On making Christians, an author interview
Curtis W. Freeman talks about his books, *Pilgrim Letters* and *Pilgrim Journey*
Gentle reader,
Today, I’m delighted to bring you an interview with Curtis W. Freeman, who talked with us about his book Pilgrim Letters: Instruction in the Basic Teaching of Christ (Fortress Press, 2021, 112 pages) and his new book Pilgrim Journey: Instruction in the Mystery of the Gospel (Fortress Press, 2023, 165 pages). He is Research Professor of Theology and Baptist Studies and Director of the Baptist House of Studies at Duke Divinity School. He is also a Research Fellow with the Catechesis Institute. They have great resources available online.
“The word ‘catechesis’ means ‘teaching by word of mouth.’”
The interview follows:
BFJ: My #theologycat, Dwight, does some #CATechesis, but the word doesn’t really have anything to do with cats. Do you have any non-human members of your household interested in theology?
CWF: I love that you have a theology cat named Dwight. I was wondering if he is Moody or not, which might make him an evangelical cat. We have a dog named Snoopy, who does not really seem to be much into theology. I have tried to introduce him to Karl Barth and the Church #DOGmatics, but he is more interested in chasing rabbits and barking at the neighborhood dogs. Perhaps that is his version of canine glossolalia. I have worried he might be Pentecostal, though I do hope he is orthodox or at least postliberal. It would be disappointing if he turned out to be a liberal Protestant dog. That would really put him in the theological #DOGhouse.
BFJ: Snoopy is adorable, and I want to throw that ball for him. I know we have some nerdy readers who will enjoy so many theology puns! What does catechesis mean for the church today?
CWF: The word “catechesis” means “teaching by word of mouth.” It refers to the ancient Christian practice of instruction in “the basic teaching of Christ” (Hebrews 6:1-2). Instruction in these elemental matters is critical to ensuring, as the apostle Paul wrote to Timothy, that the faith is faithfully handed on (2 Timothy 2:2). One of the earliest examples of catechetical instruction after the New Testament is in a book called the Didache (or the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles). It was a kind of manual for Christian converts. Prior to baptism, candidates were given instruction in the basic teaching of Christ with the intent of building on this foundation.
BFJ: Why did you choose to write catechesis?
CWF: Tertullian, that irascible African preacher of the second century put it simply, “Christians are made not born” (Apology, 18). What he meant was that we must follow the Great Commission of the risen Christ, who challenged his followers: “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you” (Matthew 28:19-20). As one pastor told me, “We are doing a pretty good job of evangelizing and baptizing people, but we are falling short in our obligation for teaching them to obey everything that the Lord commanded.” I initially wrote Pilgrim Letters as a series of letters to my teenage son before he was baptized. It generated some wonderful spiritual conversations about what it means to be a follower of Jesus. This past Easter Sunday my son and eight other young people in our church were baptized. I was able to give each one a copy of Pilgrim Letters. It was a beautiful day.
BFJ: Beautiful, indeed. I can’t not cry at a baptism. Give us the short version: what are the books about?
CWF: Pilgrim Letters is instruction in the basic teaching of Christ, mentioned in Hebrews 6:1-2—repentance, faith, baptism, laying on of hands, resurrection, and eternal judgment. These six principles are foundational because they rest on the foundation that has been laid once for all in Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 3:11). They are not so much fences designed to restrain our faith, but they are more like guideposts meant to give us direction in the Christian journey from beginning to end. The basic aim of my book Pilgrim Journey is to help explore what it means to believe that a mystery, not a problem, lies at the heart of the Christian faith. A problem presents itself complete before us, challenging our intellect to comprehend it, but a mystery is an unfolding reality that calls for our personal involvement to be grasped by it. A mystery essentially invites the engagement of our whole being and evokes a sense of wonder in the search for truth. We never fully and completely understand a mystery. We only discern it in a partial and incomplete sense. The apostle Paul wrote that we are servants of Christ and stewards of the mysteries (1 Corinthians 4:1). Regrettably, the basic religious formation many young people get today comes down to thinking that God is nice and that we should be nice too. Pilgrim Journey explores seven mysteries: the one Word of God, the two testaments of Christian Scripture, the three persons of the Holy Trinity, the four senses of biblical reasoning, the five acts of God’s story, the six seasons of the Christian year, and the seven sacramental signs of God’s presence.
BFJ: I love that. I, too, believe that we need a lot more mystery in our theology. Share a detail you’re fond of from the books?
CWF: In the final chapter of Pilgrim Journey, I have a discussion about the descent of Christ. In the church I was raised in, we recited the Apostles’ Creed most Sundays, which states that Christ “descended into hell.” It is an unfortunate and confusing translation because the Latin words ad inferna mean something like “to the lower regions” or “to the dead” or “into the grave” not “into hell.” Some interpreters take it to be an allusion to the story of Christ’s harrowing raid on hell. Others understand it as a statement of the physical and spiritual torment that Christ suffered, taking on the depth of the human condition and experiencing a sense of abandonment by the Father. Still others take it to mean that Christ experienced death as all humans do but was raised from the dead by the power of the Spirit where he proclaimed victory to the dead who were imprisoned in the grave by the powers of death. However we read these words, they affirm that Christ descended to the dead to bring us to life, and “we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). He took the pain and agony of our traumatic existence with him into the grave. The fullness of our lives is now “hidden with Christ in God” (Colossians 3:3). As one theologian puts it, “His descent was the first step toward his resurrection and our rehabilitation.” That, as they say, will preach.
“He took the pain and agony of our traumatic existence with him into the grave.”
BFJ: A lot of churches don’t spend much time with catechesis. Why do you think this is?
CWF: If you were a Protestant in North America prior to 1960, chances are your confirmation class read Luther’s Small Catechism, the Westminster Catechism, the Heidelberg Catechism, or the Episcopal Catechism. If you were a Baptist you may have been formed through the Baptist Catechism. (Yes, there actually was such a thing.) But Protestant Christians have largely abandoned the historic practice of catechesis. In their book Grounded in the Gospel, J. I. Packer and Gary Parrett argue that “where catechesis has flourished, the church has flourished, and where it has been neglected, the church has floundered.” I think they are correct. The heart of the problem is that churches have largely abandoned the historic practice of catechesis, of making Christians by personal instruction in the basic teaching of Christ, and the results are catastrophic.
BFJ: You’re speaking my language. What do people mistakenly assume when they hear about your books?
CWF: I am not sure mistakes they might make, but I can tell you one that I made. I assumed that I was writing for adolescents and for pastors, parents, and teachers. I thought I was equipping people engaged in the baptismal preparation process, either as catechumens or catechists. Recently a neighbor, who was raised in a Christian home and has two adult children, sent me a lovely message telling me that her father and stepmother had a copy of Pilgrim Letters, and that she had been reading it. A few weeks later we sat on her front porch, and she told me how much the book had meant to her. She has a PhD in biology and worked on the human genome project, but she said, “I lacked the basic language to talk about my faith.” That is the loveliest endorsement for a book I have received. I hope there are others like her that might find these books to be helpful.
BFJ: How do the books relate to your experience of discipleship?
CWF: When I was a senior in high school, one of my teachers recognized that I was beginning to take my Christian faith very seriously. She recommended that I read The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan. That was over fifty years ago, but that story of the Christian life as a journey has stuck with me. You know I am a Baptist, but I have learned from being around Methodists, who talk a lot about that line in Hebrews 6 about going on toward perfection. I am not there yet. Maybe I should say that God is not done with me yet, but I am going on toward what lies at the end of the journey—the fullness of union with Christ.
BFJ: Are there difficulties in the spiritual life that your books can help address?
CWF: I think about learning Christian beliefs and doctrines as being analogous to speaking a language. (That is something I learned from George Lindbeck and Eugene Rogers.) So like my neighbor told me, these books gave her the basic grammar to learn how to speak “Christian.” You do not have to believe in a language to understand a sentence. All you have to do is learn the rules of basic grammar and vocabulary. Christian beliefs are like that. They are teachable. Nor do you have to belong to grasp Christian beliefs. This is where basic Christian catechesis begins, by teaching the grammar of Christian beliefs about God, the Trinity, the Incarnation, salvation, and so forth. I hope my books might be helpful in giving people a basic grammar to speak as Christians.
BFJ: If you could gift everyone with one insight from the book, what would it be?
CWF: That God has given us the gift of eternal life. It is what Jesus prayed for us: “And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent” (John 17:3). The Christian calling is to know God, not just to know about God. But God is a mystery beyond our capacity to know. All the images we use to imagine God, all the thoughts we have to conceive of God, all the words we utter to speak of God are inadequate and inappropriate to express the knowledge of God. Yet God in Jesus Christ invites us to know and be known, and in knowing the unknowable God we find eternal life.
BFJ: How has your spiritual life and prayer life changed as you’ve matured?
CWF: There was once a time when I was a young pastor that I visited one of the older members in the congregation who was in the hospital. As I prepared to leave, I asked him if there was anything more I could do. He told me he wanted me to pray for him, not because I believed in prayer, which he seemed to wonder about, but because he did believe in prayer, and because I was his pastor. When I prayed, I sensed that something was different. The words were not just mine. The faith was not just mine alone. Somehow the Holy Spirit took my words and used them to give comfort and strength to a soul in need. It was the two or three gathering where Jesus promised to be present in the midst of (Matthew 18:20). I have learned that I can pray when my faith is strong, but I can also pray when my faith is weak, and all I can say is, Lord, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9:24). So I keep showing up where two or three are gathered, trusting that Christ will be there among us, through the communion of the Holy Spirit (2 Corinthians 13:14).
BFJ: What would your 10-year-old self say if he learned you’d grow up to write about this stuff?
CWF: I think he might would be shocked to learn that he would become a minister, professor, and theologian. But I also think he would be glad that he might write something that would be helpful to other Christians.
BFJ: Besides your books, what are your top reading recommendations for folks who want to think more deeply about these matters? Why do you recommend them?
CWF: In Pilgrim Letters and Pilgrim Journey I have a list of suggested readings. Since the first book was about belonging and the second about believing, I am already working on a third companion about behaving, although I have not yet convinced my editor at Fortress. I would put a few on a short list. Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s, Life Together is a small book with a big message about the personal and communal dimensions of the spiritual life. Stanley Hauerwas’s, The Character of Virtue is a series of letters to his Godson on the anniversary of his baptism about what Christian character is and how it is related to Christian baptism. J.I. Packer’s, Knowing God is a wonderful book about the faith journey, not as knowing about God, but as knowing God. Alan Kreider’s The Patient Ferment of the Early Church describes how the early Christians did not try to convince people of their beliefs but lived them out through hospitality, generosity, healing, and love. Hannah Lucas’s Sensing the Sacred: Recovering a Mystagogical Vision of Knowledge and Salvation is wonderful guide through early Christian mystagogical catechesis as a way of seeing and knowing the world. Janet Soskice’s Naming God: Addressing the Divine in Philosophy, Theology, and Scripture is beautiful book which argues that theology is not primarily a discipline that seeks to understand God and God’s ways, but rather a practice concerned with whether and how we name the God who has entered into relation with the creation in Jesus Christ.
Many thanks to Curtis for sharing with us! Buy his books here.
Grace & peace,
BFJ
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How far have we strayed from the biblical faith Holy Scripture has given us by God in Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit? Are not the seven churches Jesus addressed in Revelation alive and well among us today? The cultural incursion is real. Deconstruction and dechurching are results.