A Don Miller Excursis

Don Miller has raised a ruckus and many thoughtful responses have been written. I am not linking to his posts, because I consider his position poisonous. But I've had some good discussions on account of them (and it's enough to bring me out of blog retirement), so I'm thankful for his thoughts. Maybe I'll even finish some things I said I'd write as a result.

I read a few chapters of Blue Like Jazz before deciding I had better things to read. That's the extent of my interest in Mr. Miller's writing. I have many friends who read his books and blog, and from time to time hear him mentioned. That's how I came to read his "Why I Don't Go to Church" posts. I tweeted a bit about it, but saw an opportunity to address something tangential that came to mind here.

Y'all know, or should know, that reforming the worship of the Evangelical Church is a major concern of mine. I believe many if not most of our culture's problems flow from the practice of our cultus. In Mr. Miller's thinking I see precisely that which guys like John Nevin were predicting 170 years ago when revivalism was in full swing.

Several false assumptions lie behind Miller's self-excommunication. The biggest is that the worship service exists to meet his needs. Failing to do so, it may be abandoned for that which does--a solitary walk in the country, personal devotion, or (tellingly, in my opinion) being in charge of his company and by teaching.

A couple of other assumptions follow from this: that worship exists to provide personal intimacy with God, and that the worshipers are there to learn.

I've already sent out some thoughts on those so suffice to say worship exists for God's sake, and any personal feelings and learning we get from it are secondary. But my interest here has more to do with practice.

When Miller writes of "traditional" Church, he means something quite different from what someone like me, who attends a traditional Church, means by that word, for the service he describes (music and a sermon, probably with an invitation afterward) is a new invention. It is, to use Nevin's language, the "system of the Anxious Bench," or the practice of the revivalists, as opposed to the traditional practice of the historic Church.

It's precisely the revivalistic form and content that is leaving Miller, a "kinesthetic learner," dry. There's nothing for him to do. It's telling he opines that most men probably struggle as he does, as there's likely quite a bit of feminizing emotionalism involved. He's not connected to the lyrics of the music. The sermon's not getting through. There's something to be examined here: Are the songs romantic jingles? Are the sermons simply build-ups to the invitation's fervor? These over time can and do leave people burnt out. Perhaps not, and he is simply being disobedient. But either way, he's bought the paradigm: corporate worship is to serve an individual's felt needs and desires, and so when it doesn't, find another angle or gimmick, or abandon it altogether.

This is the mindset that revivalism's practices have brought about. It's this that I seek to oppose, and I pray in some small way to hold up an alternative.

I have been praying for Don Miller, because abandoning Church ALWAYS--hear me here--ALWAYS leads to kooky town. He, like most of us, needs to have his thinking reformed about worshipping the Triune God His way, and he needs to be doing so, regularly. He needs the only true intimacy with God which is available: Holy Communion with Him in the Body of Christ, and a life lived in its context.