Catechesis is dead. Long live catechesis.

I’ll leave it to someone else to trace out how, exactly, catechesis died in the churches. I can at best hazard a few guesses based on intuition and anecdotes.

For example:

• A bad habit of anti-intellectualism made adults turn on the rote education they received as children.

• Or, a habit of over-intellectualism made clergy and professors invest more energy in reconciling with science and sociology than covering doctrinal and biblical basics.

• Stifling apologetics caused distrust even of modest and ad hoc apologetics.

• Claims for ultimate truth came to seem too exclusionary.

• Congregational disinclination to pay for a pastor who continued to read and learn.

• Pastoral disinclination to keep on growing.

• So much Christendom as to make the faith seem self-evident, but not enough Christendom actually to sustain it.

• Soccer practice and SAT cram sessions.

• TV, internet, smartphones.

• Any and all of the above.

At some point, it doesn’t even matter what caused it, only how to reverse it…