Preaching the Catechism in a Postmodern Age
From The Forum Magazine, Spring 2015 - view the full issue here
I can hear the voices already. “I know I’m supposed to use the Heidelberg Catechism regularly in my preaching. But I just don’t think it will work in this postmodern age, especially in churches that are trying to be intentionally missional. How in the world could I preach the Catechism in a new church plant in inner-city Chicago or in an ethnic enclave in Los Angeles?” I heard them most clearly several years ago when I led a workshop at Calvin Seminary on using the Catechism in new church plants. For a semester I met with eight church planters to see if we could find ways to effectively preach the Catechism in their settings.
We could easily think of three good reasons not to do Catechism preaching today: the modern reason, the postmodern reason, and the emergent church reason. When I say “modern reason,” I’m referring to the fact that back in the modern age (when I was growing up), many of us heard some Catechism preaching that soured us on it for the rest of our lives. Attempting to explain the faith in the most clear and logical way possible, well-intentioned preachers delivered up sermons with titles like “The Two Natures of Christ in Relation to the Trinity.” Having heard too many of those doctrinally dry “modern” sermons, we don’t want to preach them ourselves.
By the “postmodern reason,” I mean what one of the church planters in my workshop said: “The seekers in my church already don’t believe the Bible. Why would I want to introduce another level of authority into our conversation?” In an age when most folks are distrustful of external authority, the use of the Catechism in preaching seems like a hindrance to Gospel communication. Related to that is the “emergent church reason.” Because of postmodernism, preachers in emergent churches speak of the Christian faith as a way of life rather than as a set of truth claims. Of course it is both, but Rob Bell put it this way: Whenever we say, “This is The Truth,” that truth becomes a brick that begins to erect a wall between us and those who don’t embrace that truth. In the end, Christianity becomes “brickianity.”
While granting that there is some validity in those reasons not to preach the Catechism, I want to suggest that there are even stronger reasons to recover that time-tested practice. First, some readers of this Forum are Christian Reformed, so we know that the Church Order requires the regular use of the Catechism in preaching. That requirement has been softened lately to take account of individual situations, and that’s good. But as part of our denominational covenant, we should do things as an interdependent body rather than as a loose collection of sovereign selves.
But quite apart from any denominational loyalty, using the Catechism in preaching is following an ancient biblical practice. Careful scholars see bits of catechetical instruction scattered through the New Testament epistles. Writing to a young pastor in Ephesus, Paul said, “What you heard from me, keep as the pattern of sound teaching …” (II Timothy 1:13). Early on, the most effective missionaries in church history developed a systematic pattern of teaching as they communicated the Gospel in missional settings.
The planters and I agreed on a very practical reason to use the Catechism, namely, its sheer organizational power. Any working preacher knows how difficult it is to decide what to preach on next Sunday and next summer. Following the outline of the Catechism will help us with that crucial decision in a way that will keep us centered on the main aspects of the faith, including dimensions of the faith we might otherwise avoid. And it will encourage us to preach doctrine in a very relevant and pastoral way.
I can hear the voices again (no, I don’t hear voices all the time): “We hear you, old fella. But that just won’t fly with my young seekers steeped in postmodern ways of thought.” That’s what I talked about with those eight church planters. We discovered that the Catechism actually speaks to many features of postmodernism very directly. Consider these things: Postmodernism is anti-institutional, so most postmoderns aren’t exactly in love with the institutional church. But many of these folks who reject the church don’t really understand the central teachings of Christianity. The Catechism’s clear summary of basic Christianity gives us an outline to follow in teaching the faith to those who are largely uninformed about Christianity.
Given the anti-institutional nature of postmodernism, it’s not surprising that so many people are anti-authority. “Don’t tell me what to believe; I’ll decide for myself.” Yet, so many people are spiritual and seek transcendent experience. Think of all the “spiritual but not religious” folks. As a result of this rejection of external authority, postmoderns are committed pluralists (I know, oxymoronic), affirming the right of everyone to have their own beliefs. The only real standard of truth is pragmatic and experiential. People don’t ask, “Is it true?” They ask, “Does it work for you? If it works for you, I’m good with that.”
Here again the Catechism can be very helpful, because it is our tradition, our point of view. If it is presented respectfully and non-dogmatically, the Catechism is a wonderful way to tell our version of the Great Story. Further, the Catechism is very practical and experiential. Think of all the places where it emphasizes how this belief benefits people, what good it does to believe all this, how doctrine affects real life. Further, the three divisions of the Catechism address all the major issues of life. Sin covers the human problem: who am I, what’s wrong with me, how did things get this way, what does it mean to be human? Salvation is about the divine solution: what will it take to fix the world, what do I have to do to make life work? Service is the human response: how should I live, what is prayer, how can I be in touch with the transcendent, what’s the best way to relate to my neighbors?
Finally, postmodern folks are deeply into relationships. In a broken world where so many are desperately trying to find themselves in a caring community, the Catechism’s overall theme of belonging speaks powerfully to the heart. “My only comfort is that I belong …” What a perfect entrée into the Bible’s theme of God recreating his family in a broken world.
Those committed church planters agreed that the Catechism has possibilities even for their frontier settings, but they wondered how they could actually use that old document in their contemporary settings. We agreed that they probably couldn’t just read it before the Scripture, as has been done traditionally. They might use it only behind the scenes for a while, as their own personal sermon guide. They might incorporate it into the liturgy as suggested in another article in this issue of the Forum. We all concurred that we should not “preach the Catechism,” using the words of the Catechism as the text for the day, as preachers did long ago. When they actually read the Catechism, they should introduce it with something like this (my way of introducing our yearly forays into the Catechism).
“The Catechism is a roadmap that helps us find the central features of the biblical landscape. It is not the landscape and it is no substitute for preaching the Bible. But the Bible is like a foreign land to many people, and the Catechism helps us see the high and low points of the Bible, the hidden nooks and crannies, the hard places and the central teachings. It doesn’t cover the whole biblical landscape, but it ensures that we won’t stray far from the most important features of Reformed truth and life.”
One of the joys and burdens of being a preacher in the Christian Reformed Church is that we have these confessions guarding and guiding us as we preach the Scriptures. In an age of undisciplined individualism rooted in the postmodern belief that each of us is our own authority, the Reformed creeds and confessions call us to accountability, to mutuality, to preaching as a communal activity. Does that hinder our freedom a bit? Yes, thank God, in a way that will liberate us from our pet peeves and the fads of the culture, so that we can center on the main things.
Those church planters provided each other with a number of wonderful Catechism sermons and even sermon series based on the Catechism. For example, Rev. Peter Choi, a church planter in Ann Arbor, created a fascinating series entitled “The Journey Home.” It began with a takeoff on a popular movie, “Homeless in Ann Arbor,” and took us from wandering the cracked “Sidewalks of Sin” to the “Living Room of Salvation” and finally into the “Kitchen of Service,” until we were finally “At Home with God.” As I read other marvelous sermons, I concluded that with a bit of creativity and a lot of hard work the Catechism can be helpful to us preachers—especially in this postmodern age.
(Stan Mast, former adjunct Professor of Preaching)
