Up until about 1900, nearly every Protestant Christian church denomination used a catechism to teach child to learn and understand Bible doctrine. In more modern times, denominational Sunday school curriculum publishers promoted their own quarterlies, which replaced the practice of catechism, but I believe it is a valuable practice that we should consider bringing back into our churches and homes.
I was raised in a middle-of-the-road Evangelical Protestant church environment, and we not only did not use the process of catechism, but I had also barely heard of it. If you had asked me, I probably would have said something uninformed like, “Doesn’t that something to do with Roman Catholicism?”
In our modern church age, the term, “catechism” sounds a bit strange and unfamiliar to most of us. What is a catechism, and how can it be useful for your family?
Webster’s 1828 Dictionary defines “catechism” this way:
- A form of instruction by means of questions and answers, particularly in the principles of religion.
- An elementary book containing a summary of principles in any science or art, but appropriately in religion, reduced to the form of questions and answers, and sometimes with notes, explanations, and references to authorities.
Asking questions can be a wonderful means of teaching.
In ancient Greece, the philosopher Socrates developed a teaching approach that involved asking critical thinking questions to his students that became known as “The Socratic method.”
God asked many questions of people in the Bible. Jesus taught His disciples not merely by telling them what they should believe, but by asking them questions. (For more on this, see my books, Questions God Asks, and Questions Jesus Asks, published by New Leaf Press.)
Luther’s Catechism
(1529 A.D.) Martin Luther, the founder of the Protestant Reformation, realized that it would be important not only for adults to read the Bible for themselves (in their own language) but for children to learn it as well. In 1529, Luther wrote the first Protestant catechism for children.
Luther’s Large Catechism (1580), was also published together with the Ten Commandments, the Apostles’ Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, the Sacrament of Holy Baptism, the Office of the Keys and Confession and the Sacrament of the Lord’s Table.
Popular Catechisms:
Here are several historic catechisms that have been used and appreciated by the Christian church since the Protestant Reformation:
(1549/1662) The Anglican Catechism (Church of England)
(1563 A.D.) The Heidelberg Catechism (Dutch Reformed Church / CRC)
(1647 A.D.) Westminster Larger Catechism (Presbyterian: 196 questions)
(1693 A.D.) Benjamin Keach’s Catechism (The Baptist Catechism) (118 questions)
What is the Purpose of a Catechism?
What are the benefits of a catechism? The Anglican (Church of England) Catechism (1549/1662) answers this question for us:
Question: What dost thou chiefly learn in these Articles of thy Belief (the creed)?
Answer: First, I learn to believe in God the Father, who hath made me, and all the world.
Secondly, in God the Son, who hath redeemed me, and all mankind.
Thirdly, in God the Holy Ghost, who sanctifieth me, and all the elect people of God.
The purpose of questions provided in any catechism is ultimately to help us to know God. Jesus Himself affirmed this goal as being the most important pursuit of our life:
“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent” (John 17:3).
There is no substitute for the Bible. Creeds, confessions and catechisms are not ever to be a replacement for the Bible. They are simply tools that can help Christians to understand, in a more systematic way, what the Bible teaches. If any of these tools is ever itself in disagreement with the Bible, it must be set aside in the same way we would dismiss a sermon by our own local church’s pastor if he were to teach something that does not align with the Bible.
Some people ask, “Why do we need all these other resources? Isn’t the Bible sufficient?”
The Bible is all we need for our salvation and our life in Christ. It alone is the living breath of God. But we are blessed today to have many other tools that may be helpful to us in our journey and growth as a Christian. If we do not find these tools to be useful, that’s fine. We are not obligated to use them. But often, we don’t use things like catechisms because we simply don’t know they exist or understand their purpose. The goal of a catechism is to point you back to the Word of God directly, in an organized and focused way. I hope you will consider looking into this method for teaching your children about Bible doctrine and theology.
This article is adapted from Israel’s new non-denominational catechism for families: Foundational Truths.
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