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David Miller (center) greeted Ken Spoor (left) and Kaitlin Stewart during a book signing last week at the J316 Downtown Coffee House.
Snyder native David Miller recently published his first novel, Christianity: The Most Unique Religion.
Miller said that during his studies, he came across many parallels between Christianity and other religions.
His book is a list of 14 unique qualities that distinguish the religion from others.
Miller has been a kindergarten teacher at Snyder Primary School for many years, but the inspiration for this book came while he was teaching World Religions at the Price Daniel Unit.
Miller said that he had taught at the prison as a night job.
“After one class I had a prisoner come up and ask me if there was anything unique to Christianity, and that question had been bugging me as a Christian all my life,” Miller said. “That’s what put it in my mind.”
He said writing has been a life-long pursuit.
“I’ve written all my life, but I’ve never really pursued publishing. I just enjoyed the writing process,” he said. “That’s really what got it started, was this idea that other people may be wondering the same thing as I was. In this time of postmodernism where you kind of choose your own truth, I felt like maybe there are some Christians who, like me, were wondering if there was anything to distinguish Christianity from every other religion that’s out there.”
Miller said that at the time, his list had only 12 items on it, but during the process of writing the book, which took about nine months spread over several years, the list grew by two.
He said he expects that it will continue to grow as he continues to research the topic.
“It’s just a growing list of realizations that are all important aspects of Christianity,” he said. “I don’t think 14 is a closed list. I may write a sequel one day. I don’t know what caused me to want to get this one published, because I’ve written several other books, but this is my first non-fiction one.”
Miller said that he hopes that his book will reassure Christians that their faith is, in fact, unique, but with a caveat.
“I’m dealing with Christianity in its ideal, not necessarily in its practice. In fact, the practice of Christianity has been antithetical to a lot of my premises in the book,” he said. “This is a time where we need to build bridges. Writing any book that has exclusivity as its premise seems countercultural, and I don’t believe Jesus ever intended for us to build walls. It’s really just to encourage people that are already Christians.”
Miller said that he is in the process of writing a book about the Sermon on the Mount. He hopes to have it finished within the next year.