There are a lot of different Christian churches and groups. They meet for quite different reasons and their activities when meeting are just as varied. Some churches are all about "traditional family values" and fight a war to keep abortion, gay marriage and Harry Potter out of their backyards. Others are about prosperity, about offering you a package, a program, a system, a community of support for your financial, familial and life success. Still others are about getting as high on Jesus as they can, and staying off anything that provides a more chemical high. Others are about having, maintaining and enforcing the highest standards for correct religious doctrine (teaching) possible. Still others are about charity work and feeding the poor and helping out the homeless, the addicts, the mentally ill.
These groups do not tend to get along. They do not tend to play well together. For example, a church will say "We're going to go feed homeless people on Bridge Street Saturday afternoon. Who's with us?" and their cousin-churches will ask "Are you clear on the doctrine of Eternal Sonship?" or "Can we take forty minutes to teach them about the Power of the Holy Spirit and lay hands on them to cure their addictions?" or "Why are you bothering with them? There are children starving in Africa right now!" or "Can we say how wrong homosexuality, drug abuse, extra-marital sex and abortion are, and how these are the root of the problems in America?" or get told "We heard you don't vote Republican" or "We heard your church isn't eco-friendly, nor does it have accessibility ramps for the handicapped" or "You look like a hippie beatnik commie. You have piercings and tattoos. We couldn't possibly associate ourselves with someone who is so clearly unspiritual and unchristian as you appear to be." And no agreement will happen and no collaboration either.
I was raised in a "having, maintaining and enforcing the highest standards for correct religious doctrine (teaching) possible" group. We didn't acknowledge the existence of others much at all. In 2003, I discovered Blue Like Jazz by Don Miller. Don is associated with the "charity work and feeding the poor and helping out the homeless, the addicts, the mentally ill" kind of Christians, and backs the Democratic party in America, despite many Americans doing this little formula:
If you support Democrats, you support abortion. Killing babies isn't Christian, so if you support Democrats, neither are you.
If you support Democrats, you support abortion. Killing babies isn't Christian, so if you support Democrats, neither are you.
Don Miller was asked to publicly pray at the Democratic Convention once Barak Obama was sworn in. I guess no one told him about that formula.
As to his book, I found his honesty, his empathy, his depth and his reality refreshing. In a sea of books painting unconvincing morality tales or quick fixes, in flailing, gesticulating, spastic, weepy, self-help prose that would make Anthony Robbins and Vince the SlapChop guy both blush, he just talked. He just talked and didn't try to be a good example, and didn't automatically toe the line, support the status quo and not rock the boat. He didn't repeatedly, self-consciously preface every statement with "Now, I realize this language might be a little different from that used by your youth pastor..." Apparently no one told him he needed to do all that. He just told stories that talked about what he liked, fun stuff he enjoyed, what worked for him and what he thought was good. He did present himself as a good example of a bad example sometimes, but then didn't paint melodramatic morality plays of shafts of light from heaven making tears run down his face, and the blessed, anointed, transformed, empowered, energized difference in his life afterward. His stories were more like:
I did this. I didn't really think it was bad. Then this happened and some guy said this. I thought about that. Then I tried this. It kinda went like this. I think I'll do that. It wasn't perfect, but I'm into it.
It was obvious that Don Miller was going to really tell each story he wrote. If he was writing about a road trip, he was going to share the experience in an artistic way that owed more to Jack Keroac than Chuck Swindoll. He was going to describe and convey things that "didn't matter" in terms of a central moral message. He wasn't going to "just tell the Christian parts," and he wasn't going to construct the entire story so that it functioned purely to make his points and did little else. No, he actually wanted to make a functioning story that did all the things that stories do. Weird.
As to his book, I found his honesty, his empathy, his depth and his reality refreshing. In a sea of books painting unconvincing morality tales or quick fixes, in flailing, gesticulating, spastic, weepy, self-help prose that would make Anthony Robbins and Vince the SlapChop guy both blush, he just talked. He just talked and didn't try to be a good example, and didn't automatically toe the line, support the status quo and not rock the boat. He didn't repeatedly, self-consciously preface every statement with "Now, I realize this language might be a little different from that used by your youth pastor..." Apparently no one told him he needed to do all that. He just told stories that talked about what he liked, fun stuff he enjoyed, what worked for him and what he thought was good. He did present himself as a good example of a bad example sometimes, but then didn't paint melodramatic morality plays of shafts of light from heaven making tears run down his face, and the blessed, anointed, transformed, empowered, energized difference in his life afterward. His stories were more like:
I did this. I didn't really think it was bad. Then this happened and some guy said this. I thought about that. Then I tried this. It kinda went like this. I think I'll do that. It wasn't perfect, but I'm into it.
It was obvious that Don Miller was going to really tell each story he wrote. If he was writing about a road trip, he was going to share the experience in an artistic way that owed more to Jack Keroac than Chuck Swindoll. He was going to describe and convey things that "didn't matter" in terms of a central moral message. He wasn't going to "just tell the Christian parts," and he wasn't going to construct the entire story so that it functioned purely to make his points and did little else. No, he actually wanted to make a functioning story that did all the things that stories do. Weird.
The key scene most people cite in Blue Like Jazz (illustrated in the graphic at the top of this blog entry) is when Don attended classes at a very liberal Arts college where being Christian is like being gay is in a Christian college, and during a yearly festival characterized by a week of students wearing surreal costumes and enjoying prolonged heavy drug use, Don and his friends dressed as monks, set up a "confessional", and when curious people came in at all hours of the night, Don and his friends confessed and asked forgiveness for televangelists, the Crusades, homophobia and a host of other sins of which they felt they the Christian community to be guilty. The response from the majority of the revellers was tears and hugs and bonding, as well as changing how they felt about Christians, at least for a time. He was trying to deal with the fact that Christianity is viewed nowadays as a hate group.
(Do you know what song is played while the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross? "Amazing Grace." Because they are trying to spread what they feel is a Christian message by making a huge cross of fire shine out in the night. Their ceremonies are all shot through with bible verses and references to Christian values.)
(Do you know what song is played while the Ku Klux Klan burn a cross? "Amazing Grace." Because they are trying to spread what they feel is a Christian message by making a huge cross of fire shine out in the night. Their ceremonies are all shot through with bible verses and references to Christian values.)
Blue Like Jazz is second perhaps only to The Shack as a target for people wanting to crucify it and its author for letting down the Christian community for not being right about abortion, or gays or doctrine. It has, like the work of Johnny Cash and C.S. Lewis, an odd thing where the artist is not talking the whole time always and only about "Christian Issues", but in the dialogue, Christian stuff definitely comes up frequently and meaningfully, and as a part of life as a whole, rather than pulled out as a "topic." Like those two guys also, any number of nonchristian people will become huge fans, and will feel that the thing is about a genuine, believable, not-just-a-model-home human trying to live a life, and that the role of Christianity in that life is being seen in a way that makes sense, as integral, central and integrated, and not as a "key issue" brought out to discuss. No one minds if Johnny Cash sings about God. No one minds too much if Aslan is Jesus. No one minds much that Don Miller is writing an artistic book of thoughts and experiences which include God. Because Johnny Cash's songs are dark and intense and honest. And C.S. Lewis' stories are magical and filled with wonder. And Blue Like Jazz is funny, unpretentious, artistic, descriptive, warm and authentic.
When I heard that Blue Like Jazz was being made into a movie, I was a bit perturbed. I thought "That won't make a movie. It's too wandery and philosophical and everything. It's like making Naked Lunch or Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas or On The Road into movies. Wait, I quite like some of those in movie form..."
Blue Like Jazz is a book that is partly very much about God, and which was rejected by much of the Christian community. The Christian community certainly wasn't going to pay to have it made into a movie. They were too busy getting Left Behind 6: Ressurection made. And a movie that dealt with what it's like to be raised Christian, and then to start to question and deconstruct and re-evaluate it all, and then to start living a life that reflects this, but which hasn't involved a rejection of Christ, but perhaps some fairly open questioning of modern Christian practice? I wasn't too surprised to hear that the script was written, the movie was all planned, including casting, but the funding had fallen through. Hollywood wasn't sure how they'd make a trailer for a movie like that.
So many of us, though, have lived lives that are like that. A quarter of Christians have stopped going to churches. What most church folk don't want to hear is that many of these have left, not due to having lost interest in Christianity, but in order to more effectively connect with God, as what was going on in the churches distracted, upset, confused or appalled genuine people trying to figure out what God wanted of them. Churches can demand so much time, brainspace, social stuff and money. Sometimes there's none left to give to God.
So many of us, though, have lived lives that are like that. A quarter of Christians have stopped going to churches. What most church folk don't want to hear is that many of these have left, not due to having lost interest in Christianity, but in order to more effectively connect with God, as what was going on in the churches distracted, upset, confused or appalled genuine people trying to figure out what God wanted of them. Churches can demand so much time, brainspace, social stuff and money. Sometimes there's none left to give to God.
I was bemused to see that the Don Miller fan-base had decided that they would fund it themselves. People all over the world are going online and chipping in $10, $25, $50, $100 or whatever to a movie that already has enough money to get made now that this has been going on, and which is supposed to start filming this month. I pitched in a modest amount. And I wrote this blog entry. I don't even much care at this point if for some reason no one decides to distribute the movie or whatever. It's an adventure I'm participating in. Supporting something. Not judging it. Taking a gamble on people and trusting them. Not asking "But will it be clear as to the Eternal Sonship of Christ and come down firmly in support of our brave Christian boys in Iraq and against socialized medicine?"
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