Thrilled to launch week 1 of the second Religion + Fiction Book Club! Thanks for your interest and for joining in the fun.
If you missed the introduction episode to more of the background behind the book, including my own spiritual journey that led to me writing it, you can listen to that episode HERE.
The schedule will run as follows with links to past episodes:
Below are some of the questions I posed in our first book club episode that I hope get you thinking about Peter Daniel Young’s story — and your own.
Week 1 Thoughts + Questions
Much of these first seven chapters reveal the tension Peter begins to feel with the faith he’s always known and what he is experiencing in relationship with other people who are asking tough questions — questions Peter himself begins to ask. And ones he doesn’t have answers for, leading to a crisis of faith.
Prologue
When have you similarly experienced a dark night of the soul—especially the spiritual sort where the scaffolding of your faith sort of crumbled and didn’t hold their weight?
All I knew was this:
I couldn’t go back to where I was. Yet I didn’t have a clue where I was going.
This is the story of my faith’s death and rebirth.
This is my story reimagining the Christian faith.
Do you resonate with this in some way—not being able to stay put or go back, but also not sure where to go next in your faith? Or are you someone on the outside looking in at someone else’s spiritual struggles, and you’re not sure what to think? If so, explain.
Chapter 1
Roger, Bernie, Ainsley, Peggy, and Tabitha from Peter’s ministry, as well as a number of other people, form an important role in Peter’s journey — acting as both allies and antagonists along the way.
Who has been these sorts of people for you, especially the allies in your search for answers?
Peter’s mention of the NIV and KJV translations of the Bible act as symbols for the past and present versions of faith Peter is wrestling with, and regarding the NIV, the modern translation, he says: “It’s what my students resonated with. It’s what I resonated with.”
What from the present issues of the Church do you yourself resonate with, compared to perhaps past ones?
Chapter 2
The chapter opens with a revelation of some of Peter’s struggles with faith, from issues of creation to various religions. What are those for you, the things you struggle with about faith?
In this chapter you meet Clint, who acts as an inciting incident that sparks Peter’s shift. Who do you resonate with most between them—Clint, the doubter and questioner; or Peter, the guy without the answers sort of watching a crisis unfold, for Clint and himself? Why do you resonate with them?
Chapter 3
Why do you suppose Peter seemed to resonate with the Prosurgent community so much? What did it offer him he wasn’t finding elsewhere?
Chapters 4-5
Peter dives deeper into Prosurgent and his questions, and realizes what I realized for myself during a similar season: He needed help! He finds that in Darren Thomas. He is a composite of all the people who were crucial to helping me navigate my own crisis of faith and who sat with my questions.
Who has been your Darren? What was that like?
How can you be a Darren to someone else who is wrestling with deep questions of faith?
Chapters 6-7
One of the crucial pivot points in Peter’s journey is sparked by his Everyday Evangelism training, which gets him thinking (and re-thinking) the nature of the gospel, the good news about Jesus, the message of Christianity.
How would you define the gospel? How has it been framed and presented to you in the past, this good news of God’s love in Jesus Christ?
Do you resonate at all with Peter’s discomfort? Explain.
At the start of chapter 7, and close of week 1, Peter wonders:
Is this what the message of Christianity is all about? A sales pitch to get people to Heaven? Is this what the Church is all about? A force of salespeople trying to meet sales goals and benchmarks—all in the name of Jesus?
Have you yourself wondered the same, what the message of Christianity is all about? If so, what was that like? How have you come to understand that message, and how similar or different is it to what you had been told?
Again, thanks for joining the book club. Hope you can join next week!
You can still join at anytime, going at your own pace reading the book and listening to the episodes. Grab 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:
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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