Entertaining the Alien

48. Searching for God Knows What, Donald Miller

This is a book I stumbled across at work, and it was honestly something of a revelation. Miller, a youth pastor about my age and writing for my generation, manages to describe a Christianity that's worlds closer to one I can reconcile, not only with my own conscience, but with what I know about the Bible. In doing so, he turns pretty much everything I was taught as a child on its ear.

Instead of a collection of rules and steps to follow to salvation, he says, Christianity should be a relationship between a person and God. Along the way, he expresses some pretty interesting opinions on things like the radical right and their political involvement, among other things.

Of course, I don't agree with him completely. He spends far too much time "reassuring" us that he does think things like homosexuality and premarital sex are sinful--an angle that really detracts from his overall message. Still, it was a pretty inspiring and thought-provoking book. I'm definitely going to check out his other works as well.