A Book of Discipline or Book of Order is a book detailing the beliefs, practices, doctrines, laws, organisational structure and government of many Christian denominations. They are often re-written by the governing body of the church concerned due to changes in society and the church.
Examples of books of discipline include:
- Book of Discipline of the Church of Scotland and Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland
- Most organisations of Presbyterian churches have their own Book of Discipline
- Book of Discipline for the United Methodist Church.
- Book of Discipline of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) - each Yearly Meeting (national organisation of Quakers) publishes its own Book of Discipline, which may be titled the Book of Discipline or Faith and Practice or some other name.
Famous quotes containing the words book of, book and/or discipline:
“There comes Poe, with his raven, like Barnaby Rudge,
Three-fifths of him genius, and two-fifths sheer fudge.
Who talks like a book of iambs and pentameters,
In a way to make people of common sense damn metres,
Who has written some things quite the best of their kind,
But the heart somehow seems all squeezed out by the mind.”
—James Russell Lowell (1819–1891)
“Many counterrevolutionary books have been written in favor of the Revolution. But Burke has written a revolutionary book against the Revolution.”
—Novalis [Friedrich Von Hardenberg] (1772–1801)
“A man’s social and spiritual discipline must answer to his corporeal. He must lean on a friend who has a hard breast, as he would lie on a hard bed. He must drink cold water for his only beverage. So he must not hear sweetened and colored words, but pure and refreshing truths. He must daily bathe in truth cold as spring water, not warmed by the sympathy of friends.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)