What is a Catechism?

Background. The word “catechism” comes from the Greek word katechéo, “to make hear” or “to instruct.” Jesus instructed his twelve disciples privately, as well as the masses of people who came to hear him in public settings. The “Sermon on the Mount” (Matthew 5:1—7:29) was a brief catechism of personal ethical behavior that included both compassionate encouragement and warnings against destructive, judgmental ideas and behavior.

Catechisms or handbooks about the Christian faith grow directly out of summaries, or “creeds” which are quite ancient. Before the Apostles’ Creed came into common usage in the western church, around 390 A.D., there were briefer statements of the faith, some of them embedded in the New Testament. For example:

Matthew 28:18–20:  And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and 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. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

 

Philippians 2:5–11:  Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death— even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

It is thought that the Apostles Creed was used for basic catechetical instruction to prepare those who desired to be baptized. It includes “the bare bones” of Christian teaching about the trinitarian God of the New Testament, but very little else. A more useful creedal statement which also dates to the 4th century is the so-called Nicene Creed. But neither of these historic creeds nor the Athanasian Creed contain anything ecclesiological or disciplinary: they do not have anything about the significance and role of the church as Christy’s body (Christ’s presence) in the world today, or about how we should live as Christ’s disciples today.

More elaborate Christian catechisms date back at least to the 13th Century, and were used to instruct new believers. Martin Luther wrote two versions of his catechism in 1529, and his Kleiner Katechismus (Small Catechism) is possibly the most famous Christian instructional booklet ever written. Originally published as large posters for use in the home, for fathers to teach their children, it uses a “question and answer” format (Q&A) which is still a standard teaching device all over the world.

If you were raised on Luther’s catechism, it might surprise you that the watered-down version in your Confirmation books left a significant amount of Luther’s teaching out. Here is the whole list of sections:

1. The Ten Commandments •

2. The Apostles Creed •

3. The Lord’s Prayer •

4. The Sacrament of Holy Baptism •

5. Confession and Absolution

6. The Sacrament of the Altar •

7. Morning and Evening Prayers

8. Grace at Table

9. Table of Duties

The sections above marked with dots (•) were all I remember being taught. The Creed and the Lord’s Prayer cover basic ideas about faith.  The Ten Commandments are used for rigorous moral instruction on “right and wrong”; the sections on two sacraments explain Christian dogma pertaining to their rituals, but the other sections left out are really important and should never be omitted.

Why a Gay Catechism?

In our times, many lesbian and gay people–or really, sexual minorities of all kinds— know the basic teachings of the Christian faith. We know about God, the Bible, Jesus, salvation, etc. We grew up with some religious instruction, in many different Christian denominations.

This Gay Catechism has been written with young adults and adult in mind — to help LGBTQ people who have already come to terms with being a sexual minority person, but now want to come to terms with the Christian faith which has harmed us deeply since we came out to ourselves or others.

For even though many of us had Christian instruction or catechesis as children and teenagers, at some point we walked away from the church and from God. Some of us even fled from the churches in which we were instructed as children and in which we once had found love, comfort and belonging.

After coming to terms with our sexuality and gender identity, feelings of insecurity, unworthiness, fear or even outright terror simply eclipsed all other aspects of the Christian faith. In the process of coming to awareness about our sexual orientation or gender identity, and the “coming out” process, it didn’t seem to matter that we had once learned and believed that:

• God is love
• all sins can be forgiven
• we are accepted by God because of God’s grace, not because of our good deeds.

The secondary message which was being taught to us both privately and publicly, was that we are unloved, worthless, and damned. And this secondary message seemed to erase everything loving, everything good and hopeful and reassuring we had once learned.

Because of this tragedy, two other even worse effects have captivated many sexual minority persons: many have abandoned all forms of spirituality, thinking that the only thing real is material—wealth, power, pleasure, food, drugs and good times. And others have simply committed suicide because of the profound suffering they experienced in their spiritually dystonic state: “God loves everybody, except me.”

Internalized homophobia (see the Wikipedia article) has become its own “catechism”—a private instruction that worked its way into our psyches and our hearts that said: you don’t measure up; God doesn’t love you and you are not worthy of God’s love; you are a horrible sinner and your sins cannot be forgiven; you will go directly to hell for being homosexual. Only if you live alone, avoid all sexual thoughts and acts, and spend your lifetime fighting every natural inclination, could you possibly be forgiven for your disgusting lifestyle. God may love you eventually, but you will have to grovel for that love, and will never have the confidence and joy of redemption and acceptance that normal people have.

All of that, of course, is heresy against the Christian faith. Somehow, the Christian church gradually fell under the sway of non-Christian attitudes, especially about sexuality and asceticism. As this came to pass over centuries of time, Christian leaders have given primacy to their own doctrines about human nature and anthropology, rather than Christ’s teachings about the human spirit, the loving-kindness and favor of God, and the practices that lead to God’s “kindom”* – the realm where we all belong to God and to one another.

In our own times, hateful and narrow-minded attitudes have taken control of many evangelical and fundamentalist congregations, and sadly, also the Roman Catholic Church. The worldwide Anglican Communion is struggling internally over whether grace or rejection will govern their church. Other denominations, including the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, are still struggling through the cumbersome process of “studying” the issues of human sexuality.

Lesbian and gay people, bisexuals and transgender people are sick and tired of being studied. We thank God that congregations and organizations (such as LC/NA and ELM) with courage and clarity of faith have begun to associate with one another and to teach the truth about God’s love for all. This site is meant to be a contribution to the movement within the whole Christian church that teaches understanding and brings about reconciliation.

Our purpose in this Gay Catechism is to take back the central truths of the Christian faith, and to present them in a way which is expressly meant for LGBTQ who have been harmed or alienated by the abusive and hateful attitudes of others. 

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* In the New Testament, you will find the word “kingdom,” but that presses the gender identity of God to the extreme. While God is pictured in the Bible with masculine language, God is also pictured in some places with feminine language. Christian teachers and philosophers as far back as the 4th Century knew perfectly well that God is not “male,” and does not have sexual characteristics like men and male animals; but sadly their views were forgotten in the tide of convenient, sexist ideas which flooded Christian views from the secular world. I am indebted to David R. Weiss in Minnesota for the term “kindom” which evokes the idea that in God’s realm we are all related as sisters and brothers of the Lord and therefore of one another.