In this review I will not give an overview of the book but will focus on a few specific points that I think are helpful either as a reminder to non-emergents or to highlight some of the problems with the emerging church.

To start with some of the positive points, Blue Like Jazz does offer a number of helpful words for the reader. First, throughout the book we are reminded of our need to carry out social ministry. The emerging church has been rightly criticized for focusing too much on the social gospel. Nonetheless, most of our churches fail to do as much as we should be doing. Many critics of the emerging church have recognized that people in the movement make some legitimate criticisms about traditional churches. One of those legitimate criticisms is that we are not active enough in social ministry. This is one of the things that makes the emerging church more appealing to those who want to be active in meeting physical needs. Miller reminds us that the gospel calls for believers to provide for the needy, whether they be close to home or around the world. The gospel calls for believers to do more than repent of sins, meet on Sunday, and read the Bible on Monday. One way we spread the love of God is by displaying his compassion to the world through acts of service and sacrificial giving.

Miller also does a pretty good job when he talks about the need for community. All Christians – introvert or extrovert – are called to live in community with one another. That means involving ourselves in each other’s lives, going deeper than just seeing each other in church once a week. The early church gathered together daily. Somehow we think that once or twice a week is all we need. Some of the problems in the book show up when Miller talks about what Christian love and acceptance should look like, but I will bring that up again later.

Even though Miller’s view of love is problematic, he still gives us a good reminder that we are called to love all people. Whatever the person’s faults may be, our response to them should be given in love. Miller is right that it is easy to hate someone you do not know, so one way to help us overcome hate and move to love is to get to know all kinds of people. As we do this it will also open up more opportunities to display and present the gospel.

Most emergent types have a strong dislike of the organized church. Miller is no different. Nonetheless, one of the things I liked about the book is that Miller frequently affirmed the need for and value of church. He will often take potshots and some of the stereotypical views of church, but around that he also tells us that Christians need to be attendees of, participants in, and givers to the local church.

Now on to some of the problems. Many outsiders have recognized the  tendency of emergents to revel in the crude or behavior normally considered bad form for Christians. Miller will sometimes go out of his way to point out occasions when he got together with people to smoke a pipe (tobacco, not marijuana) or to share a beer with a friend. He talked about his pot smoking friends with a wink and a smile, and almost sounded like he admired the fact that this or that person was willing to cuss. And when he talks about the hippies who perhaps loved too much or were perhaps too physical, the “perhaps” was as close as he would get to saying their behavior was wrong. Something about young adults these days (and I am one of them so I know this from my own experience) celebrates coarse language and behavior. Miller does not seem to see any intrinsic value in the behaviors themselves but highlights them simply for the fact that they were performed. He wants people to see how hip, how relevant, how liberated he is from the stuffy old ways of the past.

The biggest problem with the book was how it presented love and acceptance. As already mentioned, Miller does a good job of reminding us of our need to love all people. But for Miller love seems to mean accepting and respecting any life decision they have made. He says he prefers being with hippies rather than church people because hippies are quicker to love and to forgive. What he means without saying it is that hippies do not have any moral expectations on how people should behave whereas church people do. Miller seems to say that we should not try to lead people to change their lives. We should love them and hope that our example influences them for the better. Going back to the hippies, Miller does not seem concerned with whether or not their behavior ever changes. Since they love everyone he is happier with them then he is with church people.

Miller is right that Christians need to work on how we respond to sinners. Christians should not expect non-Christians to live like saints. Worldly people will live like worldly people. But Miller is wrong that Christians should not try to influence the behavior of others. The whole idea behind community in the New Testament was that these people would gather together to help people grow closer to Christ. If they saw someone doing something wrong, they were supposed to go up to that person and help them get out of the sin. Miller seems to think that this is okay if we are helping people become aware of the need for social ministry, but it is not okay if we are trying to help people change the way they live. But love is not love if it ignores destructive lifestyles and behaviors, and everything that is not done in obedience to God is destructive. At one point Miller says, “I wondered whether any human being could be an enemy of God.” I wonder what Miller makes of passages like Romans 5:10, Philippians 3:18, and 1 Corinthians 15:25. There are many enemies of God out there and all of their actions are destructive. It is not love that lets them go on being enemies and behaving in destructive ways.

In the end I was far more impressed with this book than I had expected to be. I thought it would be somewhat like Rob Bell’s book Sex God, full of problems from beginning to end. But while the book does have problems that causes trouble throughout, Miller also has a lot to offer his reader. The problems are serious enough that I don’t think I could recommend this book to others, but I would not be too concerned if I knew someone was reading it. Now, if they go from Miller to someone like Bell or McLaren, I might recommend they start a steady dose of Piper instead.

Bell can be tricky to interact with. His message frequently rings true but what he offers is usually incomplete or misleading. His book Sex God is no different. Much of what he says is true – and much of what he says is not true. I will not spend much time saying why Bell is wrong, but I want to draw out the core of Bell’s message, making the problems more visible.

In Sex God Bell focuses on the state of humans in a fallen world. We are each broken in some way and the primary problem is the disconnect between God, my fellow human, and me. This problem has been present since the fall of Adam and Eve. In the fall Adam and Eve decided to break their connection with God. Fallen nature isn’t original sin; it’s the brokenness that continues to exist between us.

With our sexuality we realize that something is missing from our lives. We engage in all sorts of activities to try to set things right. Often these activities make things worse. We try to fill the void in our lives with greed and selfishness. What people really need to do is give up self and serve others, becoming united with them.

We are often reluctant to form connections with others because of the risk it carries. When we extend ourselves to others, we risk rejection. The other person might turn down my friendship or my affection. Bell says that this is the same sort of suffering God faces in his dealings with us. When others reject us we share in the suffering of God. The cross was not about atonement but was God’s way of showing that he understands rejection, “The cross is God’s way of saying, ‘I know what it’s like.’”

Bell says the phrase the ground at the foot of the cross is level means that the cross experience is the same for all people. But it also means “the ground at the foot of the cross is level for God too. In matters of love, it’s as if God has agreed to play by the same rules we do.”

Heaven and Hell are realities that can be experienced here on earth. Bell says that Heaven is that state of being where things are done according to the will of God. Hell is the state where things are contrary to God’s will. When we treat people humanely, we bring Heaven to Earth. When we strip people of their humanity, we bring Hell.

The Eucharist reminds us of our humanity. Bell says that while communion does have some significance because of the cross, its chief importance is to lead us to “reflect on the truth that we’re all in this together, one body, and that [Jesus'] body being broken and blood being spilled are for our union.” Through communion we are all reminded of our humanity and through the cross Jesus identified with our suffering and rejection.

Bell does a good job of examining sin, though he never uses that word. He prefers to talk about lusts. As with many of his discussions some of what he offers is good but he leaves a lot out and his solution is very different from what has been presented by the church through the ages. He rightly says, “lust promises what it can’t deliver… it always leaves us wanting more.” The solution he offers is to redirect our desires: “It’s not about getting rid of desire. It’s about giving ourselves to bigger and better and more powerful desires.” In life we should try “channeling [your God-given life force] and focusing it and turning it loose on something beautiful, something pure and true and good, something that connects you with God, with others, with the world.”

Connecting with others involves our sexuality and the act of sex is the highest expression of sexuality. Bell rightly limits sex to marriage, which he speaks of as being between a man and a woman. Part of the significance of sex is in its mystery when it is kept as a mystical act between husband and wife. But the impact of sex goes beyond the married couple, as indicated in the phrase making love: “Their making of love makes the world a better place to live, a place where there is more love for all of us.” Sex is also a picture of what we can expect in Heaven, though he doesn’t clarify if he means heaven-on-earth or some eternal dwelling. Toward the end of the book he offers some questions about sex and Heaven: “Is sex in its greatest, purest, most joyful and honest expression a glimpse of forever? … Is sex a picture of heaven?”

We are left with a world in which man’s only real need is to show more love. Bell indicates that we already have the capacity for love; the question is whether or not we will use it. The God he presents is somewhat deistic – he did his part and has stepped back to see what we will do. The fate of the world is in our hands. God gave us creation and expects us to finish what he started. Bell is optimistic that humans can overcome the destructive lusts that have caused problems in the past. We can create Heaven on Earth.

I suspect Bell is in for a disappointing surprise.