Volu m e II - Purdue University Calumet

style, Patton identifies Miller as a “bridge” between conservative Evangelicalism and “bohemian liberal
Christianity” (Patton 3). This is a direct link to our “bridge” illustration. As we saw with Bell’s teaching,
there really isn’t anything “new” or even blasphemous to what Emergent voices are saying, rather, they can
be seen as taking part in a conversation that is striving to find middle ground between modern and
postmodern Christianity.
According to Miller, Christianity needs to move away from lists of rules and engage Christians in a
relevant way (much like Bell writes about moving from “transaction” to “interaction”) (Patton 4). In fact,
the bulk of what Miller has to write in Searching for God Knows What deals with this point. He begins the
book with a chapter about a writing seminar that he attended in which two ways of writing Christian
literature are presented in laughable contrast. The first is a recognizable formula of a character overcoming
crisis, and the second is a formula for a self-help book, where the author makes the reader feel incomplete,
tells the reader why the author is now complete and gives the reader a “three to four step plan for getting
from misery and lack of control to the joy and control you currently have” (Searching 7). He goes on to
make the point that some people have turned the Bible into a self help book, ultimately changing the view
of Jesus’ purpose on earth. A few pages later, Miller ponders:
… if such a complex existence as the one you and I are living can really be broken down
into a few steps. It seems if there were a formula to fix life, Jesus would have told us
what it was” (Searching 10).
Here we see an Emergent author taking the reader away from the “rulebook” format of scripture and urging
his readers that scripture is something to be wrestled with and lived out, not scientifically (modernly)
condensed into three-step maxims.
Donald Miller: Writing a Better Story
Rather than focusing on laws and doctrine in scripture, Miller says that “The chief role of a
Christian…is to tell a better story,” (Patton). This may be a radical stance for those who would say that the
133