In 1968, the Methodist and Evangelical United Brethren (EUB) churches merged to form The United Methodist Church. More than forty years later, many United Methodists know very little about the history, doctrine, and polity of the EUB. To be sure, there are vestiges of the EUB, most notably the Confession of Faith, in the United Methodist Book of Discipline, but there is much more to be profitably explored. For example, the EUB represents a strand of German Pietism that developed an emphasis on the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of the church that, with the exception of Wesley, Fletcher and the early Methodists, was unparalleled in the history of Protestantism. This book makes accessible to clergy and laity alike the considerable riches of the EUB tradition with a view toward the renewal of United Methodism today.

Coad's work traces the history of the Brethren Movement, which began more than 170 years ago and has since spread throughout the world. The author considers some of the outstanding characters produced by the movement, as well as its signficance in relation to the whole Christian church.

This study focuses on the United Brethren in Christ, an important church tradition which began as a pioneering movement of interdenominational revitalization in the decades immediately following the first Great Awakening in eighteenth century America. Its ministry in Sierra Leone West Africa is generally recognized as establishing the most influential and vital Christian presence in that former British colony that had been a key cog in the eighteenth century British slave trade. Jeremy Smith's treatment of his subject comes from a quite different angle of interest from previous scholarship on the subject. Drawing from the philosophical pragmatism of William James and the phenomenology of Husserl, among others, he probes the dynamics of what it means to inculcate a "sense of the life of living beings around us from within," as seen in the context of the missionary work of Lloyd Mignerey, an early twentieth century American UB missionary to Sierra Leone. Here is the first treatment of this key mission in the development of indigenous Christianity among West African tribal society that approaches its subject from an epistemological perspective. In doing so, it honors the faithful missional efforts of Mignerey and the hundreds of others who served in that important UB mission field for almost 160 years. Yet, in addition to that, it also contributes to a larger discussion of what religious dynamics are involved in the deeper quest for God that transcends the limitations of religious language and social ethos. Viewed in the ethos of the United Brethren in Christ, this was also a quest for the new humanity that is formed out of the Christian experience of Pentecost-a theme to which the United Brethren explicitly appealed in their missional self-understanding. Viewed from that perspective, this sensitive study also contributes to the deeper meaning of Christian revitalization.