My alma mater will be featuring me and my recently written book, “the (un)offensive gospel of Jesus,” next week for an alumni spotlight. I thought I would publish the information here, too, to give you a glimpse into the thrust of my little writing project.
Enjoy!
-jeremy
ALUMNUS AUTHORS “(UN)OFFENSIVE” BOOK
by Cheryl (Warren) Brugel ‘90
May 4, 2009
“I love people, and I love the church. I believe the church through Christ is the hope for the world.”
These words, spoken by Jeremy Bouma ’02, sum up well his passion and life since his days on Cedarville’s campus. A political science major, Bouma’s goal was to prepare himself to engage the culture with the truths of Scripture. He felt that government would be a great place to do this and ultimately hoped to be on the “front lines of cultural engagement” through writing and speaking opportunities.
After graduating, Bouma packed up everything and moved to Washington, D.C. — without a job! “Intuitively, I knew God was taking me to D.C.,” he said, “and to Capitol Hill in particular.” He spent the next year working for Senator Mike DeWine from Ohio. He then worked three years for the Center for Christian Statesmanship, an organization that reaches government workers with the Gospel. While there, God used him to help a Senate staffer “re-find Christ” and lead an agnostic staffer to find hope again in the church.
Refocusing a Calling
Although Bouma had many incredible experiences in Washington, God used this time to open his heart to full-time ministry. Sensing God leading him “back home” to Michigan, Bouma left Washington in 2006 to attend Grand Rapids Theological Seminary. He is currently earning his Master of Divinity with an emphasis in church planting and beginning a Master of Theology in historical theology — all while helping to pastor a small church in the area.
While God may have changed Bouma’s location and type of ministry, He has not changed Bouma’s passion. If anything, Bouma’s desire to engage culture with the story of Christ has only strengthened his focus since attending seminary.
“While on Capitol Hill, I discipled people and found myself having spiritual conversations in order to connect their stories to the Jesus story,” he shared. “Now I am preparing to do it for a living through seminary, learning how to pastor a church and dreaming of ways to engage my postmodern, post-Christian world with the teachings of Jesus, in both conventional and alternative ways.”
(Re)Telling the Jesus Story
Most recently, Bouma had the opportunity to write a book titled The (Un)Offensive Gospel of Jesus. Writing a book while pastoring a church and attending seminary may seem a little daunting. But for Bouma, the process has further clarified his mission of helping the church accurately and lovingly tell Jesus’ story of rescue. “After returning to Michigan, I was amazed to see the amount of cultural and ecclesiastical transformation within my generation,” he said. “I began to examine the ways in which the church shows Jesus and tells His story.”
And he struggled with what he saw. The Jesus he saw portrayed mostly ranged from a “white, middle-class Republican who’s only concerned with blessing” people to a Jesus not concerned with daily happenings but only with getting people saved from hell. He saw many young people offended by what they heard and saw, which led them to turn their backs on Christ and the church completely.
Bouma began asking himself, “Where is the Jesus of the Bible?” In his book, he sets out to accurately portray the biblical Jesus and gives insight on how the church can better share the story of Jesus to a postmodern world.
As the title suggests, the book seeks to debunk the notion that Jesus and His story will never offend unbelievers. Bouma writes, “Lest you think that my use of (un)offensive means undemanding, think again. While I do not believe the heart of Jesus and substance of His story is offensive, I do not mean His demands will not irritate our modern sensibilities.” He further explains, “The Gospel of Jesus, then, is both (un)offensive and offensive. Jesus’ good news of rescue and re-creation is not inherently offensive, yet people can still react in offense at its demands.”
What Bouma does see as offensive is the way the church often shares Jesus’ story. “I feel that the way the church tells God’s story of rescue is incredibly problematic,” he said. “We start in the wrong part of the story.” He explains in his book that too often Christians begin sharing the Gospel “in the middle of the story, either with sin or heaven/hell.” He believes it is more accurate to begin God’s story with creation and who we were intended to be at the beginning. He takes the reader through the biblical story of creation, rebellion, rescue, and re-creation — using each to explain how to better share God’s story with a lost and dying world. For Bouma, “this is a better, complete, more biblical way of telling God’s story of rescue than the ones typically told.” He also feels it better addresses a new generation embracing postmodern ideals.
Reaching a Generation
A key element of his book is explaining the postmodern movement, especially in relation to how it affects the church and its mission. He writes, “Before the church considers how to retell God’s […] story, it is essential that we first understand the context in which we are telling that story.” He then devotes a chapter to postmodernism, breaking it down into easy-to-understand themes that can then help the church understand the world.
Bouma ends his book by encouraging believers to follow Christ. He explains that Jesus’ first words to the disciples were “Come, follow me,” not just “obey me” or “believe me.” Bouma writes, “No longer were they [the disciples] to be who they were before that calling. Instead, they would be a different people, called to a different mission.” Bouma calls the church to do the same: “[We need to] leave our former identities and both follow after Jesus and engage in His mission.” In so doing, Bouma believes we will better engage our culture with the love of Christ and reach a dying world with the good news of God’s story.
Since publishing his book, Bouma has been encouraged by the response. “I’ve learned that an atheist friend of a friend is inching toward a relationship with Jesus because of the Person and story she encountered in the book,” he said. “Hearing that made my day, because ultimately that is what it’s all about: people encountering the loving, gentle, caring Jesus and connecting to His hopeful, (un)offensive Gospel story of rescue.”
Bouma trusts that his book will be just the beginning of his work to bring lost people and the church together by teaching the church how to best share God’s hopeful story of redemption.
Popularity: 5% [?]
The following is a letter Dr. Carl Ruby, VP Student Life, sent to the faculty and staff PRIOR to Shane’s arrival. While it doesn’t address their cancellation, it does explain why they wanted him in the first place and what they hoped to accomplish. Again, the reasons for the cancellation are not explained, but I hope you can see Dr. Ruby’s desires were noble in bring Shane, desires that I am sure will translate into a re-appearance sometime soon.
If I may also say, while I believe my alma mater bungled this one, I’m thankful there is a spirit of dialogue and a willingness to engage the Other, both inside and outside the Church. This cancellation was a very unfortunate situation that was caused by bad timing and rabid criticism, creating an unmanageable situation for the institution, the students, and Shane. Hopefully, they’ll learn from this and not empower the criticizers by bowing out next time a ‘controversial’ speaker is invited to speak.
Popularity: 3% [?]
I was given permission to post an editorial piece written by Dr. Carl Ruby, Vice President of Student Life, that appeared in the on-campus newspaper, Cedars. As I wrote earlier in an update to my original post, a number of events coagulated last week to cause Dr. Ruby to (momentarily) pull the plug on a Shane Claiborne visit. There was a concerted effort to sully the school and leadership on the part by radical watchbloggers and reactionary conservatives, and Dr. Ruby felt the timing was not right for Shane to come. Afterwards he wrote these words of instruction to the student body. Great words of encouragement in the midst of a crazy situation.
(Also, I’m waiting on word to post an excellent letter he sent to faculty and staff. Posting that should clear up a lot of confusion…)
Popularity: 2% [?]
Related Articles
Dr. Ruby Editorial
Faculty and Staff Letter
UPDATE 3: Today sometime I will post an editorial piece Dr. Ruby wrote for the campus newspaper in addition to pieces of a letter he sent to the faculty. He’s given me permission to post both, if anyone is interested in gaining more clarity about the situation.
UPDATE 2: Dr. Carl Ruby wrote me an email yesterday in an effort to bring some clarity to the firestorm that erupted a week ago. We had a great conversation that helped alleviate my concerns with my alma mater and nuance the story. While I cannot go into details about the conversation out of respect for Dr. Ruby’s privacy, I can say that a number of extraneous events collided to create a perfect storm which forced Dr. Ruby to cancel the event.
After a concerted smear campaign by the efforts of Those Who Shall Not Be Named (many of you will know the watchbloggers to which I’m referring) to denigrate the school and leadership, Dr. Ruby wisely pulled the plug and took his lumps. And even though the event was cancelled, the school arranged for an alternative event at a local church, connected interested students to him through an arranged breakfast, maintained personal connection to Shane, and is looking to have him back on campus for another lecture at a better time.
Unfortunately, I responded far to quickly to a CT article that really did not do the situation justice. While the content and quotations did give a rather entrenched, reactionary appearance on the part of the University, I regret my response and apologize for adding to the confusion. In some ways it was a good lesson and a good barometer of the blogger I’m becoming/want to become (more on that later). For those of you who are visiting from Google, Yahoo, or Technorati, as a formerly concerned alumn, the situation is not as it appears. I still have respect for Cedarville, but especially for Dr. Ruby and his handling of an unfortunate situation. Again, sorry for the confusion and my knee-jerk response…
Popularity: 3% [?]
