Emerging in Blue Like Jazz

November 11th, 2005 | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

In the short span of time that I’ve owned Donald Miller’s Blue Like Jazz (about 9 or 10 months), it has become one of my favorite pieces of literature. I read the book several times, discussed it with my high school guys this past summer, and led a discussion here at school on it this semester. The book resonated with me in a big way, and I never actually questioned why it did (”it resonated with me because it made sense, duh”) until recently.

I recently read A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren, and I am now about 2/3 of the way through his A Generous Orthodoxy. I’m taking my time with the latter so that it might sink it a little better. These two books probably have affected and continue to affect me more than anything I have ever read. McLaren’s ideas make more sense to me than anything I heard about Christian faith in the first eighteen or so years of my life. In the emerging church conversation, about which I have posted in the past, McLaren is one of the prominent voices.

After immersing myself in this idea of “the emerging church” I began reflecting on some things, including Blue Like Jazz. It occured to me that perhaps the reason the book affected me so much was because it shares many of the ideas of the emerging church, although it is never explicitly mentioned. So I kept thinking about this and even thought about bringing it up in the discussion I am leading on Blue Like Jazz. And then I found something.

As usual, I was wasting my time on the internet when I came upon the article for the emerging church in Theopedia, an encyclopedia of Biblical Christianity and counterpart to Wikipedia. In section six of the article, “favorite books”, Blue Like Jazz is mentioned with a parenthetical statement saying, “also could be considered favorable” to the ideas of the emerging church. It was a good feeling to have made that connection in my head and then discover that it wasn’t just a fanciful theory but that others think the same thing – in an encyclopedia nonetheless.

I guess my main point is that if you enjoyed Blue Like Jazz, it might benefit you to look into the emerging church movement. My post entitled The Emerging Church is a good starting point, and an even better starting point is picking up A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren.