Misplaced Theological Babies and Empty Ecclesiastical Bath Tubs.

For several years now I have had a hard time describing myself as a protestant.  Not because my theology doesn't ultimately fit that classification but because I don't hold the beliefs that label me protestant as any sort of protest against the Roman Catholic Church.  It's probably also because protestant so often means Reformed and I'm probably closer to Catholic in many places than I am to Reformed.

I love my Catholic brothers and sisters and have benefited greatly form their influence.  I have had a similar but more limited experience with my orthodox Anglican brothers and sisters. 

I understand, and to a meaningful extent agree with, most of the stances the tradition I am a part of (evangelicalism generally, The Wesleyan Church specifically) has taken that are different from Catholicism (and to a lesser extent Anglicanism) but there are a few proverbial babies I fear we have thrown out with the metaphorical bathwater. I'd like to take a few moments to point those out in hopes that we might sometime reclaim them from... wherever you dump theological bathwater.  This metaphor has its limitations.  This will be a brief but multi-part series covering one topic per post.  Let's get it started. 

Catechesis: I think there is a huge place for intentional, systematic, theological instruction in the church.  I was taught a ton as a kid growing up in church but I was pretty much only taught the dots. It wasn't until bible college that anyone ever really started to hint that those dots could be connected, and frankly I'm not sure the school I went to did a particularly good job of actually helping me make those connections. 

The idea that as we raise our children together to know, love, serve, and follow Jesus we would take them through the core truths of the faith in some logical sequence and show them how all those truths interrelate and enrich each other seems so obvious as to almost sound silly when argued for.  In the parts of evangelicalism that I have lived in, the closest we get to this is an intentional set of principals or virtues taught with enough repetition to make them memorable, but that's a far cry from actual theology and instead has a tendency to create moralists rather than Christians.

The very same could be said of how we handle adults who are recent or prospective converts to the way of Jesus.  Here is a Bible.  Come to church.  Join a small group,  best of luck...  I hate how many times I have been guilty of this approach to theological foundation laying in people's lives.  I hate that I likely will be again because I lack the resources, internal or external, to do otherwise.  

I think a significant part of the effectiveness of Alpha is that there is some sort of intentional, sequential organizing principle to the material.  That said its time frame alone means it has significant limitations in terms of how comprehensive it can be.  Call it an effective evangelization tool and proof of concept for catechesis but not a replacement for it.

I think the soil in which the evangelical movement grew was one in which the converts came pre-catechized by their catholic or mainline church upbringings, and we just needed to energize that with some zeal and a sense of actual relationship with God and mission from God.  Those days are long gone.  If we are to truly make disciples of people who are biblically illiterate and theologically uninitiated then some form of the age old practice of catechesis will be essential.

I would love to see a great, clear, useful Catechism from a Wesleyan/Arminian perspective.  If you know of one please direct me too it.