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Who thinks that they can subdue Leviathan? Strength resides in its neck; dismay goes before it. It is without fear. It looks down on all who are haughty; it is king over all who are proud. These words inspired PJ Wehry to create Chasing Leviathan. Chasing Leviathan was born out of two ideals: that truth is worth pursuing but will never be subjugated, and the discipline of listening is one of the most important habits anyone can develop. Every episode is a dialogue, a journey into the depths of a meaningful question explored through the lens of personal experience or professional expertise.
PJ Wehry (00:01.641)
Hello and welcome to Chasing Leviathon. I'm your host, PJ Weary, and I'm here today with Dr. Alex Fogelman, Assistant Professor of Theology and Director of the Robert Weber Center at Trinity Anglican Seminary. Dr. Fogelman, wonderful to have you on today.
Alex Fogleman (00:17.24)
Thank you, PJ. Good to be with you.
PJ Wehry (00:19.851)
We're here today to talk about your book, Making Disciples, Catechesis in History, Theology, and Practice. Actually, I was going to ask you why this book, but think first is what is catechesis? Because that does immediately grab you in the title. So what is catechesis and why this book?
Alex Fogleman (00:32.077)
Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (00:38.638)
Yes, the what and then the why. The what of catechesis. Catechesis is a term that is, as I use it in the book, just to mean basic, but a comprehensive instruction in the Christian faith. And so I mean by that something like this is fundamental to the Christian faith. That's sort of like what you
what you first encounter or the sort of bedrock of the learning of faith, but it's also intended to be sort of comprehensive in scope. Like it's meant to be a way of touching on the widest range of things that one can encounter in the Christian faith. So it's not only about, you know,
learning the history of the story, the narrative of the Bible, for instance, or it's not only learning about like, well, this is how we pray as Christians, or this is what it means, the ethical life or doctrine. So it's a way of trying to be more kind of comprehensive in scope while still being at a level that's like everybody that's a Christian can sort of encounter the faith in this way.
So that's the kind of shorthand definition that I use, basic but comprehensive introduction to the faith. And then why I wrote this was basically hearing the need for it from most everybody that I respected and admired. So I began hearing this and probably at some point while I was in...
undergrad or seminary and remember hearing these professors that I admired and saying, know, something has happened. There was this awareness, something's happened over the last 20, 30 years that this person, say they've been teaching theology or teaching the Bible for 30 or 40 years. And they were, I just kept hearing these people that I respected say,
Alex Fogleman (02:59.896)
There's just a decline of sort of, they would sometimes they'd say biblical literacy or theological literacy. It's like there's something that's happened over the last 20 or 30 years. Some would say the last a hundred years, they wouldn't verify that empirically, but I think there's like in their studies or they're seeing things like I've just, we've just seen something happen where there's a lack of just basic grammar of the Christian faith, a sort of basic vocabulary.
of kind of where people are. At the same time, there's this, people are more starting to understand sort of cultures catechesis as a sort of all-encompassing sort of approach to shaping the way that we think and how we feel and how we intuit what is good and how we ought to live. And so it's this sort of double, double sort of narrative about
the decline, I hear about the decline of discipleship, the decline of catechesis in the church. At the same time, there's these other forms of cultural catechesis that are quite powerful and all encompassing. so I wanted to look at my own sort of background and researches in the early church and looking at, well, how did this get started?
know, the practice of catechesis, something very early on, starts to emerge in the second, third century as an almost formal institution within the church. And so seeing this so prevalent in the early church and then thinking, well, you know, what can we learn from that for our own time where there's this lack of basic catechesis, this lack of foundations that we're experiencing? And so
What can we learn from that and what else has been going on since before we got here?
PJ Wehry (04:57.182)
Yeah, as I look at this, an immediate question for me is you heard people you respected and admired. Do you mind, who are some of these people you respected and admired that kind of encouraged you down this path?
Alex Fogleman (05:10.956)
Yeah. I mean, this sort of key catechetical hero in the journey is the late J.I. Packer. So he was a longtime professor at Regent College in Vancouver, where I went to seminary. And he was probably the most sort of fervent champion of catechesis. this was, so again, this is somebody for him. He would sort of narrate the last hundred years.
especially he's coming out of the sort of British evangelical Anglican world, but then also in North America, he's in North America, I think around 1980 or so in Vancouver. But he was one who also has a sort of, know, a larger, know, capacious sort of historical memory. And so he would say that
of where we are in the state of the evangelical church in the early 21st century stemmed from about a century's worth of failure of catechesis. So this was sort of like kind of where we are in the state of things today. A sort of highly, I don't know exactly how you would describe it, but a kind of
certainly biblically illiterate, but also just sort of prone to the temptations of the age, prone to that. I think of the Ephesians four language, it's tossed to and fro by the changing winds of doctrine. I think that's kind of how he would narrate sort of contemporary evangelicalism and sing where the sort of like, where can we look for...
PJ Wehry (06:48.19)
Mm.
Alex Fogleman (07:07.638)
a very still pious, devoted biblical, Bible loving faith, but how can that be more deeply rooted and grounded against the kind of the whims of the age? And I think that's only kind of exacerbated in the TikTok age. It's like everything is just, everything is ephemeral and everything is coming and going. And there's an even more, I find,
a kind of rootlessness that is really sort of corrosive to people just trying to live faithfully, trying to love others, trying to love their neighbors, trying to love God, trying to do the things that they've been called to do. But that lack of foundations, that lack of sort of rootedness, I think really prevents people from embracing a kind of more flourishing kind of life.
PJ Wehry (08:01.756)
So didn't J.I. Packer write like a Christian primer? I think I have it downstairs. I did not realize this was like a very I guess he wrote it. I should have realized how important it was to him. But I didn't realize this was like an abiding concern for him.
Alex Fogleman (09:49.918)
Yeah, so he actually he wrote one book called Grounded in the Gospel, which was or co-wrote that book around 2010. But then has has also written it's one of the versions of it is called Growing in Christ or something like that. And it's kind of a catechetical primer. goes through the Creed, the Lord's Prayer, the Ten Commandments and the sacraments, I think. And it's just like very lovely kind of J.I. Packer.
you know, introduction to the faith. But yeah, so he did, wrote a lot about this in the kind of latter years, kind of last 10 to 20 years of his life. He was also the lead, he was, he's listed as the theological editor of the Catechism for the Anglican Church in North America. It's called To Be a Christian, which was published in 2020.
but a long kind of process, a 10 year project in the making for that. And he was kind of gave a lot of oversight to the publication of that catechism. So very much a sort of latter stage of life. He was kind of styled himself as like trumpeting the call for catechesis in his last years. Yeah, so something very important to him.
PJ Wehry (11:16.262)
And you, I know you obviously answered that call. mean, that's, that's what the, I actually found you through your first book, which was like a more academic, think, history of early catechesis. but before we get into any of that, I would like to ask, cause, I'm fascinated by this idea. What is, what are some culture catechisms that you kind of put alongside, as almost sounds like it, they're competing with Christian catechism. So, cause.
Alex Fogleman (11:25.618)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (11:45.458)
That's not something I'm familiar with. And I think for a lot of people, this is the first introduction to catechism. So it helps to orient and be like, what are other things you'd consider to be catechizing?
Alex Fogleman (11:50.835)
Mm-hmm.
Alex Fogleman (11:56.816)
Yeah, for sure. So some of the folks who I've found helpful that have talked about cultures, catechesis, one would be the professor, he's actually a Baylor professor, Alan Jacobs. Your folks have probably read at least something or heard of something by him. He writes a lot of essays, a lot of books.
He's written a couple of really helpful articles, or they were helpful for me for understanding cultures catechesis. I cited a little article of his in the book called something like Dare to Make a Daniel. And it was something about, he was engaging with some of the political stuff. But it was helpful for me in giving some language to the sort of cultures catechesis.
I'd say the other person who did this in a slightly different way was Tim Keller. So he was, I mean, he was somewhat involved with the publication, the reformed, kind of reformed evangelical world of the New City Catechism, which was like a shorter, it's like a 50 question, 52 question catechism. But it was also driven by a need of like, oh, we need to retrieve the wisdom of
of Reformation era kind of catechisms. But there's a few places you can find, if you just do a pretty basic search for Tim Keller and catechesis, you'll find a couple of really nice things that he wrote. And he went further than just like, we need a new catechism. Like we need a new text that has questions and answers. Like that's good. You know, I'm not opposed to that, but that's not catechesis. He recognized that there's a way in which
And he drew a lot on kind of the Charles Taylor narration of, you know, secular age and exploring the way in which a culture's sort of mindset, it's again, it's basic narratives, its assumptions, its theological anthropology are all shaped by the sort of narratives and the stories that we tell. so, Keller has a nice way of just
Alex Fogleman (14:19.506)
or contrasting a sort of like, or sort of articulating what a secular creed might be. And in fact, there's somebody, I can't remember the name of the author, but somebody who kind of wrote in that stream, in a kind of Calerian stream of, and there's a book called, I think called like A Secular Creed or something like that. And it kind of goes through some of the basic tenets of a secular creed, which is something like,
PJ Wehry (14:26.398)
Hmm.
Alex Fogleman (14:49.456)
Everybody can choose what they want in order to be happy. History is always progressing towards the better. Science will always tell us what is true about the world. Like, they sort of unpacked this kind of way of understanding human nature, about culture, about what the good life is, about how we are oriented and aimed and how culture itself is aimed.
So those would be two that I would look at. I'm sure there would be others that would do that. But those two, Alan Jacobs and Tim Keller, have been helpful for me in sort of understanding how we might think about cultures, catechesis.
PJ Wehry (15:34.974)
If you don't mind me asking, what are some examples of cultural catechesis? That what's something that we would see where we are being shaped and formed and kind of basic instruction for not, you know, not on the Christian side.
Alex Fogleman (15:49.49)
Yeah, yeah, this is this is also the challenge you face is because cultures catechesis is so much better than the church's catechesis. So I mean, in one narrative of this, it's like
PJ Wehry (15:57.16)
Yeah
PJ Wehry (16:00.779)
That's not how I thought that sentence was gonna end. Sorry. Go ahead.
Alex Fogleman (16:04.05)
Yeah. It's like every movie you've ever seen, every sort of like, you know, pop culture song, it's like the constant, the endless scroll of whatever social media platform you use. You know, it's this inundation of image. It's a saturation of images and pictures and stories about, again, kind of what is the good life and how are we to live.
And so all of those things are sort of working upon us, like inscribing in this, guess, like Jamie Smith has talked about cultural liturgies. I think there's a version of that as well. It's like there's our secular liturgies, he would call them. So just like going to the mall when people used to go to the malls like I did in the 90s, you know, going to the going to the mall is a form of like
entering sacred space of a certain kind that's inscribing certain hopes in you and instilling in you a vision of alternative saints, exemplars, that sort of thing. So I think I would put all of that kind of in the category of cultural catechesis, which is both helpful and also alarming because you're like, well,
the church is like really not up to task to begin to sort of like counter that in the same kind of ways. And I think evangelicalism in particular has been prone to imitating the forms of culture and just trying to substitute out sort of the kernel of content and say, you know, the most embarrassing form of this that we experienced in our house was
like the Christian version of Pokemon cards, you know? Like there's such a thing and someone like gave these to our kids and I was just like, what is this? And it was just a very like good hearted gesture of like, hey, let's like try to get our kids to memorize scripture. And then it did for like.
PJ Wehry (18:06.142)
Ha!
PJ Wehry (18:09.862)
man.
Alex Fogleman (18:29.726)
one week and then they just wanted Pokemon cards. So it was just like, that was like just something how this came into our house. And I'm sure there's more or less sort of like sadistic versions of this, but that was just one where I was just like, wow, man, you know, this is yet another version of like trying to just imitate cultural forms, liturgical forms, so to speak.
PJ Wehry (18:32.7)
Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (18:57.694)
and re-inscribe it with content and realizing like, it actually doesn't, it doesn't work that neatly. So it would be too, I think it would be too tempting to be like, oh, we should just have a, you know, a Christian social media platform. And that'll, that'll be the way that we sort of catechize culture. So I grant that the problems are much more, we could possibly get more problems with that. Or like, we should have a, you know, I don't.
PJ Wehry (19:03.742)
Mmm.
PJ Wehry (19:18.258)
What could possibly go wrong?
Alex Fogleman (19:27.678)
I'm usually not one to just like call out things and pick on people by name, but like the glue, you know, Christian AI, you know, it's like we're just going to have an A Christian version of AI, but you can trust it. You know, it's like, you can't trust secular AI, but you can trust, you know, Christian AI. And you're like, I mean, I guess I'm glad that there are Christians that think about this, this kind of stuff, but it always strikes me as like way too naive.
PJ Wehry (19:37.471)
I didn't know there was,
Alex Fogleman (19:57.646)
And just, I don't know. There you go.
PJ Wehry (20:00.095)
I did not realize there was a Christian one. no, that's a, so at the core of this is a little bit of Marshall McLuhan, kind of the medium and the message, how it affects that. Yeah. Um, yeah, go ahead.
Alex Fogleman (20:09.565)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yep. Yeah. That kind of thing I think is very important. that does like, it's a sort of like, it's certainly a cautionary tale on the one hand, but it's also just a good prod for percussion catechists and teachers and pastors to think about the way in which the forms shape the message, or at least are inseparable from the message.
PJ Wehry (20:44.072)
So if you don't mind me asking, or let me see if I'm on track with you here. Would an example be how children feel about baptism or confirmation or taking communion for the first time versus how they feel about getting a new car or getting their first credit card?
Alex Fogleman (20:44.21)
Yeah, no, absolutely.
Alex Fogleman (21:07.858)
Mmm.
PJ Wehry (21:10.768)
And the way that like when you're talking about going into the mall and the promises that happened there and it's like, which of these leads to a better life? And it's like, man, I can't wait. I mean, that was for me going to the store of my parents as a child. I was like, I can't wait till I have my own credit card. Now, did I realize the stress has come with the credit card? Of course not. But I was very excited about the freedom of just like, I can't wait till I have grown up money and then I can buy things and I will.
Alex Fogleman (21:14.588)
Yes. Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (21:28.53)
Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (21:37.246)
Yes.
PJ Wehry (21:38.896)
I, you know, the hidden part, I will be happy.
Alex Fogleman (21:42.3)
Yes, Yeah, no, absolutely.
Yeah, our oldest kid is almost 12. So it's like, I don't know what exactly is going to be the sort of version of that. There's also, I mean, related to this, there's been lots of kind of questions and conversation about like, you know, I think I have four sons. So it's like, I tend to think more about like, what's the state of boys today? You know, and the things have been written about like rights of initiation, for instance, for
in this sort of, you the crisis of young men and these sorts of things. So I think about this in somewhat adjacent ways to think about catechesis. But more, I'm more so, more so just thinking about, and I do think of catechesis as kind of for all ages, like this is something you can be, you know, you could have been in church your whole life and not really be catechized, you know, just kind of always just kind of, you know, tuning in here, here and there and
But not ever having that sort of like grounded, know, grounded as in Packer's language, grounded in the gospel, that kind of foundational faith. So you can always kind of remain a child in the faith in some ways, I think. But certainly I think more about this presently with like having young kids and like, that's just the immediate thing in our house.
PJ Wehry (23:11.634)
Yeah. I, so you said a phrase earlier and I think it, you know, you've talked about grounding. I'm hearing fundamentals. So like there's a foundations and, and framework too, that's kind of involved in this. you said a phrase earlier that I think most people would be caught by, or maybe get stuck on. said the learning of faith. And, I think a lot of people, when you say learning, like,
Alex Fogleman (23:23.439)
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (23:34.75)
Mm. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. Right. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (23:38.6)
What do you mean you learn of faith? You just have faith and then you learn, right? Or you learn and then you have faith. What does it mean to have the learning of faith?
Alex Fogleman (23:49.022)
Yeah, this is a great question. And it's one that I think Christians especially wrestle with or implicitly, it may be more just like implicit. But I think one assumption would be, oh, well, faith is just something that's given to you by the spirit or something, or like you just have faith.
And if that's true, then why would you need to learn anything at all? If the point is just to have faith, and that's given to you, you can't... Christians, especially of a Protestant variety, but really all Orthodox Christians would say that faith is a gift from God and the Spirit, something external to you, something that is not you.
PJ Wehry (24:25.179)
Yeah
Alex Fogleman (24:45.542)
gives you this, not something that you can earn or work your way up to or bargain with God to acquire. Faith is a gift, it comes through grace. And if that's the case, why learn anything at all? Why teach anything at all?
And then you realize, and then you look around and be like, well, I mean, everybody does like every church I've ever been to, every Christian I've known, every person that I think I've ever known has been, you know, there we are. are sort of like being social, rational animals, like are communicating with one another. We are trying to to communicate with words. We are trying to teach. We are trying to learn.
And so I think it's become more clear to me, and this was a lot of what my first book was vaguely about, was about theological epistemology in catechesis. So what do we learn about how to know God, what it means to know God through the institutions of catechesis in the early church? So looking at the example of catechesis, how did they think about knowing God?
What would that look like? Especially if, again, faith is something that's still a gift, like still a divine gift, not something we sort of curate. Like you can just teach your way or just think your way into faith. If not, then what do we do? So those are some of the questions that I was getting at with that. And some of the ones, I mean, these are things that Christians have long kind of pondered.
And I think it gets back to the reality that what Christianity is, is not just like a pious religious club that we have to sort of like help us feel better about life or to help us like get through a tough day. But that fundamentally the church is a kind of new society, new creation.
Alex Fogleman (26:59.358)
new humanity, and that includes and encompasses all that human culture is. And so that has to do with the very fundamental of a culture that passes on what it holds to be true and good to the next generation. And the kind of ancient Greek terminology, it's paideia. Or your German listeners, bildung. You know, it's this image, this is education as image making, as formation.
So I would put it kind of, I would just gesture towards some of those things.
PJ Wehry (27:36.158)
Yeah, I mean, I just love your thoughts on this. One of the questions when people say faith is given to you that I always I think that people miss and, you know, I think it's an important question is how is faith given to you?
Alex Fogleman (27:52.05)
Mmm, yeah.
PJ Wehry (27:53.855)
Right? And it's like, well, faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. like, it's it's not, uh, and I, I grew, uh, I grew up in independent fundamental circles and the image I had as a child, and maybe this wasn't my church's fault, but the image I had as a child was definitely speaking of cultural catechesis was Dragon Ball Z, energy rays, you know, it was like God's grace came down, you know, it's like God's grace comes to you. And I was like,
Alex Fogleman (27:57.68)
Yeah, that's right.
PJ Wehry (28:22.27)
I don't know how I'm getting it, but man, he's zapping me with his grace and I'm sending glory back to him. it's like, it was kind of like energy rays in my head. I didn't have a good model for that, but understanding that it's happening through these means, really was a revolutionary moment for me. Is that kind of, am I on track with you there?
Alex Fogleman (28:25.064)
Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (28:31.984)
Yes.
Alex Fogleman (28:36.509)
Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (28:43.676)
Yeah, I think there's... That's just a tried and true analogy from throughout the Christian tradition.
PJ Wehry (28:46.492)
I'm not the Dragon Ball Z part, that's the bad example. Yeah, that's it.
PJ Wehry (28:56.37)
Hahaha!
Alex Fogleman (28:58.238)
Um, it's funny. It is funny though. I mean, this is kind of our, the more common metaphors that I think I probably hear to describe or something like we'll use computer technology metaphors to talk about, like, you know, people are hardwired this way, but then you need to like download the software. You know, it's like this, this is, this has now become the sort of apparatus of our, of our imagination for what a human is and then, and then how even a human
being acquires faith or grows in faith or through a sort of like filtered through a technological paradigm. So that, I don't know if that doesn't seem better than Dragon Z. don't know.
PJ Wehry (29:41.342)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah. I, well, this is an interesting thing. had Dr. Sullivan, Megan Sullivan from Notre Dame on, and she was talking about, she was teaching philosophy of mind. And when she first started, she'd been teaching the course for, think 20 years or 15 years. I don't want to get that number wrong, but, when she first started, one of the models was the, computer model. And it was that our brain is the hardware.
Alex Fogleman (29:51.272)
Hmm. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (30:13.23)
our mind is the software. And she'd say, how many of you think that model makes the most sense? And maybe one or two students out of like 20 would raise their hand or 30. And by the end of her, like when she, when I first interviewed or no, well, yeah, when I interviewed her, was most of the students in the class were saying it was now that, which I think is a great example of, I don't know if that's cultural credit thesis, but just like the medium.
is the message kind of moment where it's like, it's so ubiquitous. That's just the models we think in.
Alex Fogleman (30:43.4)
Yeah, that is 100 % the way the culture catechesis right there. Yeah. That's a way better example of anything that I just said. Yeah, yeah, for real. That's like right on. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (30:50.782)
you
PJ Wehry (30:57.118)
No, no, that's, mean, that's what I'm just, you said that earlier. Yeah, was, I was, I was confirming, I was hoping to confirm what you said, but the,
Man, there's so many threads to pull on here. But you mentioned the history, the theology, and the practice. Why does this need to be interdisciplinary? What do feel like each of those disciplines brings in putting that all together? Why can't you just do catechesis? Why do you need the theology? Certainly, why do you need the history? That's weird. Sorry, I a little sarcastic.
Alex Fogleman (31:19.411)
Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (31:24.37)
Mm.
Alex Fogleman (31:35.58)
Yeah, that is so weird. Yes. All I'll say is that in an earlier draft of the book, I had, I think, like four chapters of history, three chapters of theology, and two chapters of practice. And then
PJ Wehry (31:58.099)
Hahaha!
Alex Fogleman (32:02.834)
my good friend who I don't give enough credit to, Matt Anderson, told me that that was just a bad idea. And so he hopefully told me to reshift the entire book. And I was like, well, that sounds hard, but it's unfortunate. Unfortunately, it was the right thing to do. And so, yes, so very much, I think we need all three.
I would say most people that are attracted to a kind of book like this really just want the practice and they're not interested as much in the theology and certainly less as you correctly joked in the history. And I tend to, in this kind of framework, start with theology and history. And I kind of see those as...
both together. I actually see all three of them as basically the same thing. mean, the practitioners always are using an implicit theology. They always have an operative history, but they just don't articulate it, and it's usually not very good. Likewise, theologians often have, there's often explicit or implicit expression of practice that's implied in everything that they write and think. But again, it's often just understated.
So I guess one answer is that they're always interconnected anyway, theology and history and practice. And so let's at least try to be explicit about what's entailed in each of these. And they're kind of what I was trying to do with the whole thing, like why this sort of approach. Let's just say that, yes, ultimately I do want to equip congregations
pastors, lay leaders, with a practice of catechesis that can be deployed and sort of begin to do in their churches. So I do want a practical application to this, like the flourishing of catechesis in local churches. Like that's a goal of the book. But my hunch is, and again, this is maybe a kind of like what I've come to perceive as a kind of
Alex Fogleman (34:27.998)
pragmatist orientation that somewhat seems to recur in evangelical Christianity as a movement towards pragmatism that's not really rooted in a thought out theology. And so my hunch is that a more endurable, more long standing practice of catechesis will be more likely to materialize if the practitioners
or have a better grounding in the theology and history of the practice. I guess that's one way of thinking about it is that, yes, if we were just like, we wanna do something quick and we wanna like, change something real fast and like try a new thing, here's a new program, we could just do the practice section. But if this is to be anything that's maybe more enduring or more longstanding or would maybe have a more sort of like...
larger effect it would be to sort of be able to make those deeper connections between the practice of catechesis and, for instance, a doctrine of the incarnation. What do these things have to do with each other? I think you're gonna have better practice if there's theology grounding it. So yeah, maybe I'll, that's probably good.
PJ Wehry (35:51.869)
Yeah. I, yeah, no, that's great. would another way, and I just want to make sure I'm on track with you here. What another way? I, I personally see this a lot in evangelical churches. I'm not even particularly fond of that label anymore, but, that's going to be other things as well. but that people are looking for big wins in two to five years versus thinking about winning generationally.
Alex Fogleman (36:16.263)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Alex Fogleman (36:22.301)
Yeah.
PJ Wehry (36:23.422)
And I mean, you kind of hinted at that even I think like the kind of long-term, but like really thinking in terms of like, what are we going to pass on? Not just to the kids, the grandkids. I mean, you've mentioned your own application keeps coming back to your boys.
Alex Fogleman (36:31.294)
For sure. Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (36:36.094)
Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I think about my boys, but I also think about, like, my parents. And, you know, I think about even my grandmother. Like, I think about people of all generations that I know that are, like, I think about my dad at his funeral, at his dad's funeral.
So I think about, you know, it's this moment of him, and my dad's faithful Christian, you know, long time believer, Bible study every week. Like, then I just, I sat with him at his dad's funeral, my granddad's funeral. And then, and he's just like, where's my dad? You know, and this very touching, very tender, just,
very just kind of moment that was like, just, I mean, that was like, catechetical. Like this, if we were just talking about doctrine, like at one level, we're obviously talking about a lot more than that, right? And that's the kind of thing that I'd love to keep together. It's like, yeah, we're talking about basic Christian doctrine. On the one hand, you confess this in the creed every week. At the same time, like, these are, this is the body of Christ. These are our loved ones. This is the doctrine of the saints, like.
PJ Wehry (37:41.106)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Alex Fogleman (38:01.534)
This is prayer. This is hope, know, eschatological hope. So it's all there, but it comes out in all sorts of ways. So, I mean, I'm thinking about it and I'm thinking about endurance there. I'm thinking about, you know, stability, foundations. I met someone just the other day, you know, waiting for an airplane ride and he's like,
I don't mention anything about this. He's like, I grew up in, I grew up in the right wing evangelical culture and I am just the biggest atheist today because like, he just like read one thing about how, you know, somebody's like, well, I don't like Christians because, you know, God says to kill people. And the guy was like, he just like, yeah, it was like, it was like that, you know, and I'm sure again, there's lots of other things.
But he was just this, he's probably 40 year old guy, like really angry at his dad. And this militant atheist who like, a little sweet lady in Texas tells him like, hey, you're my brother in Christ. And he's like, no, I'm not. So I'm like, man, like you've got some, and I didn't even tell him I was a Christian at this point. I was not like, much less a theology professor.
I told him that later in the conversation and his jaw kind of was like, it was a very funny conversation, but it's just fresh on my mind. But that was another just very like clear example of somebody. was just like, and I really don't like the language of like, well, if people were just better catechized, they wouldn't, you know, do crazy stuff. But it's like, it's not a magic bullet or anything like that. But I just think I go back to that language of foundations and rootedness.
and the sense of stability. And so I think it manifests in all sorts of ways, like, you know, even just again, that sense of anger that I saw expressed in that guy. And it was just like, it was really, I mean, it's hard to see, you know, it's like, don't want that for anybody. Like you don't want that sort of, and that to me is again, is a product of this kind of what we're talking about, like this kind of a failure of catechesis or.
PJ Wehry (40:20.647)
apps.
Alex Fogleman (40:28.776)
kind of cultural catechesis. And so, yeah, I think there's lots of ways for us to engage these things.
PJ Wehry (40:38.042)
Nobody's served by a frivolous Christianity. Right? Not even atheists are served by a frivolous... Like, that doesn't help better society at all.
Alex Fogleman (40:41.828)
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah.
PJ Wehry (40:52.574)
I want to be respectful of your time and want to thank you so much again for coming on. Before we end, let me first say, besides buying your excellent book, Making Disciples, what is something that you would recommend to someone who has listened to us for the last 40, 45 minutes?
Alex Fogleman (41:17.074)
Yeah. I'd say if you're somebody that's involved with your local church in any way, it would be to either take the lead in saying, I think what could our church do to either strengthen or to begin a catechetical ministry? Something that would look like, say, take nine months, take a year and just allow the space for people to be catechized.
to go through the essential doctrines of the faith, not assuming that everybody just knows these things, but has experienced these things and knows what it means to think, to pray, and to live as a Christian. So I think, again, I want to encourage that and support those kinds of ministry. I talk about some ways to do that in the book. I use some examples about what it might look like in practice. I'm not very prescriptive, not very like you should do this, other than by the book.
You know, I'm not super prescriptive about like, must do it this way. I more want to cast a vision and say, this is what catechesis could look like. This is the why behind catechesis. This is why it's important. And imagine what it might look like in your community. And so have a conversation with a pastor or priest or teacher.
in your local congregation, it encourages this sort of thing. The thing I tell people most often is that this is actually a thing that people want. Like we often approach catechesis as like, this is like, gotta just like, people are getting dumb and you need to like, you know, get them smarter or something like that. And this is not that at all. This is like, people have deep questions, they've got fears, they've got...
doubts, they've got like great ideas, they've got terrible ideas, they've got people who have all sorts of things and they need and they want a space within the church. I kind of consider catechesis like the front porch of the church. It's like they need a kind of front porch hospitable space where they can engage their life's profoundest questions, their profoundest questions about the faith and have somebody that can not just give them answers
Alex Fogleman (43:41.544)
Catechesis is not just questions and answers. It is the living transmission of the faith. It's passing on the mystery from one generation to another. And that's always between persons. It's not ever something you can do online. You can't get a chat bot catechist, you know? It is, because it's always a passing on of the faith person to person. So that's what I would encourage someone to do.
PJ Wehry (44:11.016)
Beautiful answer, Dr. Fogelman. Wonderful to have you on today. Thank you.
Alex Fogleman (44:15.336)
Thank you, PJ, so good to be with you.