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By Karen, October 23, 2009 12:29 am

He held a Bible in his hand, this man, this teacher, this father of two. It was clutched between the church bulletin and a stack of pencil drawings. Standing there in the church hall that way, his head shorn like a new recruit, his arms crossed over his barrel chest, Jake told me how much he loved Donald Miller’s new book, A Million Miles in a Thousand Years.
He said what he loves about Miller is, “He’s so real. I don’t know about you, but I don’t know many Christians who are like that.”
I thought about it for a minute and then I told Jake that actually I knew a lot of Believers like that.
Jake seemed surprised. Then, for some reason, maybe it’s because I’m old enough to be his mother, Jake felt the need to unpack his thoughts for me. (Unpack is the buzz word among hipsters. When you get older you don’t need buzz words. You’re just glad when you can remember what word it is you do need.)
Anyway, Jake told me that he had been out with a friend the night before, and, I suppose because Jake knows of my work with military families, he told me his friend had completed a tour in Iraq, as if that would help explain what he was about to tell me.
“I had a few brews and he had even more,” Jake said.“We’re good friends. He drops the F-bomb like I do. I use the F-bomb as a noun, as a verb, as an adjective.” Then, Jake laughed, nervously.
I guess Jake assumes that I probably don’t use the F-bomb much. It’s true. I don’t. It shames me that I’ve used it at all. A writer, of all people, ought to do better than that. But more importantly, it would shame my kinfolk.
I grew up in a generation when shame was a teaching tool, used to deter inappropriate behavior. People like Jake might not understand it, but there was a time when using the F-bomb was akin to taking God’s name in vain.
Jake went on to say that he was sure Miller was the kind of Christian his buddy could relate to, if only he could get him to read one of Miller’s books.
“I keep telling him to just give it a try,” Jake said. Then he asked if I had read Miller’s new book yet and I told him, truthfully, that my daughter had just given me a copy and I was going to start on it that very afternoon.
“The cool thing about his book is that he talks about drinking and smoking in it,” Jake said. “He’s just so real. He gives people hope.”
I thought about that for a minute. Then I said, “Jake, hope is a good thing. But there is plenty of hope to be found in the world beyond Christ. There are all kinds of people out there who are working with AIDS victims and the homeless and refugees who don’t do it in the name of Christ. Yet, they are bringing hope to many.”
Jake cocked his head and looked quizzically at me, the way my dog Poe does when he’s trying to figure out if I’m coming or going.
“Hope is a great thing,” I added. “But it’s like Pastor said this morning, the thing Christ offers us that we can’t find anywhere else is transformation.”
Jake shook his head in agreement but I could tell he was thinking, “F–k this. This woman doesn’t have a clue what I’m talking about.”
And I went away thinking to myself, does this emergent generation have a clue about holiness?
__________
I sent a note about the encounter to my friend Scot McKnight. McKnight, a popular author, speaker and blogger on all things Jesus, is a professor at North Park University. But like me, McKnight grew up in a generation where holiness wasn’t something to be shunned but something to strive toward.
McKnight is working on a new book with themes that address some of these issues. So he’s been thinking about all this, too.
“As one who works with emerging adults, the whole age group is shaped by “possibilities” in life, so hope is important for that generation,” McKnight said. “They have to look forward to what life can bring; we were known for idealism, etc., which is about hope. So a very important touchstone is hope, but it’s got to find its way to the cross, at least as a life of self-denial and struggle etc.”
I started reading Miller’s book that afternoon. I was worried, initially, that it was going to glamorize a loosey-goosey lifestyle. A lifestyle that my generation was taught was shameful.
It doesn’t do that at all.
Yes. Miller talks about drinking. Bourbon. Wine.
Yes. Miller talks about smoking. Cigarettes. Pipes.
I’m a tequila gal, myself, but I steer clear of smoking. I grew up with a mother who is addicted to tobacco sticks. When you spend your entire childhood in a haze of blue smoke, you grow to hate the stench of it. I wouldn’t smoke if I weren’t a Christian.
It not only unholy, it’s unhealthy.
I’m not sure Jake paid attention, but Miller’s book talks about more than just smoking and drinking. It speaks to living a transformed life. Here’s what Miller says: “People love to have lived a great story but few people like the work it takes to make it happen.”
That’s not the same as saying we ought to transformed by the love of Christ, the way Pastor said it, but I think the gist of it is the same.
Back in the days of bell-bottoms and hip-huggers, when Sonny and Cher had each other and that was enough, Believers used to talk a lot about being careful to not be stumbling blocks to others.
Nobody talks about that anymore. I’m not sure why, really, but perhaps it’s because to do so would be to suggest that we might in some way be obliged to clean up our act. Quit using the F-bomb as a direct object. Drink in moderation. Quit exploiting others sexually, or otherwise. Generally speaking, we might need to become, well, not holier than thou, but certainly more holy.
There are those in the faith who claim that the reason holiness has lost its favor with today’s hipster generation is because they are seeking to distance themselves from the legalism of fundamentalism.
There’s a lot of talk about wanting an authentic relationship with Christ. But I sometimes wonder if these same people are simply looking for an excuse to be as bad as they wanna be. Could it be that “Keeping it real” is nothing more than Christian code for being self-indulgent, or worse, for being crass, unruly and undisciplined?
Christians parade hope around like POWs returned. We cheer. We cry. We shout. We dance in its presence.
But we dance right past the truth of the Gospel. Hope without transformation is like having a boat without steering. It will get us off the island but we are directionless and doomed without it.
Miller gets that. He says for a story to be great it’s necessary to sacrifice, everything.