On July 17, 2003 (my 16th birthday), Donald Miller broke onto the national Christian publishing scene with his spiritual memoir: Blue Like Jazz. Because of Miller’s strikingly simplistic, candid, and self-exposing style, a million readers (myself included) soon found themselves wondering if Don Miller had been reading their minds for years, and a generation of Christians soon found its voice.
I’m not saying that everyone who read the book liked what it had to say, and the opposition to the more mystical elements of Miller’s theology is well-documented across the conservative Christian blogosphere. But what can’t be denied is that Donald Miller was touching on something that long needed attention: the importance of the deeply experiential elements of the Christian faith.
The 1-million-plus copies sold of Blue Like Jazz, and more recently, the 4-million-plus copies of Paul Young’s novel, The Shack, all point to the reality that America’s Christians are wondering if perhaps Christian spirituality reaches beyond Sunday mornings; if perhaps the implications of the cross transcend intellectual acknowledgement of an historical event to be remembered once a year and maybe, just maybe, even have something to do with the daily experience of hurting individuals.
A while back, I heard an interview with former Yahoo! CSO Tim Sanders where he said that surveys seem to be showing that the number one characteristic people are looking for, the one characteristic that most makes someone likable, is authenticity. He used the evolution of popular television programming over the past generation (Leave it to Beaver -> Survivor) to point out the movement away from the idealism of my parents’ generation toward the thirst for “reality” in my generation. People now seem to strongly prefer “real” to “pleasant”.
And I think this lies at the heart of why Blue Like Jazz sold over a million copies. Donald Miller, admittedly taking his cue from folk singer David Wilcox, has said that he tries to share something in his writing that he is afraid to share; something a bit embarrassing. He likens this to sitting down across the table from his reader and handing him a weapon that he can use against him in order to establish trust. Some have thus called his writing self-deprecating. I prefer “brilliant”. Because when someone trusts your heart, they instantly become receptive to your message.
It’s because so many people, particularly my peers, find it easy to trust Donald Miller, that I’m so excited for the upcoming release of Blue Like Jazz the movie. Most of my peers (specifically those on campus at U of M) are well-acquainted with catchphrases of gospel truth such as “Jesus saves you from your sins” or “God gave his son so you could have eternal life”, but the vast majority of them do not trust the Church or its voices nearly enough to want to know what they mean. They’ve been too damaged by oppressive conservative politics and male egotism masquerading as the Bride of Christ to trust any church voice enough to lend an interested ear to her message.
Donald Miller comes closer than anyone I know to perfecting the art of what I believe is just about the only thing that can cut through my generation’s resistance to the message of Christ: a brutally honest look at both self and Christ (in that chronological order). I believe that scenes such as “the confession booth” (which inspired the movie), in which Miller and friends invite non-Christians into a traditional confession booth in order to confess to them the sins of Christians (including themselves) against non-Christians and heal broken bridges between the Church and her context have the unique potential to disarm and provoke my generation toward spiritual inquiry. Not only this, but Don Miller is one of the most hilarious writers I’ve read, and I trust that the movie will employ the comedic elements of the book and make it genuinely entertaining to watch as well.
The movie, if at all true to Miller’s style, will present both the most difficult and most beautiful realities of Christian spirituality in an extraordinarily honest and unashamed tone, one that I think my generation is starving for. And beyond this, the movie takes place entirely on a college campus. The gateway and opportunity this movie provides for my ministry context is one I’ve been thirsting after for quite some time, and I have hope that it will inspire an unprecedented thirst for the truths of the gospel in my generation.
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Thank you for breaking this down to the bare bones. God is glorified in His truth, enough said.