Donald Miller

I was listening to a church message recently from Mars Hill where Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz) was guest teaching a message entitled God is Fathering Us. He talks like he writes, and both are great. In this message, he's talking about the scandalousness of the idea of God being God, exclusively, and tells this story:

I was speaking to a group of people in an academic setting and there were no Christians in the room. A girl raised her hand and said, "Don, great talk, but you talked about only briefly looking into Buddhism, Hinduism, Islam and landing on Christianity. I'm troubled understanding on how you made an objective search before landing on Christianity." I thought, this is a very good question, pretty indicting, very true.

I said, "I confess, I didn't make a very objective search, but I think we both have to agree that you're coming to the table here with a presupposition. The presupposition is that Christianity is a religious or philosophical system. It isn't a religious or philosophical system. It's been called a religious or philosophical system. It's been treated like a religious or philosophical system. I am not a Christian because I cognitively subscribe to certain ideas. I'm a Christian because I know a deity, a being. This is a relational system. I am a Christian because I have a relationship with Jesus and through Jesus have a relationship with God. It's very different than subscribing to a series of ideas. So essentially, your question sounds to me like this: "Don, you're telling me you're in love with your wife, and yet you do not sleep with hundreds of other women to try to find a greater love. Do you see the difference? Love in a relational sense is exclusive. Intimate love is exclusive."

The message comes from his new book, To Own a Dragon: Reflections on Growing up without a Father.