Kurt

Kurt Struckmeyer grew up in St. Louis, Missouri in the aftermath of global war. He was baptized in a Lutheran church at the age of five. His youth was shaped by the decades of the conformist fifties and the contentious sixties. As he entered puberty, he discovered a radical and passionate Jesus in the gospels who was very unlike the heavenly Christ he had been introduced to by the church. In high school, Kurt read The Cost of Discipleship by German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Based on the teachings of Jesus and the writing of Bonhoeffer, he registered as a conscientious objector to the war in Viet Nam. The two martyrs—Jesus and Bonhoeffer—had launched the trajectory of his life. Kurt has always had a strong creative drive, and although a high school English teacher encouraged him to write and his pastor encouraged him to enter the seminary, he instead went to art school, studying painting and sculpture. After graduating from the Washington University School of Fine Art in 1969, Kurt pursued a varied career at the General Motors Design Center in Warren, Michigan. For over 35 years, he worked as an automotive sculptor, a technology and process planner, an organizational development facilitator, and a manager of strategic communication, serving under every vice president of the Design Center except its founder Harley Earl. Kurt retired from General Motors in 2005 and now lives in Farmington Hills, Michigan. In 2008, he was asked to write a history of automotive design at General Motors titled "Driving Style: GM Design’s First Century." Today, he spends much of his time in study and writing. Throughout his career as an artist, planner, and writer, Kurt’s true avocation and calling has been theology, biblical studies, and historical Jesus research, focused on the vision of peace and social justice that Jesus called the “kingdom of God.” Over the years, Kurt has written a number of classroom studies about the mission and message of Jesus, nonviolence, and community building. In 2004, under the umbrella of the Mustard Seed School of Theology, he launched the website and blog “Following Jesus: a life of faith in a postmodern world” (https://followingjesus.org). Decades of study and writing led to the creation of a lengthy manuscript that Wipf & Stock is publishing as three separate books beginning in 2016. "A Conspiracy of Love" presents the contours of a postmodern faith based on following the way of Jesus in contemporary society. "An Unorthodox Faith" calls for a postmodern reformation based on a simple theology and ethic of God as love. And "People of the Way" will outline a future for the church through small activist communities that are dedicated to selfless service and passionate advocacy.