Catechisms and Imagery

(Through New Eyes by James Jordan)

I love quotes. I love factoids. I love it when someone can take a complex idea and put it into a memorable definition for me. I was noticing that as I read I mostly highlight the one-liners that sum up the previous paragraphs or pages I’d wrestled and trudged through. For instance, Jordan says on page 29, “We create our own worlds by generating our own worldviews.” The next thought I had after reading that was actually another quote, “People are entitled to their own opinions but their not entitled to their own facts.” Both are summations of a much larger concept or lesson. When we think solely based upon our opinions, we can create for ourselves a world apart from reality—a world apart from the truth of the facts. And thus we create our own worldview.

Jordan builds a wonderful case for how the Bible is engineered around imagery and symbolism. He states a complaint on how in the “Western world for centuries, men have assumed that the proper way to express truth is by means of abstract, philosophical language….This, however, is not how God chose to reveal Himself to us.” He goes on to say that the Bible is filled with “stories, histories, poems, symbols, parables, and the like”. Jordan does affirm that such an idea is “equally as important as abstract philosophizing”, so that means he believes that philosophizing has its place and use, right? I don’t know, because the next paragraph down Jordan, talks about catechisms:

“Notice, for instance, the way in which our confessions of faith and catechisms are written. They are virtually devoid of imagery. Solomon wrote Proverbs to instruct youth, but for centuries Christians have used catechisms that consist basically of definitions of terms: What is justification; what is prayer; what is the meaning of the fourth petition; etc. The contrast of approach is quite startling.”

Don’t catechisms have their place? Certainly they can be misused, but can’t they just as easily be properly utilized as a launching pad for greater spiritual truths. Catechisms and confessions are the grammar of the faith. They are the building blocks upon Christians have come to a better understanding of the broader, richer pictures of the gospel.

I love quotes. I love factoids. I love it when someone can take a complex idea and put it into a memorable definition for me.