Introduction to the Introduction

This collection of essays is my attempt to provide an Introduction to Christian Thought for those people who did not grow up in church - or slept through their early years in church. Gentle Reader, you should discover here the ideas that have led people as disparate as Roman senators, Russian tsars, Hindu sanitation workers, American farmers, Winston Churchill, Martin Luther King, Jr., George Washington, John F. Kennedy, Isaac Newton, Gregor Mendel, Larry Niven, Harper Lee, Dorthy L. Sayer, Maya Angelou, J.R.R. Tolkien, and C.S Lewis to declare that "this is true."

The Christianity which I will be presenting is mostly shared by 95 percent of the Christians in the world today. However, my perspective is primarily a Protestant perspective, with a strong bias in some areas toward the ideas of John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Movement. Yet, this is not solely a Methodist book, since my church background includes five years of monthly Roman Catholic Mass (I taught at a Catholic High School), two years with a "Christian Church" (part of the Campbellite group of churches), a couple of years at an "Evangelical and Reformed" Lutheran-leaning church, a few months with the Southern Baptists, and a few years at a Reformed (Calvinist) independent evangelical church. I have also attended a holiness "Bible Missionary" church, and been a member or pastor in the United Methodist church for the last ten years. I hope you will agree, I have been exposed to a wide variety of influences.

But I was not always a Christian. From about age 7 to age 34, I was an atheist. I actually earned a degree in physics, with my emphasis in astrophysics, and a master's degree in business administration. I worked for many years in the factory automation business before starting my own company a month after I became a Christian. Along the way, I became teacher-certified and ended up just a few hours short of a master's degree in education, and began my third career - teaching mathematics and physics. Later, as I became a pastor, I earned a master's in divinity degree.And so I understand the need for solid answers that are not squishy, responses that don't melt like cotton candy, and real facts that haven't been made up by storytellers trying for an emotional response.

As this blog develops, I hope that you'll come to appreciate the depth and wisdom of Christian ideas.

- Rev. Brian L. Boley
Quiet Dell United Methodist Church