cat·e·chism ˈkadəˌkizəm/ noun
I remember spending an exorbitant amount of time as a child having to memorize things: multiplication tables, states, countries, presidents, driver’s-ed rules, the periodic table of elements, algebra equations, the list could go on. I look back and realize what I actually learned was how to memorize things quickly, rather than how to learn things I could retain long term.
My experience in Christian education was no exception. I found myself having to memorize Bible verses, the correct order of the sixty-six books of the Bible, and the names of the disciples. Not to mention all the words to the church musicals I was in every spring. Said musical usually included a large costumed character that was some sort of combination of a spiritual guide and a small-town high-school mascot. I admit, the idea of a singing songbook or a computer that talked and skated around on rollerblades really drew me in as a kid.
I’ll also be honest and say that memorizing all those Bible verses has been beneficial in my life as an adult, and not just because I’m a pastor. A verse or phrase often comes to mind in moments that feel deep with meaning and purpose, and I find that much more rewarding than the candy I earned for memorizing those verses originally. When I’ve experienced loss and pain, Scriptures that help remind me God is with me have been a lifeline.
Even so, the obligation to memorize so much in so many areas of life was constant. I was also required to memorize statements of belief, taken from the catechism of my faith tradition. Many, if not most, Christian traditions have some form of catechism, which is a series of fixed questions, answers, or precepts used for instruction. In my denomination, or brand of Christian church, we were asked to memorize twenty-six statements of belief as part of our Christian education program in middle school called confirmation class—a three-year weekly class where we could “confirm” for ourselves what had been chosen for us by our parents as small children.
The word catechism first appeared in church writings in the Middle Ages, but the concept of catechism dates back to some of the earliest days of the church. Early Christians were taught the important beliefs of Christianity in a class or experience called Catechesis. Now, this kind of instruction more often takes place in what we call confirmation class, Sunday school, or Christian education classes. The etymology of the word comes from the Greek word katekhizein, which means oral instruction.
Catholics and Protestants both have a form of catechism, even if that word is not used to describe their lists of questions and answers. The current Catechism of the Catholic Church is a 755-page book with 2,865 catechism statements or paragraphs. This large collection was first brought together by Pope John Paul II in 1992, following a six-year process of writing and gathering its contents by twelve cardinals and bishops (the highest leadership roles in the Catholic Church). Martin Luther, at the onset of the Reformation, transformed the catechism into more of a question-and-answer format.
As a pastor, I can see why breaking down a Christian worldview into short statements can be helpful—especially when people are in certain stages of their faith. I lead a church of individuals who find themselves all over the map of their faith journey. So I know firsthand how complicated it can be to create a space for people to learn and question.
So as a teenager in confirmation, I was responsible for memorizing these questions and the one-sentence answers that my tradition had deemed important for our adolescent minds to store. While I think their intentions were good, I now look back and wonder what it suggested to me as a young person to think you can answer questions like, “what is salvation?” and “what is the Christian hope?” in one sentence.
One sentence.
Who is God? God is personal, eternal Spirit, Creator of the universe, Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our Father.
What is sin? Sin is all in thought, word, and deed that is contrary to the will of God.
What is salvation? Salvation is the work of God through Christ by which God forgives us our sin, frees us from guilt, and restores us to a right relationship with God.
Don’t get me wrong, I was happy they were so short, but only because I had to memorize every word. In the midst of these twenty-six questions are some of the most important questions to ask about God, life, and humanity.
Other catechism questions: What does it mean to be a human being? What is God’s relationship to the world? What is the kingdom of God? What is the purpose of the church?
Important questions, right?
Sure, it was easier to memorize one sentence, but I was also subtly and insidiously shaped by the way each response was so fixed and concise. I was being formed into someone who thought these answers were set and that curiosity was not needed to explain an infinite God. The God contained in the catechism eventually became a God I no longer wanted to follow, much less believe in. You might feel resistance to my suggestion that these statements limit our understanding of God. A shift to thinking of God outside the boundaries created by these short sentences could expand your mind and heart toward the depth and breadth of an infinite God.
In the 755-page Catechism of the Catholic Church, there is an entire section devoted to the “mystery of God.” What if the catechism of our faith was that we were given permission to explore the mystery of God? What if leaders of churches, like me, responded to questions with even more questions, just like Jesus did? What if our catechism, our “oral instruction,” was to say, “Keep going! Keep asking! Keep exploring! Keep wondering!”?
Our faith will be radically more alive if we create a catechism of curiosity rather than a catechism of certainty.
Jesus never answered questions with a catechism response.
If you read the story of Jesus’s life as told in the four Gospels, you get the impression that this man would never lead a class with a predefined question-and-answer format. Nowhere can I find an example of Jesus responding to a question with what could be considered a catechism response. This man, who many consider God in the flesh, is not an answer man.
He’s a question man.
In Mark’s version of Jesus’s story, one day Jesus is in the temple courts, walking confidently into a religious environment that he often prophetically challenges. Some of the religious leaders, teachers, and elders come up to him and ask him what seems like a simple question. They have seen him turn tables in the temple, heal the sick in the streets, and offer the forgiveness of sins to those who don’t seem to deserve it.
“By what authority are you doing these things?” they ask.
Jesus replies, “I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. John’s baptism—was it from heaven or of human origin? Tell me!”
The leaders discuss among themselves, knowing that either way they respond, they will end up looking bad in front of those in the Jewish community whose respect they want to keep. So they tell him they don’t know.
Jesus tells them that if they won’t answer him, then he won’t answer their question either. Mark’s version of the story says that “Jesus then began to speak to them in parables.”[2] Jesus goes on to tell them a story that they do not appreciate, and it results in confusion and outrage. It’s here that these leaders begin the plan to have Jesus arrested and killed.
Arrested because he wouldn’t answer their question. Killed on account of his failure to answer with the proper statement of belief. He wouldn’t tell them what they wanted to hear, and that fueled their anger. Not all of those who asked Jesus questions were trying to trap him in his words. Many characters in this ancient story display the kind of curiosity I’m suggesting we should pursue.
Another religious leader, Nicodemus, comes to Jesus with his questions. Jesus responds with what seems like a radical metaphor about being born again. And Jesus offers questions back, which engage Nicodemus’s heart and mind so much that by the time Jesus is killed, Nicodemus is willing to follow him even if it costs him his reputation and potentially life.[3]
Then there is the woman doing her daily task of drawing water up from a well. Jesus asks her to give him some water. She is curious and asks why he spoke to her since her gender and ethnicity normally would have precluded a rabbi, a male Jewish leader, from engaging with her in public. Question after question she asks him. Jesus answers with a beautiful, yet mysterious word picture about water that can quench her thirst for good. After their conversation, this woman runs through her community with yet another question on her mind, “Could this man be the Messiah? The Savior they had all been waiting for?”[4]
The disciples, those closest to Jesus and his first followers, ask Jesus questions all the time. Much to their frustration, he never offers succinct or condensed answers.
One day, Jesus teaches a group of people near a lake, telling stories and parables to illustrate how his kingdom is different. There are so many people that he has to sit in a boat out in the water. Later, his disciples ask him questions about all the stories he told that day.
Jesus responds to their questions by saying, “The secret of the kingdom of God has been given to you. But to those on the outside everything is said in parables so that they may be ever seeing but never perceiving, and ever hearing but never understanding; otherwise they might turn and be forgiven!”[5]
What? How confusing! This response begs so many more questions. Jesus is quoting a part of the Hebrew Scriptures where God speaks through the prophet Isaiah. And while the quote gives us some context for Jesus’s response, its meaning still isn’t entirely clear.
And just as quickly as he finishes explaining the parable he just told, Jesus jumps into three more parables about what the kingdom of God is like. The guy didn’t seem to have a problem coming up with metaphors and stringing them together in a monologue.
Jesus invites us to step into the mystery of who he is and what the kingdom of God is all about. He doesn’t even hint at the idea that questions are off limits; he welcomes them and offers more. Jesus’s life suggests that God isn’t as interested in the right answers so much as the right questions. The inability to fully comprehend who God is seems to invite wonder, not closure.
When we get our hearts set on having all the right answers, on escaping the tension of following a God who is bigger than our finite minds can hold, we trap ourselves in the need for answers. We seek a clarity that perhaps God never intended for us to have.
If Jesus offered a catechism in response to questions, his questioners could go on their way and decide if the simple answer would suffice—or not. And this still happens today. Many people are walking away from the church feeling like oversimplified answers don’t work in the real world. I don’t blame them!
God wants more than robots who can spout programmed answers. I’d even go so far as to say that God prefers the doubting cynic who is constantly peppering God with questions than a content, yet disconnected person going through the motions.[6] When we see God’s goal as relationship, not rhetoric, we begin to see why our catechism must be one of curiosity if we have any hope of joining a God who still moves in the world.
When we find ourselves waist deep in the quicksand of our questions, it can be tempting to try to escape—to set all of our questions aside just to avoid the quicksand altogether.
I went to a Christian college where I wrestled with doubt more than I ever had up until that point in my life. I sat in classes and felt like I couldn’t just accept what was being taught by my professors. Was everyone else able to take notes and accept what was written on these clip-art laden PowerPoint presentations? At times I wanted to run, but I knew the questions would be right on my heels. I couldn’t run fast enough to escape my own mind and heart.
You may look around a Sunday-school class, small group, sermon series, or even your family and think you are the only one asking questions, the only one full of doubts. It is tempting to think that those who are not questioning are missing something and are behind in some way.
The truth is, you aren’t the only one. Many, if not most, people of faith encounter doubts and questions throughout their life, and not everyone is in the same faith stage at the same time. This doesn’t mean you’re ahead of someone else in some sort of race. It’s not a competition. There is no finish line to cross or medal to be won. No one will get a prize or a consolation trophy for just showing up to the event. Spiritual elitism is not a healthy response to the awakening you’re experiencing as you go deeper in your curiosity.
Everyone is on their own road. This can be difficult in a community, especially when it is hard to tell who else is asking the same questions as you. And it can be even more difficult in a marriage or close friendship when you have to acknowledge faith exploration doesn’t happen the same way for you as it does for your loved one.
I have often discovered that my close friends or ministry partners were in different places in their faith while we tried to stay relationally connected. Only when I could give them space to engage God in their own way and on their own time could I be set free to do the same. In the long run, we’d both grow in our understanding and pursuit of curiosity as well as in our relationship with each other. It turns out, curiosity can also bring people together if we handle each other’s questions with care and step toward questions together rather than run from them.
The problem with wanting to run from our questions is that the lack of answers can cause an existential crisis. If in the meantime we have also run from community, we can end up in a difficult place. Whether it is the end of a relationship, the inability to conceive, mental or physical illness, or the loss of a needed job, when life hits you, the unanswered questions follow closely behind like a one-two punch to the gut. These life circumstances are difficult to face no matter what, and doing so alone can be unbearable.
But even questions that seem to lead to a dead end or answers that never suffice don’t have to leave us in confusion.
Psychologists and counselors teach us that questions don’t merely lead to new knowledge. Questions are generative. They generate new experiences, foster new ideas and innovations, and help us engage resources we didn’t realize were right under our noses. Questions lead to deeper relationships with God and others. They create platforms for change and transformation in our lives and in our communities. Quest is literally the way the word begins. It’s no wonder a good question will take you on a journey.
Thinking of questions this way reveals why God invites us to wonder: so that we can move forward in the quest to be fully alive. It also reveals why many people experience faith as stale, boring, and confining. When we cease to ask questions, curiosity comes to a halt.
You can trade wandering for an intentional pursuit of wonder. As you engage with your questions, they will generate new ideas and experiences. If we are following the “question man,” perhaps we can become “question people” and allow a sense of intrigue to guide us into a depth of meaning in our life we have not yet experienced.