Since Miller makes no overt, direct attempts to persuade his reader of anything, the reader is left with a non-chronological collection of Miller's thoughts loosely gathered around individual themes. Any attempts at persuasion are so subtle that even a critical reader must remain painstakingly attentive in order to find them. Consequently, Blue Like Jazz is a difficult work to evaluate since the reader is left with very little to accept or reject.

Overall, Blue Like Jazz is an excellent and convicting read for a strong Christian already stable in his faith, who, however, needs to be shocked out of the daily hum-drum routine of Christian life. But, for a young Christian who lacks the proper theological and spiritual foundation, Blue Like Jazz carries so much of Miller's own emotional baggage that the reader may be unable to differentiate the good from the bad. At a few places, Miller's own credibility is suspect and the reader would be well-advised to consider Miller's bias before nodding in assent and turning the page.

Self-addiction
One of the best qualities of Blue Like Jazz is Miller's vulnerability. The way in which Miller openly addresses and articulates his own private thoughts transforms the reader into a confidant. The title of the first real chapter of the book, "Problems," is an understatement of the discussion the author intends to penetrate. Miller begins by appealing to the most basic and true aspect of each and every human life: selfishness.

It is hard for us to admit we have a sin nature because we live in a system of checks and balances. If we get caught, we will be punished. But that doesn't make us good people; it only makes us subdued... The genius of the American system is not freedom; the genius of the American system is checks and balances. Everybody is watching everybody else. It is as if the founding fathers knew, intrinsically, that the soul of man, unwatched, is perverse.¹

Miller outlines his own personal struggle with faith and Christianity, which he summarizes as a perpetual struggle against an innate inclination towards selfishness. This constitutes Miller's greatest criticism of contemporary Christianity throughout Blue Like Jazz. For Miller, a selfless Christian life is one without complacency. A selfless Christian is one who never intentionally overlooks an opportunity to love others through his actions, just as Jesus loved each individual who crossed His path. A life that truly radiates with the love of Christ can only be a selfless one.

I know now, from experience, that the path to joy winds through this dark valley. I think every well-adjusted human being has dealt squarely with his or her own depravity... I think Jesus feels strongly about communicating the idea of our brokenness, and I think it is worth reflection.²

Miller's "no-holds-barred" approach to addressing the reality of selfishness within the church resonated with deep conviction as I read Blue Like Jazz.

Genuine Love
While exploring the topic of agape love further, Miller touches on two other excellent points. First of all, contemporary churches overuse the concept of spiritual war metaphor. Secondly, there was no "us and them" when it came to Christ's love. These two concepts are intertwined because they can be found integrated into the subtext of the same conversation in any church anywhere in the world.

Spiritual warfare, as originally outline by Paul, is of course a reality of the Christian struggle towards purity. However, all to often Christians seem to approach every aspect and situation in life from the perspective of a spiritual battle. In returning to the examples laid out in the gospels, Jesus and the disciples were not leading a military campaign in Israel. Yet, Christians today, rather than looking at every single day as an opportunity to exhibit God's love to someone, wake up ready to wage war on the sinners. In order to more effectively reach out to unbelievers, Miller had to alter the way he perceived other people. We as Christians must stop viewing the lost as spiritual predators bent on the destruction of the church, when everyone is really just a sinner who needs saving.

Leading to the second point, Jesus never categorized people into "us and them." The Bible is clear; one day the wheat will be separated from the chaff, but it is not the job of the church to do it. Miller asks how we can expect to evangelize by handing out spiritual tracks or shouting from pulpits, when what people desperately want is for someone who will really listen to them and genuinely care about their problems. Society and the people in it are hurting, and as Christ went and ate with the tax collectors, so to must we as Christians leave our churches and start washing others' feet.

While Miller correctly illustrates a better method for exhibiting genuine love, he fails to continue to the next step. Christ's involvement in the lives of others did not end with the meeting of needs or the forgiveness of sins. Jesus challenged those He loved by saying, "Go, and sin no more." There is no such aspiration in Blue Like Jazz. The danger here lies in allowing oneself to grow complacent towards sin. Miller shows no concern for the rampant drug use among those in his surroundings at Reed College. On the contrary, Miller's whole attitude on the concept of drug use seems to be rather tongue-in-cheek. The presence of love does not condone sin.

Although not a major character, Miller occasionally talks about his friend Andrew, the protester. For conservative believers such as myself, Andrew is perhaps the most painfully convicting subject of the entire book. Andrew, as Miller describes him, is, politically a rabid liberal. However, Andrew makes an excellent point: an individual reveals his beliefs through his actions.

Andrew is the one who taught me that what I believe is not what I say I believe; what I believe is what I do. I used to say that I believed it was important to tell people about Jesus, but I never did. Andrew very kindly explained that if I do not introduce people to Jesus, then I don't believe Jesus is an important person. It doesn't matter what I say.³

According to Miller, Andrew evangelizes first by meeting people's needs. "Andrew doesn't cloak his altruism within a trickle-down economic theory that allows him to spend fifty dollars on a round of golf to feed the economy and provide jobs for the poor. He actually believes that when Jesus says feed the poor, He means you should do this directly."⁴ Genuine love generates genuine results. Those who are unwilling to dirty their hands will find their efforts are fruitless.

In this regard, Miller has some excellent things to say, and Blue Like Jazz has challenged me to exhibit Jesus' love to others with more genuine compassion. I only wish Blue Like Jazz had taken a more impartial approach to the shortcomings of the contemporary Christian church.

Miller's Bias
With the exception of Miller's previous criticisms, Blue Like Jazz is inundated with Miller's own personal, unfounded bias against mainstream Christianity. On a few occasions, I eve found myself wondering whether Miller was being completely honest. Miller certainly seems to look at some aspects of his world through exceptionally rose-colored glasses.

A theme throughout Blue Like Jazz, Miller holds up two societies for comparison, "the church" and the student community at Reed College. There are a few words that Miller repeatedly utilizes which, apparently, possess an inherent negativity in Miller's world view: church, religion, conservative, and fundamentalist. Miller associates each of these words with everything he dislikes about Christianity. He paints a very one-sided picture of church, and churchgoing people. Miller portrays them as selfish, fake, judgmental, exclusive, browbeating, and didactic. Of course, this is not exactly a new criticism. Christians have always struggled against falling into these patterns, and Miller creates no new controversy with such accusations.

The problem is that Miller has virtually nothing good to say about his experiences in the church and his encounters with Christians. This simply is not true! There will always be people in every church who will live didactic, judgmental lives. Furthermore, every human being alive has a propensity towards hypocrisy and judgmentalism, because everyone has a sin nature. Compassion, mercy, and acceptance are attributes that must be taught and instilled. Certainly there are churches in America that inflict more harm than good within their local communities. However, it is simply not true that all churches, or even the majority of them, are this way. In his examples, Miller strongly conveys that the majority of churches throughout America are filled with hateful people incapable of loving others. Since Miller does not provide a single positive example of a conventional church, the reader can only deduce that there is nothing good about Christians in general when compared to the non-believing students of Reed College.

A far more accurate portrayal of any mainstream Christian church is a mixed bag. Some members extend God's love while others do not. Some church members have dynamic relationships with Jesus while others have experienced little spiritual growth. Miller simply cannot blanketly portray conventional Christianity as he does in Blue Like Jazz.

As if characterizing all mainstream Christian churches with only their worst aspects were not bad enough, Miller compares this strawman church community to the students at Reed College. Reed College, as Miller describes it, is a wonderful place of acceptance where no one is excluded or outcast because of their beliefs or personality. Miller even goes so far as to describe an encounter he had with a brilliant young student, Nathan, who also happened to have a speech impediment which made him sound like Elmer Fudd.

Somebody asked me what it was like to deal with all the immorality at Reed, and that question really struck me because I have never thought of it as an immoral place because somebody like Nathan can go there and talk like Elmer Fudd, and nobody will ever make fun of him. And if Nathan were to go to any other church, which I love and would give my life for, he would unfortunately be made fun of by somebody somewhere, behind his back and all, but it would happen and that is such a tragic crime... And that is what I love about Reed College because even though there are so many students having sex and tripping on drugs and whatever, there is also this foundational understanding that other people exist and that they are important, and to me Reed is like heaven in that sense.⁵

This is where Miller's argument really starts to fall apart. Miller's bias in favor of Reed's student community is so great that he essentially whitewashes over reality. He goes to such lengths to point out the propensity of every human soul towards perversity and sin, and yet somehow Reed College is a microcosm of heaven where, despite sin nature, everyone always treats each other with respect and unconditional acceptance.

Christians do not have a monopoly on exclusion or judgmentalism. Just go to any high school in the world and look at all the cliques. I do not for a second believe that no one at Reed College ever laughed at Nathan's speech impediment or made fun of him behind his back; and yet, according to Miller, only Christians, supposedly the living examples of God's love, are capable of mistreating Nathan.

This is ridiculous, and I must interject here on a personal note. I am a cop in a city whose golden age is long since gone. On any given day I deal with the dregs of society, stricken with poverty, drug addiction, and ignorance. Like any other community in the world it is a mix. There are many good Christian people trying to get out of this way of life. However, the vast majority does not know and cannot fathom anything other than a life of crime, drugs, and brutality. I witness the horrible things people do and say to each other every day. We inhabit a world in desperate need of God's love and people who are willing and able to extend it to them.

There is no community of true love and kindness except that which will one day exist when this physical worlds is destroyed. Reed College is no exception, because Reed College is certainly just as prone towards deception, betrayal, selfishness, and hatred as any other community on this earth. Why Miller portrays Reed College as such is suspect, but perhaps there is a simple explanation.

Miller betrays himself in his chapter on the church. For several pages he berates "religious" Christians and the churches he once attended only to admit that the real problem was himself. "In the end I was just different, you know. It wasn't that they were bad, they jut didn't do it for me."⁶ Miller simply did not like the churches he attended, and he wanted to belong to a community more resembling Reed College. Due to his personal tastes and his desire to integrate his "church life" with his daily life, he set out to find a church containing a community where he simply felt at home with more like-minded individuals. He eventually found Imago Dei, an early member of the Emergent Church movement.

Ultimately, Miller's reasons for leaving his mainstream church were not theological or practical, but merely personal and emotional. I want to emphasize that there is nothing inherently wrong with Miller's decision to join Imago Dei. I take issue with Miller's straw man portrayal of his former church. He levels numerous accusations against mainstream Christians which he then does not legitimize. He has some genuine complaints, but I believe he is wrong to direct his criticisms at only certain parties to the unfair exoneration of others. Miller is someone who needs to feel like he is on the fringe. In his own words, he rejects corporations for no other reason than he simply does not like them. Is he not also rejecting conservative Christian churches for the same reason?

Drugs in Blue Like Jazz
It is hard to determine an author's intentions when the problem lies not with the author's statements but in what the author does not say. On several occasions, Miller touches on the subject of drug use, mostly marijuana, and at each instance it is only in passing. Not once does Miller condemn drug use or even speak harshly of those caught up in it

The first occurrence of drugs is an anecdote from Miller's youth, in which he writes about the first time (and I hope the last time), he smoked marijuana. However, it is little more than a funny story which Miller uses to articulate a point that is completely unrelated. The second time Blue Like Jazz encounters drug use is at Reed College where Miller, as has already been cited in this review, comments that many students "trip on drugs" at Reed College. Since, typically, nobody describes smoking marijuana as leading to a trip, I must assume that Miller is describing something heavier: perhaps LSD, PCP, ecstasy, methamphetamines, or cocaine. Lastly, Miller speaks of an experience when he was traveling and had run out of money and he went to stay with the "hippies in the woods." Miller was greatly impressed by the great community of love and acceptance he found amidst the hippies in the woods, and consequently, Blue Like Jazz sings their praises. As a side note, Miller states that the hippies smoked a lot of pot.

For a police officer, Miller's lacksadaisical approach towards drugs is a dagger in my side. Ignoring the fact that drug use, espcially hard stuff, is highly illegal, Miller clearly is uniformed on the grave seriousness of drug addiction. Due to television and movies, the average American believes that the effects of drug use either transform a person into Cheech and Chong or a crazed maniac. As usual, reality is a little more mundane and far less humorous.

Typical drug addicts fall into two basic categories (make no mistake, given enough time, everyone eventually becomes an addict). The first category is the daily user. This user has only one priority in life: get the next fix as quickly as possible by any means. The daily user forgoes basic necessities like food, shelter, and hygiene to support the habit. Often homeless, living in motels, or with protective family members, the daily user typically turns to crime to support the habit: prostitution, shoplifitng, or petty burglary. The second category contains the binge users. These users appear to be completely normal usually having jobs, families, and homes. Nevertheless, every few months their cravings become uncontrollable and they disappear for a week or two. As a result, they lose jobs, money, and relationships. It is not uncommon for the binge user to have several divorces. Both addicts have one thing in common: their families are doomed because drug addictions destroys healthy realtionships.

I see these kinds of people everyday, and I see the damage they inflict on those they love. Drug addictions destroy families and relationships. Believer and unbeliver alike, this is a sin that must be avoided at all costs because it is something from which a person can never truly emerge. An addict reamins an addict until the day he dies. Some people can use drugs one time and never again feel the need to return. Others, sadly, are addicted from the moment they first experiment and they will never again lead a normal life untainted by a constant urge to return. It can literally be an overnight transformation. The fact that Miller approaches this topic so glibly sickens me, because Blue Like Jazz has some of the best insights that I have ever read. What is the reader supposed to do with this? Is Miller's silence a quiet acceptance of drug use or is it merely something he overlooked when writing Blue Like Jazz?

Conclusion
Blue Like Jazz is a book that I really want to like but cannot recommend. Never before have my feelings about a Christian book been so mixed. When I see other Christians struggling to find a ministry in their daily lives, I want to recommend Blue Like Jazz as encouragement. Part of me, however, is loathe to suggest the book to other readers for fear they might buy in to Miller's ideas entirely and start rejecting their local churches.

Christians who walk into a bookstore and pick up Blue Like Jazz need to be careful. In this day and age where nearly anyone can get a book published, we need to remember to read with a critical eye, because there is still something mystifying about print. Donald Miller does not have a doctorate at a seminary, nor does he have years of experience in missions work, nor does he pastor a church. Donald Miller is just a Christian with a gift for writing who managed to have his words published. This is not an attempt at character assassination. I merely want to reinforce to the reader that Blue Like Jazz contains only the beliefs of an everyday Christian inspired by the personal experiences of his life.

Milller's arguments, when filtered through the infallible words of the Bible, are foundationally weak. His criticisms of conventional Christianity are inspired primarily by his own personal bias which is baseless. Simultaneously, his edification of Reed College and the hippies in the woods fills me with disbelief given his discriminatory analysis of churches in America.

1. Donald Miller, Blue Like Jazz, p.18. ↩
2. Ibid, p.23. ↩
3. Ibid., p.110. ↩
4. Ibid., p.110. ↩
5. Ibid., p.225. ↩
6. Ibid., p.137. ↩