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tericarol21 's review for:
Searching for God Knows What
by Donald Miller
I'd forgotten some things about Donald Miller's writing...namely, that he uses so much exclusive language (man, He, etc), and that his style is so casual as to sometimes be boring and repetitive. The concept of the book--that God wants us to be in relationship, not to follow a formula for faith--is, I think, pretty much right on. Near the end of the book he says "When Jesus gets inside somebody, the first thing that starts happening is the person starts loving people regardless of their race, their socio-economic status, or their looks." This is in comparison to people who are trying to follow a formula, which, Miller says, is more about redeeming your place in the world than about being redeemed by the grace of God. All good.
I still think he's a little over-focused on the afterlife (though he doesn't say so explicitly), and it's clear that he thinks that if you don't decide to have a relationship with Christ, then you're pretty much doomed. And again, it's mainly for "man"...
Twice during the book Miller references an incident in which he told a class at a Bible college that he was going to tell them the gospel but leave out something important--and then he talked at length about all kinds of things but never once mentioned Jesus--and the class could not figure out what he had left out. That's disturbing. Also disturbing is that in a book that purports to be about Jesus, Miller states that his favorite biblical writer is Paul (who never met Jesus) and the majority of his "gospel" quotes come from Paul's letters. He occasionally talks about the gospel of John, and Matthew gets a quote or two, but there's shockingly little JESUS material...and given that we're Christians, not Paulians, it seems that Jesus would be the beginning/middle/end of the conversation about what it means to be in relationship with Christ.
About 60% of the way through the book I almost gave up. I was bored, there was nothing new here, the style was driving me a little bonkers, and I didn't think I could take one more thing about what God is doing with "man." I stuck it out, though I confess to skimming the Romeo and Juliet chapter at the end...
I still think he's a little over-focused on the afterlife (though he doesn't say so explicitly), and it's clear that he thinks that if you don't decide to have a relationship with Christ, then you're pretty much doomed. And again, it's mainly for "man"...
Twice during the book Miller references an incident in which he told a class at a Bible college that he was going to tell them the gospel but leave out something important--and then he talked at length about all kinds of things but never once mentioned Jesus--and the class could not figure out what he had left out. That's disturbing. Also disturbing is that in a book that purports to be about Jesus, Miller states that his favorite biblical writer is Paul (who never met Jesus) and the majority of his "gospel" quotes come from Paul's letters. He occasionally talks about the gospel of John, and Matthew gets a quote or two, but there's shockingly little JESUS material...and given that we're Christians, not Paulians, it seems that Jesus would be the beginning/middle/end of the conversation about what it means to be in relationship with Christ.
About 60% of the way through the book I almost gave up. I was bored, there was nothing new here, the style was driving me a little bonkers, and I didn't think I could take one more thing about what God is doing with "man." I stuck it out, though I confess to skimming the Romeo and Juliet chapter at the end...