Searching for God Knows What

If you precede each chapter with "Like dude man, this is what I like think about Christianity." You'll get the general gist of Miller's book. Interesting, irreverant, but don't look for any depth.

This book is an entertaining, fresh perspective on Christianity. The author makes some insightful, amusing observations, rambling from one topic of the Christian life to the next. I found myself smiling often as I moved through the pages, wondering how in the world a person could make such a profound point in such a rudimentary way. I would have given the book four or five stars if it had possessed more content. Still, for an entertaining, fresh perspective on a relationship with Jesus, it is worth the price and the read.

This is the second book I've read by Donald Miller, and I can't really put my finger on what I like about his books. Something keeps me coming back to his work (maybe it's the deficiency in Christian authors - just kidding). It might be the way he explains things in modern day language, or the way he makes analogies to help clarify complicated points. When Miller tries to explain the way current day evangelicals have alienated the masses, for example, he summarizes his point by stating, "In war you shoot the enemy, not the hostage."

But sometimes his books are somewhat unstructured, and I find that very frustrating. I'll read a chapter, for instance, and then pause to reflect on the point (his message), and the message seems too elusive to grasp or too unstructured to understand. Not all his chapters, just some of them seem like this. His conversational tone and his sentimentality can add and also detract from his books. Sometimes it works; other times it is overdone.

Having said all this, would I recommend the book? Absolutely.

The author and educator Elizabeth Wise Bauer has said that reading a book is like having a conversation with the author. I hadn't thought that, and really haven't considered my reading to be a conversation. It would be, as she calls it, a rather "laborious process." Yet I discovered that a conversation is just what happens when spending time with Donald Miller and Searching for God Knows What.

Conversing with Miller is to laugh, as with his formulaic way to write a best seller (chapter 1), and to become more serious when making comparisons by a life-boat theory analogy (chapter 8), and to be more pensive with a thoughtful, insightful conversation on who Jesus was as a person, and how He makes a life-boat comparison lifestyle unneeded (chapter 9). Our follow up chat, dealing with the gospel of Christ as a relationship with a person (chapter 10) may not cover new ground, yet shows what Miller wants himself and his book to be about. Personally, the most eye-opening part of our discussion was his comments on morality, showing that Christians, rather than homosexuals, were trying harder to "control" Congress and influence morality. I also commend his interpretation of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, although I am reminded that C.S. Lewis once said that American's have little problem "discovering" what Shakespeare really meant in his works.

When all was said and done, Donald and I, I think, were both happy with our time together.

But our conversation had its limitations. Reading Searching for God Knows What is to compare it to Miller's breakthrough book, Blue Like Jazz. Comparisons are unavoidable, as this book ends with a free chapter from Blue Like Jazz, and Miller's website has bluelikejazz as a url. In Blue Like Jazz Miller was irreverent and caustic. His insights and ramblings were fresh and direct and wrapped in a narcissism the size of a mid-western state. And it worked. But Blue Like Jazz was a unique book. It was written during Miller's college stay, and those years, no matter how important, are transitory. In Searching Donald converses more hesitantly about the saints he takes to task in Blue. His postmodern ramblings are tampered and open to more biblical study, especially some of the earlier chapters. Before, he challenged the system...practically all of it; here he is a writer more accepting of his evangelical world, or at least not so anti about it. Although the book works as a whole, dissected it is uneven. This is shown clearly in, of all places, the Afterword. There he makes comments that seem to state, "Don't misunderstand what I have been trying to say". This seeming hesitancy does not work with Miller and I wonder why he included it. Blue would never have included such a section; it would not want it. Including it here creates a hesitancy that robs the book of a needed strength.

In short, Searching gives us more of Miller, and at the same time less. He does not repeat Blue Like Jazz, nor should he be expected to. But this work, while containing what has already been called "vintage" Donald Miller, appears to be searching for something more itself. And, as mentioned, a search for the "best" of Miller will lead us to bluelikejazz.com

Though this book has been described as something for 30-somethings, this 50-ish pastor absolutely loved it. I genuinely had a hard time putting it down. It's a wonderful trip and a great tonic for anyone interested in re-igniting the passion that belongs in church, as well, I suspect, for those searching. At any rate, if a meandering trip with a friend sounds intriguing, go ahead and try Miller's book.

Donald Miller has done it again. This book is a little more serious than Blue Like Jazz, but just as good. He gives you clear ideas on spirituality Christ and the christian faith without seeming "preachy."
He is like a old friend you are having a cuppa Joe with at the corner cafe. He asked what do you think? And it leads you to do just that. Thanks Donald Miller for a thought provoking book.