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David John Buerger was born in Lansing, Michigan. He was the first of three children born to parents who were members of the Lutheran Church. The family lived in Michigan, Ohio, and Missouri while David was growing up, finally settling permanently in California in 1968.

The Buergers had lived in the Los Angeles area for about a year when cutbacks in the aerospace industry precipitated layoffs and David's father began a period of unemployment. The family was further unsettled when John Buerger suffered a near-fatal heart attack. David, now a teenager, became involved with the anti-establishment youth movement in California, an involvement which was to become almost a rite of passage for many persons of Buerger's generation. For the next two years, David divided his time between attending school and participating in anti-war demonstrations, associating with the counter-culture, and investigating various religious groups, of which Buddhism held the greatest attraction.

In 1972, when David was seventeen, the Buerger family moved to San Jose where, he later recalled, he "began trying to get [his] head on straight." It was at this time that Buerger became interested in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Although Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine was the first book he bought after the scriptures, Buerger was most strongly drawn to study of the mysteries--speculating, for example, on the possible whereabouts of the lost ten tribes or on the possibility of life on other planets as part of the plan of exaltation.

In the summer of 1973, Buerger was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The following year, he was called to serve a mission to France. Prior to leaving for the mission field, Buerger paid a visit to the Church Historian's Office in Salt Lake City, where he learned of a recently-discovered entry in the diary of Heber C. Kimball describing a talk given by Brigham Young which reportedly strongly supported the Adam-God doctrine, now officially disavowed by Church authorities. What Buerger saw as the mystery of "Adam's true pre-earth identity and role" was an important part of the scriptural study he undertook while on his mission.

Buerger's deliberations concerning doctrinal questions were closely allied to his own search for a spiritual identity. Speculation about whether or not Adam lived another life before his earthly existence was an essential part of Buerger's attempt to place himself within the Latter-day Saint world view, with its characteristic concern with the progression of spirits. For Buerger at this time, the purpose of life on this earth was to effect a reaffirmation of prior spiritual covenants, and spirit and intelligence combined to "rediscover" dimly remembered universal principles. Six months into his mission, Buerger wrote "Discovering who you really are is a matter of correlating covenants made in this life with those of the pre-existence and fulfilling them; thus boosting one's self into the understanding position of a God."

Characteristically, Buerger linked an understanding of doctrinal questions with personal self-discovery, and saw doctrinal speculation as an essential component of his own spiritual quest, a philosophy which was to color his attitude toward church authorities when he began writing for publication. For the present, however, he was content to speculate privately and await future enlightenment. Buerger's diary entries reveal that most of his published work on LDS topics grew out of doctrinal study undertaken while in the mission field.

Released from his mission in 1976, Buerger returned to California and enrolled at San Jose State, where he attempted to combine the gospel contemplation which was an important part of his spiritual life with the exigencies of academic life. The theories of Fred Holmstrom, an LDS professor of physics, provided the theoretical basis for a paper Buerger wrote attempting to link modern scientific theories with the creation story found in the book of Abraham. Buerger concluded his paper with an expression of hope "that the reader's faith in God and in His power has been fortified," clearly indicating that he had not yet discarded the idea that it was possible to combine intellectual inquiry and faith-promoting scholarship.

Buerger's interest in controversial subjects and his personal commitment to reconciling faith and reason brought him into contact with various LDS dissidents and with scholars whose ideas ran counter to the official doctrine promulgated by the church hierarchy in Salt Lake City. Several visits to Provo in the year following his return from France provided the opportunity for Buerger to widen his contacts, and he made plans to enroll at Brigham Young University.

Buerger was married to a life-long member of the LDS church who had recently completed a mission to Taiwan, China. Shortly thereafter the Buergers moved to Provo, Utah, where David began his studies at Brigham Young University. Buerger was later to write that living in an area where LDS thought and customs were the norm was not a good experience for him, due to his "rebellious nature." While at BYU, he wrote extensively on various aspects of what he saw as LDS authoritarianism.

It was Buerger's undergraduate writing which first brought him into conflict with church officials in Salt Lake City. "Politics and Inspiration," a paper dealing with the Woodruff manifesto and written as an English assignment resulted in a meeting with Buerger's stake president in order to determine his testimony of the church and investigate his possible affiliation with polygamous splinter groups. Another paper written for the same English professor, "Brigham Young University: The Unvarnished Reality," was later published in BYU's student journal, Century 2. This paper, critical of the quality of scholarship at the university, asserted that what Buerger saw as a decline in the LDS intellectual climate was linked to the increasing conservatism of church leaders. Joan Prusse's rebuttal to Buerger's Century 2 article took the position that BYU's attempt to provide an atmosphere where one could synthesize religious and intellectual life represented its greatest contribution, a position similar to Buerger's own views at the time of his return from the mission field. However, by the time Buerger graduated in 1979, he was convinced that the church hierarchy was hostile to individual doctrinal study.

The Buergers returned to California in 1980, where David worked first as a management consultant and then as director of the Personal Computer Center at Santa Clara University. Providing for his growing family and settling into a new ward left little time for writing. Buerger confided to a friend that he had, since leaving Provo, "experienced a renewed growth in spirituality." It was not until late summer that Buerger began writing again, this time on the Adam-God doctrine--a project he envisioned completing in six months time.

Buerger spent the next several years writing on various aspects of the development of LDS doctrine and religious practice. An inquiry to the B.H. Roberts Society in late 1981 led to the formation of the Bay Area Colloquium, a study group which held its first meeting at the Buerger home in February 1982.

In the Spring of 1983, Buerger was once again asked to explain his religious views, apparently at the instigation of LDS general authority, Mark E. Petersen. The office of the First Presidency had asked for, and received, an advance copy of Buerger's Dialogue article, "The Fulness of the Priesthood: The Second Anointing in Latter-day Saint Theology and Practice." The article dealt with sensitive material and there was some concern on the part of Dialogue's editorial staff that publication would adversely affect their church status. Buerger's bishop was apparently successful in reassuring church officials regarding Buerger's personal testimony. However, Buerger decided to withdraw from the program of the August Sunstone Symposium, where he had been scheduled to present a review of Bruce R. McConkie's Mormon Doctrine. Not only was he concerned with his own church status, but with the quality of the paper itself. Comments from colleagues who had reviewed early drafts indicate that substantial rewriting was in order. The revised paper was delivered the next year, and published in Sunstone in 1985.

Buerger's growing involvement with the study of unorthodox doctrinal speculations and the resulting conflict with church authorities took its toll on his personal, as well as on his spiritual and intellectual life. After the death of his father in 1984, he and Wendy separated and were divorced two years later. Although he continued to publish until 1987, Buerger's ties with the LDS Church became increasingly tenuous. When he presented his paper on the temple endowment ceremony at the August 1986 Sunstone Symposium, he had to borrow a temple recommend card from a friend to, as he put it, "ma(k)e me look like a card carrying member." Research became increasingly difficult when he was officially banned from entering the LDS Church Archives and Library in the summer of 1986.

By 1987, Buerger's interest in LDS history and theology had waned. He donated his research files to the University of Utah library and no longer follows the debate concerning the interpretation of the LDS past and its implications for the future of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.