Book of Discipline

A Book of Discipline (or in its shortened form Discipline) is a book detailing the beliefs, standards, doctrines, canon law, and polity of a particular Christian denomination. They are often re-written by the governing body of the church concerned due to changes in society and in the denomination itself. As many Christian denominations are global, a Book of Discipline may be multilingual.

Methodist connexions have been using a Book of Discipline since 1784, which contains canon law and doctrine:

• The Discipline of the Allegheny Wesleyan Methodist Connection
• The Discipline of the Evangelical Wesleyan Church
• Book of Discipline of the Free Methodist Church
• Book of Discipline for the United Methodist Church
• Discipline of the Immanuel Missionary Church
• The Discipline of the Wesleyan Methodist Connection

• Book of Discipline of the Church of Scotland and Book of Common Order of the Church of Scotland

Within Quaker Christianity, the text may be known as a Book of Discipline or a Manual of Faith and Practice:

• 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.

• Code of conduct, a set of rules outlining the norms, rules, and responsibilities or proper practices of an individual party or an organization.
• Confessionalism (religion), belief that full assent to official teachings is important
• Creed, a statement of the shared beliefs of a community which summarize its core tenets
• Ordnung, the set of rules for church members in the Anabaptist tradition
• Rule of life, a ruleset describing a lifeway of a religious group
• Social norm, a shared standard of acceptable behavior by a group

• Book of Discipline of the Wesleyan Methodist Church