In this episode, I offer a bit of an introduction to the next Religion + Fiction Book Club: A Reimagined Faith, the first book in my spiritual coming-of-age series. It’s sort of a fictional account of my own spiritual journey told through the eyes of Peter Danial Young, and I thought it would make for a good new year read, a way to encourage your own religious life and spiritual journey at the start of 2023.
Here’s the deal with the book club: starting next week for 5 weeks we’ll tackle the subject matter in the chapters, usually 6-7 chapters, in weekly podcast episodes. I’ll offer some behind-the-scenes glimpses into what went into that part of the story from my own journey as well as some questions to get you thinking about your own life using the unfolding narrative of Peter and his friends.
The schedule will run as follows:
February 8 – Chapters 13-19
February 15 – Chapters 20-26
February 22 – Chapters 27-34
You can buy it for all ereaders at most online retailers if you’d like to join, or get it direct from my bookshop at 25% off with code BOOKCLUB25. For easy links:
Be sure to subscribe (totally FREE; no spam!) down below to receive email notifications for the weekly episodes. Or you can just bookmark this site and check back here at bouma.substack.com.
It’s designed as a go-at-your-own pace sort of deal, whether on your own or with an actual book club group. Hopefully you’ll pop in with some interaction with my questions, or offer ones of your own. No pressure but I would love to hear how Peter’s story (and mine!) connects with your own.
As I mention in the episode, the story in these pages is a work of fiction. Yet it is more true to life than I could have imagined on my own as it follows many of the same contours of the real lives of real people.
Including my own.
You see, this story is a spiritual coming-of-age story that loosely follows my own spiritual and Christian journey from almost 20 years ago (yeah, I’m old!) It follows the major plot points during a season of my life that followed a personal crisis of faith I experienced as a Christian twentysomething.
So I wrote the book I wished I had and my parents had during this season of questioning and doubt. A book that would help me wade through my questions and confusion, a book that would offer some insights and direction—all so I could more authentically follow the One who died and gave himself up for me and passionately join his mission of rescue and re-creation in my world.
I chose to tell my own spiritual coming of age story through a fictional lens to hopefully provoke a conversation about faith, life, and everything in between. It could very well have been a nonfiction memoir-style book, but I hope this way of sharing my own journey through fiction rang true, and there is resonance with it for those similarly wrestling with the essence of Christianity and its connection to life.
Please know that I respect your journey and understand shades of it, and I’m deeply honored you’ve invited me along for the ride! Because I empathize with that journey, I wanted to write a set of books that offer my own story as a way to guide you along your own path of faith and life, offering what I hope are a few insights along the way. Perhaps the lessons I’ve learned will help.
I hope the faith journey of Peter Daniel Young is a helpful one, a journey you’ll discover is less about him and more about the people he encounters along the way, and the Savior who is big enough to wade alongside us through our sea of questions and carry our boulder-sized doubts upon his shoulders. My hope is that you would learn what Peter begins to learn, and what I myself learned a decade ago: That it’s only in going backward that we can truly move forward in our spiritual journey.
The book and the club will sort of pivot around this central, story question:
What do you do when the faith you’ve always known no longer makes sense?
(Cue the back book description…)
That’s the haunting, confusing, unexpected question confronting twentysomething Peter Daniel Young after a friend doubts whether Christianity makes sense of life and has anything to offer. More troublesome yet: the right Christian answers Peter was trained to give since childhood are for questions no one is even asking—including his friend, and even himself.
Which leaves him questioning what he’s always believed — leading to a crisis of faith the likes of which he has never before experienced.
While not abandoning his childhood faith, Peter launches into a journey of exploration and discovery, reimagining faith for his world and questioning what the essence of the Christian message is in the first place. Along the way, he is confronted by rising doubts, encouraged by friends new and old, questioned by those close to him, and challenged to own his faith for himself.
What he discovers is all at once terrifying and thrilling — for this story is the drama of his faith’s death and rebirth.
Written in the self-discovery style of John Green’s coming of age stories, with shades of such classics as C. S. Lewis’s Mere Christianity and John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, A Reimagined Faith is the first story in a fresh, insightful spiritual coming of age series for a new generation wondering if the Christianity they’ve always known still matters in these dynamic times — and whether there might be something more to help make sense of life. Drawing from his own spiritual journey as a young adult, Bouma writes a stirring fable of resonance and truth for those wrestling with deep questions of faith, life, and everything in between.
Whether you are facing your own crisis of faith and wondering whether Christianity still matters, or you know someone who is struggling themselves, discover along with Peter what the Christian message means for him, his family and friends, his life in the Church — and for you.
Again, you can buy it for all ereaders at most online retailers if you’d like to join, or get it direct from my bookshop at 25% off with code BOOKCLUB25. For easy links:
Hope to see you along for the story ride starting next week!
J. A. Bouma believes nobody should have to read bad religious fiction—whether it’s cheesy plots with pat answers or misrepresentations of the Christian faith and the Bible. So he tells compelling, propulsive stories that thrill as much as inspire, while offering a dose of insight along the way. Available at most online retailers and direct: shop.jabouma.com.
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