"Everyone has a story. My cat has a story. So what?"

At Intellectuelle Bonnie reacts to an article in Christianity Today about the author of Blue Like Jazz, Donald Miller. She hasn't read the book, but has some problems with some of what he seems to be saying:

...Miller delivers a variation on a theme ascendant in evangelical Christianity: Truth is rooted in story, not in rational systems. The Christian mission is not well served when we speak in terms of spiritual laws or rational formulas. Propositional truths, when extracted from a narrative context, lack meaning. "The chief role of a Christian," he says, "is to tell a better story."

Well, truth isn’t rooted in story. The Christian story and those that make it up are rooted in truth. Neither is truth rooted in rational systems; the Christian mission is not well served if we speak only in terms of spiritual laws, or only in stories – the problem with elevating story to truth, besides the fact that not all stories point the way to truth, is that significance is found in the story rather than in the truth. We all have stories. Some of them have good endings, some don’t. Seung-Hui Cho had a story. His victims have stories. Everyone has a story. My cat has a story. So what? ....

Though they may be harder to grasp, propositional truths extracted from a narrative do not lack meaning; truth’s meaning is not dependent upon whether or not it is understood. ....

Sales do well for items that meet felt needs, notes Dodd [author of the article]. Trouble is, "felt need" doesn't always equate with "actual need." We don't always know or want what we need. I know I don’t. Sometimes the Holy Spirit has to lay you flat in order for you to, uh, feel your needs, and who knows how you may feel. But Dodd’s premise, and Miller’s as related by Dodd, is that we can judge the effectiveness of a message by whether or not it makes people happy. Sure, sometimes it's bad to hurt peoples feelings, or offend them, but sometimes it isn’t. The focus shouldn't be on their feelings. ....

Dodd suggests that spirituality is dialectical. That it combines deep self-examination “with a call to integrate with the world outside the self.” He seems to encourage a person's projection of their human relational needs onto God, but this model is backwards. ...[I]t's about learning who God is, and mankind in relation to Him. ....

So I question whether, as Dodd says, readers are responding to Miller’s “true spirituality” if the things he says in his article about readers, listeners, and Miller are true. They are perhaps responding to his humanity and authenticity. But if, in fact, “his books encourage a certain amount of Christian navel-gazing, but only long enough to get the fuzz out,” then where is their gaze once the fuzz is out? [more]

Intellectuelle: I feel your need