Introducing New City Catechism

Question 1. What is the chief end of man?

Answer. Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy him forever.

Question 1. What is your only comfort in life and death?

Answer. That I am not my own, but belong---body and soul, in life and in death---to my faithful Savior, Jesus Christ.

Many of you will recognize these words as the opening question and answer of the Westminster and Heidelberg Catechisms. But we're guessing that a very small number of people will have memorized the entire catechisms from which they derive.

After all, the practice of catechesis, particularly among adults, has been almost completely lost today. It seems so medieval to have children memorizing catechisms, much less doing it as adults. So why did The Gospel Coalition team up with Redeemer Presbyterian Church to develop New City Catechism?

Most people today do not realize that it was once seen as normal, important, and necessary for churches to continually produce new catechisms for their own use. The early Scottish churches, though they had Calvin's Geneva Catechism of 1541 and the Heidelberg Catechism of 1563, went on to produce and use Craig's Catechism of 1581, Duncan's Latin Catechism of 1595, and The New Catechism of 1644, before eventually adopting the Westminster Catechism.

The Puritan pastor Richard Baxter, who ministered in the 17th century town of Kidderminster, was not unusual. He wanted to train heads of families to instruct their households in the faith. To do so, he wrote his own Family Catechism that was adapted to the capacities of his people and that brought the Bible to bear on many of the issues his people were facing at that time. Read more

The post-Reformation catechisms of the Church of England--the Catechisms of Alexander Nowell and Thomas Becon and the Prayer Book Catechism, an adaptation of Nowell's Catechism--are Reformed in their theology. John Calvin's Catechism was also used in English universities in the sixteenth and seventeenth century, as was Henry Bullinger's Catechism. Bullinger's Decades, a collection of sermons explaining the teachings of the Bible, were used to train Anglican preachers in the sixteenth century. The Heidelberg Catechism was developed from Bullinger's Catechism. Anglican divines drew up the Westminster Catechisms.