#37-Having an opinion about Donald Miller and Blue Like Jazz

Who is this man? I thought you would never ask.

"His name is Donald Miller and he is an author. I like him as a writer, I don't like him as role model for my children..."

You're likely to hear this or one of a few other possible answers when someone begins telling you about Donald Miller.

Donald Miller wrote the now infamous Christian book "Blue Like Jazz" as well as a few other books which I, nor most other half-hearted Donald Miller fans have ever read.

Blue Like Jazz (and Donald Miller as well since the book is basically an organized diary of Miller's thoughts about Christianity) is one of those books that you can't just tell someone about what the book is about without giving your opinion of it.

It smacks of amateur prose at times, offensiveness at other times, and conviction-that-leads-to repentance at even other times.

One scene you're hearing him quote a friend on how the book of John is best read while smoking a cigarette and eating chocolate, and another you are hearing him boldly claim that some gay people he knows are more Christian in their behavior than many people who claim to be Christian, and then yet in a different section you're seeing a line that stops and makes you develop a kind of admiration for the guy with lines like, "The most difficult lie I ever contended with is this: Life is a story about me"

Needless to say he is very polarizing on forcing you to develop an opinion on him. You won't find someone saying, "I am not really sure how I feel about him."

The people who love him will call you overly judgmental and too narrow-minded to understand Miller if you hate him.

The people that hate him focus too much on the fact that he is constantly referencing how much of a smoker he is and completely miss out on what his actual message is.

So if you haven't read Blue Like Jazz I recommend you do so ASAP so you can join almost all Apostolic 20 somethings in having an opinion about about the book.