Change of Heart is authored by James Hopwood, a retired United Methodist minister in Kansas. His writing this book is motivated in part by the recent divide between the United Methodist Church and the new, more conservative Global Methodist Church. The book encourages Methodists to return to the Wesleyan focus on a religion of the heart.

Hopwood focuses on the life and teachings of John Wesley, but intersperses in it his own faith pilgrimage from totally rejecting religion through his fundamentalist upbringing (he describes his college experience as a “deconversion”) to discovering a new heartfelt, personal faith through some Methodist groups. One pivotal event in his life occurred while he was a copy editor for a Kansas City newspaper. While driving in the downtown area, he was hit broadside by a car whose driver ignored the red light. When Hopwood awoke at the hospital, he had complete amnesia. He could not remember his name, his family, his profession, or anything else about his life. He felt in complete chaos without knowing anything about his own identity. When he awoke the next morning, Hopwood saw a note on his tray from his wife, which had his name and a brief description of what had happened. He also saw a prayer card with Psalm 139. Those two notes answered his three greatest questions – he was somebody, somebody loved him, and God loved him. In time he became a lay preacher, and eventually felt a call to full-time ministry.

The book traces the life of John Wesley, including his own awakening to experiential rather than intellectual faith in his encounter with Moravians on Aldersgate Street in London. The book offers an overview of the key events of his life and ministry, along with his teachings drawn from selections from Wesley’s best-known sermons. Each chapter ends with the words of some of Wesley’s hymns which express the issue addressed in that chapter. Hopwood’s depiction of Wesley’s life and theology is accurate and helpful in filling out what it means to be Wesleyan. The focus of this book is call to accountability as Christians engage in a pilgrimage toward personal holiness.

The book depicts Wesleyan spirituality, which Hopwood believes to be Christian spirituality (not limited to United Methodists). This spirituality begins with a recognition of one’s own sinfulness, leading to a change of heart that causes a total reorientation of life. Everything in one’s life is oriented to doing God’s will, specifically to love God and love others. “Methodism” gets its name to the methodical practice of spiritual disciplines in small groups, which remained a key strategy of the Methodist denomination. Wesley’s theology sought moral “perfection,” a misnomer because Wesley did not believe such perfection was possible in this life. However, he held it up as the goal toward which each Christian should strive. The Aldersgate experience, in particular, taught Wesley that moral progress could not be attained by mere self-effort; it required our acceptance of the grace of God. Wesley loved the Anglican church and had no intent to leave it until the Anglican church no longer allowed him to practice his ministry in its churches. The hundreds of small discipleship groups around the country came together to form churches in each community. The Wesleyan Revival swept England and exploded in America as well in the Great Awakenings.

Wesley was always focused on the love of God, hence causing severe arguments with Calvinists, including his friend from Oxford, Geroge Whitefield. For Wesley, the Calvinist depiction of God was inconsistent with the loving God of Scripture. Wesley’s high appreciation for the love of God for persons and the image of God in each person led him to convictions about social justice issues that were far ahead of his time – his opposition to slavery and his endorsement of women preachers.

Wesley’s unquestioned belief in the authority of Scripture led him to worry about the future success of the movement he and his brother Charles played such a significant role in initiating. John Wesley called Scripture “the only and sufficient rule both of Christian faith and practice” (85). He later wrote that he feared that Methodism would become “a form of religion without its power” (112). It was the perception that United Methodists had departed from faithfully following scriptural teachings that led to the exodus of the Nazarenes, Wesleyans, Free Methodists, Pentecostals, Salvation Army, and more recently the Global Methodist Church from the UMC. Hopwood is aware of this challenge and calls for United Methodists to return to preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and to the practice of personal spiritual discipline and holiness. Just as Wesley did not want to leave the Anglican church, Hopwood remains a loyal United Methodist, including endorsing its recent approval of homosexual members and ministers in the church. Of course, he cannot quote Wesley on this issue, because Wesley would have been unalterably opposed to it. This was the issue that led to the Global Methodist Church to split from United Methodists...

Because of its call for personal devotion, this is an excellent book to read. Its questions about our personal lives call for introspection and prayer. It is a call to a genuine heartfelt religion, whether you are a Methodist or not. Two appendices provide guidelines for leading small group discipleship, and a list of questions that persons can discuss in a small group setting, not unlike those Wesley established years ago. These questions and conversations are important in leading persons into an encounter with the Living God.