PROFILE OF A PROF: The Don of Duke 520

By: Jesse Merrick, staff writer | Communication studies major

How many professors at APU can say they were kicked out of the boy scouts? Well, I’m not entirely sure either, but only one can say he was removed from the 80s traveling version of High School Musical, “Up with People.” This trouble-making missionary kid raised in the Philippines is none other than our very own Michael Bruner.

Bruner started his college years at Whitworth University where his father was a professor. After about a year of mischief, his father realized the university was not big enough for the both of them and he “strongly encouraged” young Michael to find another place to go to school.

Instead of attending a different college, Bruner became a member of “Up with People,” an international education organization famous for their musical performances. Unfortunately, he was quickly removed. In case you haven’t already figured this out, Bruner said, “Getting kicked out of ‘Up with People’ is kind of like getting kicked out of the boy scouts—that doesn’t typically happen.”

From there, Bruner found his way back to Whitworth but ended up transferring to the University of Washington, where he became a member of the Theta Chi fraternity.

“I was pretty schizophrenic, in regard to my Christian faith,” said Bruner. “At the time I would have considered myself a really, you know, on fire Christian but I was also an on fire fraternity boy, so I was living, sort of, dual lives.”

At one point in his college career, he even left the Christian faith because he was unsure if it was his own faith or simply something he adopted from his parents.

“I did sort of a deliberate search to find my faith again and came back to the Christian faith after a couple pretty intense experiences,” said Bruner. “I guess you would call them mystical experiences. Because I had done a lot of questioning about other world religions, the Christian faith, to me, had the most satisfying answer.”

After returning to the faith and shedding his mischievous behavior, he walked during commencement but didn’t officially graduate from the University of Washington due to a lack of five units. He was admitted into Princeton Seminary anyway.

“I think I’m one of the first seminary students at Princeton who started there without having officially graduated from college because I started in January and didn’t officially matriculate until March,” Bruner said.

So just how did Michael Bruner end up at APU? After starting some Internet companies, working for a magazine company, and trying out advertising, he was subbing for his fathers Sunday school class where he was approached by current APU professor Mark Eaton, who encouraged Bruner to look into teaching at the university level. Bruner applied and ended up in the Practical Theology Department at Azusa Pacific University. The rest is history in the making in Duke room 520.

Q & A

Q: If you could go back and visit your college self, what advice would you give?

A: In his signature calm and collected manner, he simply replied, “Chill out.”

Q: What’s currently on your bookshelf?

A: After rattling off works including the likes of Carl Barth, Calvin, Luther, a bunch of church history, sacred writing of major religions of the world, Freud, a lot of theology and science stuff, and the obvious C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton, he named the pride and joy of his pleasure readings at home. “I’m currently reading to my daughter the Hardy Boys mysteries. She digs the Hardy Boys.”

Q: What keeps you coming back to the classroom?

A: Elaborating on his answer of “students” he said, “APU. For all the crap I give my students, and I have over the years, I feel really blessed to be here because by and large, the students here are thoughtful, good-natured, decent human beings. ‘Precious Children of God’ as my little wall says, where I teach.”

Q: If you were a current APU student, whose class would you want to take?

A: After you thought he’d gone soft on us after that last response, he replied in the true Bruner fashion we’ve all learned to love saying, “Yea, I would take a class with Bruner, I’ve heard he’s pretty provocative.”