I remember my theology professor, Stan Fowler, talking about statements of faith as responses to the issues of their day. I’d always seen creeds and statements of doctrine as static. Fowler helped me understand that they sometimes deal with timeless theological issues, but often reflect the issues of a particular period of time.
The same applies to catechisms. Catechisms, like the Westminster Shorter Catechism, Heidelberg Catechism, the Baptist Catechism of 1689, or the New City Catechism are designed to instruct us in the faith. “Catechesis is the church’s ministry of grounding and growing God’s people in the Gospel and its implications for doctrine, devotion, duty, and delight,” write J.I. Packer and Gary Parrett.
I’m excited to see a resurgence of the use of catechesis in the life of the church. But I wonder if we should be developing catechisms that deal with the unique issues we face in our time.
Catechisms already deal with some of the issues we face in today’s culture. For instance, our culture teaches that the purpose of life is self-fulfillment. We’re meant to find ourselves, express ourselves, and resist anyone who limits our freedom. Question one of the Heidelberg Catechism helps us confront this error: “What is your only comfort in life and death? That I am not my own, but belong—body and soul, in life and in death— to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ. He has fully paid for all my sins with his precious blood, and has set me free from the tyranny of the devil. He also watches over me in such a way that not a hair can fall from my head without the will of my Father in heaven; in fact, all things must work together for my salvation. Because I belong to him, Christ, by his Holy Spirit, assures me of eternal life and makes me wholeheartedly willing and ready from now on to live for him.” Talk about a reset in priority! Sometimes we need to re-emphasize many of the truths already expressed so well in the catechisms we’ve received.
But sometimes we need to address new issues too. For instance, Carl Trueman writes about a cluster of issues that come from the way we think about life. “The changes we have witnessed in the content and significance of sexual codes since the 1960s are symptomatic of deeper changes in how we think of the purpose of life, the meaning of happiness, and what actually constitutes people’s sense of who they are and what they are for,” he writes. Trueman argues that our task “is not to whine about the moment in which he or she lives but to understand its problems and respond appropriately to them.”
One of the ways we can respond is through a catechism that deals with the lies culture tells us about sex and self-expression. The Great Lakes Catechism on Marriage and Sexuality is one example, but we need more.
We need astute thinkers who understand our culture and its lies, and then we need catechisms that address these errors. How helpful it would be to inoculate our children at the earliest age, as well as the rest of us, against the falsehoods they will face.
We need catechisms that address the issues of the day. I’m praying that we’ll develop and use them.