Among the heated debates provoked by presidential candidate Rick Santorum this election season was last month's pillow fight about the deleterious effect of higher education on conservative youth. "Snobs" like President Obama push college, Santorum told a Tea Party audience last month, only because they want to "remake" malleable conservative minds in their liberal image.
Obama might want to buy the Pennsylvania senator a ticket to "Blue Like Jazz," a new movie about a devout Southern Baptist from Texas who turns up at Reed College, in Portland, Ore., painted as the Vatican of radically liberal P.C.-ism. Based on the bestselling memoir by Donald Miller, "Blue Like Jazz" suggests that conservatives have nothing to fear from college. After a baptism of beer, lesbian-chic and sophomoric pranks, the evangelical hero discovers who he is and what his beliefs really mean to him, precisely because he's seen them in contrast to the secular culture.
Those who read "Blue Like Jazz" when it hit the New York Times bestseller list in 2006 -- after three years of building word-of-mouth sales following its publication -- may scratch their heads at the idea of a screen version. Miller's tenure at Reed is one of several glancingly told stories in a book that is more ruminative than narrative. But the thread concerning Reed contains the book's climax and, beefed up in the film with characters abused by priests and a new backstory for young Don concerning dorky youth pastors and church ladies behaving badly, it is most apt to draw young viewers, believing and nonbelieving, to the theater.
More importantly for religion watchers, the parts of "Blue Like Jazz" set on campus capture the real-world culture clash that evangelicals experience with increasing frequency these days -- despite Rick Santorum's warnings -- as they venture out of the Christian bubble to encounter the gods and monsters of the secular mainstream.
The secularization of American universities began not in the 1960s as most suspect, but with Woodrow Wilson's appointment as president of Princeton in 1902. The man John Maynard Keynes spoofed as the picture of a Presbyterian minister was actually responsible for chasing anti-Darwinian professors out of science departments and shifting creedal philosophers into theology schools. Conservative Christians responded by founding their own academies, from Biola to Bob Jones to Jerry Falwell's Liberty University. More recently, evangelicals have tried to change universities from within, forming Christian societies on campus to create space for faith-based thinking.
But as evangelicals have migrated into suburbia from rural redoubts and gained more confidence in secular society, Christian kids have begun to follow their neighbors to mainstream colleges, law and other professional schools, anonymously, and with no agenda beyond getting their degree. Like most immoderate claims from the political extremes, Santorum's snob comment lashes out against a fear of something already underway.
In "Blue Like Jazz," young Don's route to Reed is more circuitous and dramatic. Disgusted and hurt by his mother's adultery and a clergyman's hypocrisy, he flees to Reed, the campus "most likely not to believe in God," according to a college guide. The highlight of his year is Renn Fayre, described by a former student online as "a huge ... in some cases terrifying party" where students run around in nothing but blue body paint, risk "romantic understandings" and eat insects.
Don's first notion that he's not in Texas anymore comes on his first day, when a co-ed sidles up to the urinal next to his in the dorm bathroom and pees standing up. Soon, he's drinking alcohol and dancing and -- truer the modern Baptist parents' nightmare -- getting arrested for tree-hugging causes. The fervent intellectualism at Reed tempts him to forego his faith in favor of love and liberty.
If this were "Saved," or any of the mainstream cinematic satires of evangelicalism of the early 2000s, the movie would end there. If it were a traditional Christian entertainment-industry product, Don would realize the error of his liberal ways. But Miller, who co-wrote the movie, and director Steve Taylor, both firmly committed evangelicals, provide a subtler lesson for their Christian Candide. He learns to forgive those Christians who have hurt him even as he seeks forgiveness in the name of his church for those who have been oppressed, confused or literally abused by his fellow believers.
We're not accustomed to subtlety from evangelicals in the public sphere -- or humor, which "Blue Like Jazz" also ventures. Taylor, a musician and record-label owner as well as a filmmaker, has made a career of sending up American pieties. On his albums he has taken swings at televangelists and Rush Limbaugh and has criticize the pro-life movement for inciting violence.
Taylor is also experienced on both sides of the secular-Christian divide, having worked with mainstream blues musicians and put videos on MTV. It was Taylor's mainstream connections that led to a distribution deal with Roadside Attractions, which last year put out the decidedly non-Christian "Albert Nobbs," starring Glenn Close.
Taylor recognized "Blue Like Jazz" as a natural vehicle when he read it nearly six years ago. Subtitled "Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality," the book's criticisms of evangelicalism are constructive, but unsparing. Miller chides his co-religionists for their air of moral superiority, which ends up projecting a conditional love antithetical to the Gospels. More damning perhaps is Miller's suggestion that faith allows for ambiguity as wells as answers. The "jazz" in the title derives from Miller's declaration that he used not to like jazz because musically it "doesn't resolve." He adds, "I used to not like God because God didn't resolve." Now, he implies, he likes both jazz and God, regardless.
After securing Miller's blessing to make the movie, Taylor found he couldn't raise enough money -- for a book that had sold more than three million copies. "I felt embarrassed," Taylor said in an interview with the two men last month. Miller, who in person gives off a comedian's pained melancholy, shrugs when asked if church disapproval of the book made fundraising more difficult. "There was a recession too," he deadpanned, "but yes."
To get across the funding finish line, Taylor turned fans of the book, appealing to them on the website Kickstarter. Hoping to raise an additional $125,000, he pulled in more than $300,000. The names of the donors roll next to the credits, a testament to the chord struck by the book's message to the church. As the number of names mount, the impression builds that they belong to young Christians who have also found themselves even as they assimilate into a world full of others.
Blue Like Jazz Trailer:
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I think the brilliant point that this article is making is that we have sterotypes for what "religious" and "non-religious" should depict. Watch the movie when it comes out this Friday and then you can more accurately suggest what ideas the movie is pushing. :)
On the one side you have the right wing conservative Christian group. They hang on to the old judgmental (in my opinion) erroneous view of the Scriptures. They hang on to the old teachings that came out of the manipulation that Constantine, the Roman Emperor imposed on his subjects. He fused pagan with Christian teachings and the result was the "trinity doctrine". Other doctrines not found in the Bible, but found among mainstream and evangelical groups, is the "hellfire" doctrine and the "immortality of the soul" doctrine.
On the other side you have those who are Atheist, Agnostic, Human Secularist etc., who either outright reject any teaching of God or have great skepticism about what we can know about God, if he does indeed exist (Agnostics).
Neither side knows for absolute surety that what they think, believe, reason, etc. is correct or not. They both are hateful or hurtful to the other side. As a Christian, one would follow Jesus admonition to love even your enemies. When talking to them, wipe the dust from your feet of those who reject Christianity (another words, don't waste time, be nice and move on).
As atheists, human secularists etc., want to convince others that you can have morals and standards without religion. So - if that is the case- be good to all (including Christians) and live and let live- actions speak louder. Am I wrong to want this or just naive to hope?
In any case, I would hesitate to argue that all groups on both sides are hateful towards one another. Certainly there is an abundance of snark and snide comments (as well as downright rude ones...). However, we must take care not to paint all groups with a broad brush. We must always pick and separate good from the bad (the chaff from the wheat, as one might say). We have the capability; we must put it into practice. We must deal with the points, not the person. That's always been a pet peeve of mine. I know I fail when I get frustrated, but I always strive to come back into the discussion with a level head.
I suppose that's also why a lot of these people don't mind the education system going down the crapper. Although the main part there is they don't want their class challenged, rather than their faith. Keep the people dumb, you can get away with anything, even robbing them blind.
There was a reason slave-owners didn't let their slaves learn to read. Reading and thinking are the first steps toward freedom.
I am not sure this will translate well to a movie but, I look forward to checking it out.
William James said some time ago in the Varieties of Religious Experience that conversion experiences are quite common - going both toward and away from particular understandings of god/God and spiritual experience. Unfortunately modern evangelicalism has little room for the notion that non-evangelicals might be whole people - whether or not they believe in the 4 spiritual truths. Thus the real snobs (in the sense that a snob sees themselves as better or more blessed than others) are - by their own definitions - my evangelical brothers and sisters. I say this with sadness as relations with them can no longer occur as equals - as a non-believer I am inherently "lacking".
Some others are frightened by the lack of pat, tribal answers offered in the greater world, and retreat to the sectarian answers offered them in childhood.
And what exactly do you think films like this are attempting?
If higher education has a deleterious effect on young minds it is only because the conservative mindset (including Christianity)begins with unsound foundations and are easily 'malleated'. Not to mention that truth, knowledge, and education all have a liberal bias.
Not if you don't listen to it, it doesn't.
It's pretty amazing that over 4,000 individuals paid for this movie to be made. It must be significant for that many people to be that passionate about it.