I wanted to write a killer long review of this book, but who has time. This will have to do.
I was given the book by my friend John Haley. It is essentially one young man's spiritual journey, with lots of stories from his life and others illustrating Christianity as it is lived in post-modern society.
I liked it.
I am probably the tail end of the so called "modern age" and the beginning of the "post-modern age" Coming from a fairly conservative scientific background puts me more in the modernism camp, but I am learning about post modernism. Post modernism was alway a rather dirty word in conservative Christian circles, so I never understood it as a world view as anything other than relativism; moral, scientific, everything's relative. My first introduction to post modern thought and Christianity's place in it was A New Kind of Christian which I also recommend.
The author is a clear example of Post-Modern Christian thought. He is also hilarious. I had more than a few great belly laughs at his descriptions of life. He is brutally honest like myself and this will be offensive to some, especially in mainstream right wing Christianity (including me) camp. He pulls no punches with the flaws of the church, faith, or himself. I found the honesty very refreshing. I definitely don't agree with him about everything, but I appreciated the opportunity to think through the issues from a new perspective.
I wanted to add some of the hilarious excerpts, but have not the time. I recommend the book to believers not afraid of challenging or rethinking/renewing their faith, and to those with no belief who like great word craft and honest writing.
Here is an interview I found. If you find it intriguing, the book will fill in a lot of details.
I will read it again a little more thoughtfully I think.
Enjoy.
Random thoughts.
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I have read Blue Like Jazz and A new Kind of Christian, I found the two books to be quite different. Although Miller shows irreverence towards churchianity (justifiable from my perspective, note that I say churchianity not Church or Christianity) McLaren goes into full out adversarialism in that book and his other books even so far as to reject Biblical teaching. I agree with your thoughts about Miller as far as readability, and many of the good points he makes, and I agree with you that there are parts where he steps over the line a bit. It is common to read that Millers book is post-modern but I do not think it falls into that category. He continually appeals to truth for example, something that post-modernism rejects (although it is bothersome that “Christian circles” get so stuck on this point that they fail to engage post-moderns in any other way).
I grew up outside the Church and had trouble relating to some of the things he talks about but also because of coming form the outside there are some points that are so very helpful. It is bothersome that he is so Biblically weak, but his genuineness saves the book.
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