More Subjective than Doctrinal
"This is dangerous business," says author and catechist Bill Huebsch, writing of a new movement in religious education. The "thinking and new framework" associated with this movement, called whole community catechesis, is "still emerging," says Huebsch; "It's a nation-wide conversation guided, it seems, only by the Holy Spirit."
Whether guided by the Holy Spirit or not, whole community catechesis is a nation-wide "conversation." It is used in at least 26 North American dioceses (from Washington, D.C. to Los Angeles, where it is promoted diocese-wide) and has crossed the Atlantic to Ireland. Sadlier and Harcourt Religion Publishers have Web pages devoted to whole community catechesis. The catechetical products company, Resources for Christian Living (RCL), and Twenty-Third Publications promote this new catechetical method.
Bill Huebsch has been one of the most prominent and influential voices in the whole community catechesis movement. Since 1995, Huebsch has worked as vice president and director of marketing for RCL and more recently as senior advisor on whole community catechesis to Harcourt. He is currently president and publisher of Twenty-Third Publications, which offers his faith formation series, the Growing Faith Project, and books on whole community catechesis, including Huebsch's own, Whole Community Catechesis in Plain English. With a master's degree in theological studies from Chicago's Catholic Theological Union, Huebsch has advised parishes and dioceses on how to implement the Holy See's 1997 General Directory for Catechesis, which, he claims, with the documents of Vatican II, has been the inspiration for whole community catechesis. He is a frequent contributor to Religion Teacher's Journal and the author of other books dealing with whole community catechesis and such works as 18 Services in the Spirit of Vatican II and The General Directory for Catechesis in Plain English.
In Whole Community Catechesis in Plain English, Huebsch lays out the basis for this new catechetical method, which, he told the Los Angeles archdiocese's newspaper, The Tidings (February 18, 2005), is better called "lifelong catechesis." That is, whole community catechesis focuses primarily on adults while including children. It attempts to move beyond the "schoolhouse" model of religious instruction. Whole community catechesis "seems to embrace so much of the spirit and vision of Vatican II," says Huebsch in his book, because it is "highly participatory," "relies on the domestic church," requires "a deep partnership between ordained and lay ministries," and, "in the spirit of aggiornamento . . . brings religious education 'up to date' once again!"
Whole community catechesis sets up two poles for church life — the "domestic church," or the home, and the "parish," which becomes a "resource to the church." The catechesis is called "whole community" because it seeks to encompass the liturgy, home life, parish ministries, and doctrinal instruction.
"The goal of whole community catechesis is focused at the point where people actually live their lives," says Huebsch. "It seeks to deepen and enrich people's faith so that the church is wherever they are."
Treating doctrine as secondary
Huebsch makes some blameless suggestions about making households the focus of catechesis. Yet in Huebsch's treatment of catechesis and the "domestic church," one quickly begins to note a blurring of distinctions and a tilt toward the subjective. Sounding more like Henry Thoreau than a Catholic catechist, he says that "no theological system, with all its books and doctrines, can match what one walk in the woods as a household can tell us about God."
Huebsch treats catechesis as something other than instruction in the faith. While he does not deny that doctrinal instruction is part of catechesis, he considers it secondary. In his book, he gives two definitions of catechesis, the second being "when done in a systematic way, it is also called instruction in the faith." But his first definition for catechesis is "to echo the faith in one's own life by sharing it with others."
And faith sharing is not sharing the faith. Rather, it is sharing subjective experience. Faith sharing "is explicitly about how God's movement in one's life is experienced," he says.
Huebsch appears to maintain that one cannot meet Christ through doctrine (which he identifies with "the textbook") but only through the relation of personal experiences of faith. "The encounter [with Christ] is not with 'correct doctrine' even if the student can repeat it back to us perfectly," he says. "The encounter is with Christ through the catechist. A catechist is one who shares his or her faith, one who shares what he or she is experiencing in Christ."
It is the sharing of personal experience that brings about conversion. "The textbook must come after conversion," according to Huebsch. "It must come when one's heart is in accord with the Gospel. Conversion is the meeting of Christ and deciding to follow Him." Baptism doesn't guarantee conversion; "it normally occurs in a communal setting," and one meets Christ "first and foremost, by sharing faith with others. Nothing can replace faith-sharing as a means to help others meet Christ." In fact, "one simply cannot say that he or she is a Christian unless he or she is also in a process of sharing faith. Sharing one's faith is catechesis. And sharing faith, or catechesis, is what makes a Christian a Christian."
Dubious advice
Huebsch gives this advice to catechists: "Pause in the midst of what you're teaching. Put down the textbook. Tell those around you what you believe. Tell them what you experience about the Eucharist, for example, or about forgiveness, or about justice. Your belief and your experience of the faith is a vital part of what you teach."
He suggests to catechists a "question of the week" that reflects on the Sunday readings. Each Sunday, the catechist is to lead "everyone, including him or herself, to ask a single, well-focused, real-life, and significant question, prompted by the scriptural text of the day." The question must not invite a simple "yes" or "no" answer and it must not lead into questions on the meaning of the text.
He gives as an example of a poor question of the week: "What did Jesus mean when he said, 'Blessed are the poor?'" Says Huebsch: "Such a question leads to speculative theological debates about what was in Jesus' heart when he taught this. Who in the world knows the answer to that? Besides, that question does not lead to personal reflection."
A good question, in his view, is: "What is your experience of people coming into your life for a while and then leaving again?" — a question prompted by Jesus telling his disciples he would leave them.
Huebsch's liturgical suggestions are equally subjective. The "guest list" for the "Sunday assembly" should welcome all without reference to any objective criteria of belief or behavior. He proposes that a welcoming litany be recited before every Sunday Mass which includes: "Are you gay or lesbian? Well if you are, then you belong to us because you belong to Christ . . . Are you struggling with family-planning questions? . . . Are you from another Christian tradition? . . . The Good News is that Christ is the host here today and he welcomes you as part of his body."
Eccentric proposals run throughout his catechesis. He suggests "each person who is in catechesis (everyone!) should have at least two full experiences of baptism each year. This includes preparation for the sacrament, the rite itself, and a follow-up mystagogia." How would "each person" get his two yearly baptisms? Huebsch suggests "suspend[ing] for a few weeks the work outlined in your textbook series" and inviting families to have the rite performed during a catechesis assembly.
Over a period of four weeks, everyone could prepare a quilt square "on which each person draws a picture, or writes a word of Scripture or a short phrase telling what it means to them to 'put on Christ like a garment,'" he says. These quilt squares could form a multicolored quilt baptismal gown.
He quotes a catechetical director at a parish where catechesis assemblies are in use: "The lead catechist and I planned each assembly very carefully, balancing faith-sharing, storytelling, liturgy, quiet time, sharing at the tables, and instruction right out of the book . . . It was solid catechesis with excellent pedagogy. I swear, in the end, everyone knew more of the catechism and not less!"
In The Tidings interview, Huebsch said that "the most profound gift of whole community catechesis is the practical plan it offers for achieving what we call 'evangelization.'" The program "helps us lead people to Christ." But it is not clear what he means by this. Does he mean leading people to the salvation which is found in mystical union with the Son of God (the source of the transformation of the world)? If so, that's left unsaid. What he does say is that they will become "persons of justice, persons working endlessly for peace, persons taking the part of the powerless, persons with a heart for the poor, persons eager to be forgiving, generous, and hospitable . . ."
Huebsch calls this "evangelical" aspect of whole community catechesis "very, very powerful. Powerful enough to change and save the world." Orthodox Catholics are more likely to regard it as "dangerous business."
This item 7881 digitally provided courtesy of CatholicCulture.org
