Question: What is the easiest and most enjoyable way to learn the essential tenets of the United Methodist faith?
Answer: Read this book!
With its question-and-answer format and clear, jargon-free writing, this book is an excellent resource for learning about the United Methodist Church. Belton Joyner, a veteran pastor and popular author, introduces the reader to key United Methodist beliefs and practices through seventy-eight questions and answers. He does so clearly and understandably, with liberal doses of humor. He also draws on hymns from the Methodist tradition to illustrate key theological points. Church groups, those new to the United Methodist church, and United Methodists with inquiring minds will find this a wonderful resource for the study of their church.
Questions include: How do we know God? What is the meaning of the resurrection of Jesus? What is original sin? What are prevenient, justifying, and sanctifying graces? Who can be saved? How do United Methodists worship? Is the Bible infallible? Who was John Wesley (and who were all those others)? What are the different types of Methodists? Why do the preachers move so often?
F. Belton Joyner Jr. is a United Methodist pastor who teaches courses in Methodist history and Wesleyan theology at Duke Divinity School. He is the author of Being Methodist in the Bible Belt, also available from Westminster John Knox Press, and has written youth curriculum for the United Methodist Church.
