Monday, June 7, 2010

Reflections from Donald Miller

I recently finished reading the revised copy of Donald Miller's Searching for God Knows What as part of my Booksneeze agreement with Thomas Nelson. I wanted to share a few lines that especially caught my eye before I post my official review.

"I realized Christian conversion worked more like falling in love than understanding a series of concepts or ideas" (xiii).

"Our formulaic, propositional, lifeboat-territorial methodology has crippled the kingdom of God" (190).

"As for me, I'm somebody who repeats what I learned in Sunday school using fancier language. It may pay the rent but it isn't original thought" (199).

"The ever-overquoted C.S. Lewis said it this way in his book Mere Christianity: 'Most of us are not really approaching the subject in order to find out what Christianity says: We are approaching it in the hope of finding support from Christianity for the views of our own party. We are looking for an ally where we are offered either a Master or-a judge'" (200).

"There are many religions, and many religious sects within the faith of Christianity. Do I believe some are more scripturally faithful than others? Yes. But none of them matter in the slightest if formulas replace a personal relationship with Jesus. He is the authority we need. He is the God we must cling to for salvation. And He is a Person, not a list of ideas, not a theology" (206).

"I began to wonder if what we were really doing in evangelical circles, then, had more to do with redeeming ourselves to culture than it did with showing Jesus to a hurting world, a world literally filled with outcasts" (209).

I'm not sure I completely agree with Donald Miller on everything, even everything I quoted above, but he has a way of shedding fresh light on shop-worn ideas that make a person stop and reconsider what it is we believe and why!

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