By Alex Fogleman
Tim Keller has been a leading voice in evangelical circles for some time. A winsome speaker and writer, he’s appeared in numerous articles and podcasts to talk about the state of evangelicalism and what a vision for a renewed church might look like. A recent podcast interview with Mere Fidelity, hosted by my friend Matt Anderson, was especially good, and I’d encourage you to listen to that here.
Among Keller’s nine proposals for church renewal, a key component is strengthening church education and catechesis. To be clear, catechesis is only one of nine aspects of church renewal, but it’s an important one nonetheless. Keller himself championed the creation of the New City Catechism and—what I think is even more valuable—the articulation of a robust vision of catechesis.
I’ve posted previously about an interview he did with Jamie Smith for Comment Magazine several years ago. He now has several pages dedicated to catechesis in a 2020 e-book called How to Reach the Christian West: Six Essential Ingredients of a Missionary Encounter (Redeemer City-to-City, 2020). (You can download the e-book by subscribing to their e-mail list here).
Here is an excerpt from that book on the need for a counter-catechesis today, conceived in light of the kinds of narratives on-hand in modernity.
In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said, “You heard it said” before he said, “I say unto you” (Matthew 5:21-48). He did this not only to teach the truth, but also to do so in contrast to what the authorities of the day were saying. Our instruction needs to follow the same pattern. We need catechesis as well as counter-catechesis, using biblical doctrine to both deconstruct the beliefs of culture and answer questions of the human heart that culture’s narratives cannot. By using the word “catechesis,” I am not necessarily calling for the use of the actual catechism method of question-and-answer (I am a proponent of that method, but that’s not my point here). I use it to refer to the way churches have instructed and formed Christians who are shaped by the Bible and Christian teaching rather than by the world. The fact is that we have virtually stopped doing catechesis as it was done in the past. As a result, we have forgotten three things about formation.
Catechesis was always counter-catechesis. During the Reformation, there was an explosion of catechesis—new catechisms were written by the hundreds. It is worth noting that the Protestant catechisms gave less space to the doctrine of the Trinity or of Christ, and far more to the doctrine of salvation (justification and regeneration), to the sacraments, and to the church. This was because they were not merely incorporating their members into their teaching. They were also inoculating their members against the only real alternative to being a Protestant: being a Catholic. The Protestant catechisms presented biblical doctrine against the Catholic catechisms, which also made them effective counter-catechisms. They not only constructed a world-view, but dismantled and vaccinated against the dominant alternatives.
The problem is that, as indispensable as the best of the catechisms are still (Heidelberg, Westminster, and Luther’s Short and Large), they are insufficient. The main alter native to being a Protestant Christian is now some form of Western secularism. The secular age has a very definite catechism of its own, and while our current instructional modes and catechisms may be biblically accurate, they do not present the truth in a way that clearly dismantles secular narratives and undermines secular beliefs.
Secular narratives are beliefs about reality that most cultural institutions inculcate as inarguable, obvious truths. They come to us now dozens of times a day—or even an hour—in ads, tweets, music, stories, opinion pieces, etc. They are narratives about:
Identity: “You have to be true to yourself.”
Freedom: “You should be free to live as you choose, as long as you don’t hurt anyone.”
Happiness: “You must do what makes you happiest. You can’t sacrifice that for anyone.”
Science: “The only way to solve our problems is through objective science and facts.”
Morality: “Everyone has the right to decide what is right and wrong themselves.”
Justice: “We are obligated to work for the freedom, rights, and good of everyone in the world.”
History: “History is bending toward social progress and away from religion.”
While each of these cultural messages is partly true (and indeed, despite distortions, rooted historically in Christian teaching), they are all theologically mistaken and pragmatically harmful to human life. Many biblical teachings and truths undermine, weaken, or balance out all of these narratives, and yet our current instruction does not show this. We need a counter-catechism that explains, refutes, and re-narrates the world’s catechisms to Christians.
In our counter-catechesis, each of the basic narratives of the secular catechism will have to be identified, stated with examples from today’s culture, affirmed in part because it usually represents a distortion or idolatrous imbalance of something true, subverted and critiqued, and shown to be fulfilled in its best form only in Christ.