scared away anyone who does not share these same socio-political ideologies. How true this is. It took me many years to see this myself as a one-time staunch Republican.

I highly recommend this book to both Christian and non-Christian alike. Specifically for those who are seeking and in their college-aged years. ( )

I just couldn't finish this book (I made it to page 154!). I felt like most of what he wrote was untruthful or just too good to be true. Most of the time I was just waiting for something to happen...some profound thought. Maybe I'm just not in the mood for spirituality...Christian or not. ( )

I really liked the first half or so and quite a bit of the end, but when Miller veered off in the middle and began talking about politics and why all churches should be full of artist-types like his church is, he lost me for a while.

Basically this is hipster Christology with quite a bit of social-justice-minded Democrat thrown in. I think Miller does a really good job of showing how Christianity can seem to self-described "cool" young people outside the church and of talking about how we can connect with them better. For a cool young person outside the church with a mind open to learning more about Christianity and Jesus, I think this book could be really helpful. And Miller does address a lot of very real and very valid concerns about the modern Church, and for the most part he does it in a thoughtful and transparent way.

For a lifelong Christian Republican who's never been "cool" and finds the whole hipster thing rather fake and wearying, though, it was a little alienating. At two points in the book Miller does acknowledge that it is possible to be a red-state fundamentalist and still be sincere and still be going to Heaven, but most of the time I felt like he was judging all Christians outside of Portland for not being as awesome and liberal as he and his church are. I could have done without the politics and the complaining about pretty much all other Christians, though some of his points (e.g., talking about how our "unconditional love" is all too often quite conditional) are well-taken. ( )

I'm sure this book sold a lot of copies and I'm sure it meets an audience. It came highly recommended by a friend. I had lunch with her today and we discussed the book. I simply could not relate to the preaching and what seemed to me to be highly conservative religious beliefs.

It was well written in segmented chapters of different catchy titles and subjects. There were some pearls of wisdom, but I can't recommend it. ( )

I don’t know that I have ever read a book like Blue Like Jazz before. Author Donald Miller is a best-selling American author and public speaker based out of Portland, Oregon who focuses on Christian spirituality as “an explanation for beauty, meaning, and the human struggle.”

He is also the author of Searching for God Knows What and A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.

Miller writes,

“There is something beautiful about a billion stars held steady by a God who knows what He is doing. They hang there, the stars, like notes on a page of music, free-form verse, silent mysteries swirling in the blue like jazz. And as I lay there, it occurred to me that God is up there somewhere. Of course, I had always known He was, but this time I felt it, I realized it, the way a person realizes they are hungry or thirsty. The knowledge of God seeped out of my brain and into my heart. I imagined Him looking down on this earth, half angry because His beloved mankind had cheated on Him, had committed adultery, and yet hopelessly in love with her, drunk with love for her.”

Blue Like Jazz is the coming of age story of the author as he struggles with his own ideas of religion and the new world he encounters away at Reed College. This isn’t your parents “Inspirational Christian Reading” book either, this is a visceral piece full of honesty and truth. Blue Like Jazz is easily one of the best Christian experience books I have ever read. Miller is an extremely talented writer.

Blue Like Jazz will make you laugh out loud while asking you the toughest of questions.

Read with caution! Highly recommended. ( )