I think Donald is one of, if not THE brightest of “our” writers. Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality deserves a place on the highest shelf of that genre… I’m thinking of Madeleine L’engle and Anne Lamott
However, I was equally disappointed with Searching for God Knows What. You know how musicians who are Christians are saying things like “Hey, I’m not an authority on stuff. I just write and sing about living my life as a Christian. Don’t hold me up to be higher that you.”? I feel like Don turned that around in SFGKW. He’s a great writer, but in that book he tried to be a theologian and the effect was just the opposite of BLJ. He came off as an arrogant, left-of-liberal theologian instead of the regular guy reflecting on life experiences he was in BLJ.
I can tolerate a lot of theology that doesn’t match my own in a work like BLJ, or Lamott’s Traveling Mercies, or any number of L’Engle’s books. What I find hard to stomach is a writer like Don trying to be definitive on matters in which he is not an expert. I’m not either, BTW.
“Write what you know”, right? Either that or explore what you don’t know humbly and with an open mind. Don repeatedly uses analogies about marriage, raising kids, and to a lesser extent sports to make his theological points. In those first two categories he has no experience on which to draw – which isn’t to say those categories are completely off-limits for him.
So I found myself writing in the columns of the book a number times – writing things like “Hey Don, try this line of reasoning again after you’re married and see if it still rings true to you” and “Hey Don, get back to me once you have some kids and have thought through this in real time.”
I guess the annoyance was exacerbated by the fact that I loved BLJ so much.
Sorry for riffing on Don so much. Its been a blog post sort of waiting to happen so I guess this was my rough draft.
