Wednesday, February 22, 2006
Coppenger Blue about Blue Like Jazz
Mark Coppenger, a professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (the school I attend), gave a timely lecture for the Theology School Council: "There is Nothing Blue Under the Sun: A Grandpa's Take on Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz" (in MP3 format). Those interested in the emerging movement may be interested in listening to this one.
Name:
6 Comments:
Although Mark is pretty late for this discussion, I will be listening to it later. I have Home Group tonight. I'll save all comments for after I have heard him out.
David Brandt had posted his review of it on his blog, Very Little About Much.
Check it out:
http://dabrandt.blogspot.com
10 Things That Donald Miller's Blue Like Jazz Is Blue Like That Are Not Jazz:
1. Blue like blue states--Miller says that he doesn't like it when Christians are political, but he takes relentless jabs at Republicans.
2. Blue like the Blue Light Special--Miller is big on marketing and getting people to hear you. His main marketing tactic is self defacement, which is not the same thing as authenticity.
3. Blue like blue blood--Miller displays an elitist attitude in that he looks down on big-haired evangelists, people who pass out tracts at bus stops, etc.
4. Blue like Berry Blue Jello--He's like nailing Jello to a wall; he'll hack on people who are political in one way but then himself be political in another way; he says judgmentalism isn't cool, but then he says it was cool when John the Baptist called the Pharisees snakes. Etc.
5. Blue like Blue Oyster Cult--The book is a sort of throw-back to the 60's. Just like we look back on the hippies now and say they were kind of silly, we'll probably look back to this line of thought some day the same way.
6. Blue like black and blue--Miller likes to show off his wounds and sound abused. He shows everyone how he's gotten hurt in traditional Christian settings. He doesn't recognize that we've all been hurt and most of us keep going.
7. Blue like working blue--Miller gets little thrills from his readers by throwing in profanity and acting like a bad boy. It's a lot like comedians who get a cheap laugh with vulgarity when they can't come up with better material.
8. Blue like Pabst Blue Ribbon--Miller promotes beer with such light-hearted ease that one would be led to forget that it's a killer.
9. Blue like blue ice--Miller loves dropping blue ice on things that are sacred. Most notably, he dismisses Christian doctrine as mathematical and dull. Russell Moore has said that he's like Schleiermacher with a soul patch. Just like Schleiermacher (the "father of Protestant Liberalism"), he reduces Christianity to feeling and experience. He is following the pattern of old-line Liberalism by trying to update Christianity for modern times. If we follow what he says and just "lighten up" with regard to theology, we are destroying a legacy that the heroes of the faith fought for.
10. Blue like a blue screen--There's a smoke-and-mirrors aspect to Blue Like Jazz. Miller claims that his ideas are designed to reach people, but everything he says we need to do is whatever he wants to do. He hasn't backed up his claims with evidence of having brought more people to the Lord by doing what he does. Not only that, but he dismisses the preferences of people who aren't like him as the wrong way to do things, especially bus-stop tract distributors and door-to-door evangelists and the like.
You can check out my thoughts on my blog, but my short take is - I thought he only engaged the book on a superficial level.
The speaker hit the book dead on. He is so right about this book. It is very popular with SECC staff, unfortuantly
This review is pretty awful. For example, "beer is a killer"? Beer kills just like guns kill, right??
Either way, thanks for posting it, and a good blog.
Post a Comment
<< Home