Conference talks and lectures from the Catechesis Institute, a research and teaching center dedicated to renewing church-based education for a post-Christendom world.
Knowledge, Faith, and Early Christian Initiation: Featuring Alex Fogleman, with David Lyle Jeffrey
For St. Augustine, Christ was not only the goal of learning but also the way there: “See how Christ crucified is taught and learned,” he wrote, “and know that it relates to his cross that in his body we too are crucified to the world.”
In this public presentation, Catechesis Institute director Alex Fogleman introduces his new book, Knowledge, Faith, and Early Christian Initiation (Cambridge University Press, 2023), with comments from David Lyle Jeffrey and Q&A.
Hosted a Christ Church Waco on January 18, 2024.
About the Book:
Knowledge, Faith, and Early Christian Initiation presents a new history of the rise of catechesis in the early church. What was its central focus? How did new believers learn to know the God revealed in Jesus Christ? By attending to the earliest writings about catechesis in the second century and third century, to its prominent champions in the fourth and fifth centuries, Fogleman reveals the central role that catechesis played in early Christian devotion, ethics, and theology.
Patristic catechesis also sheds new light on central questions about faith and education. How does Christianity teach wisdom and virtue to those just starting out? And what difference do Christian commitments to understanding Jesus Christ as both divine and human make for Christian modes of knowing? By listening to the voices of the ancient past, we gain new insight and imagination for building communities of faithful witness in the present.
9 Jan 2024
Sensing the Sacred: A Conversation with Hanna Lucas, Simon Oliver, and Ephraim Radner
The late modern world teaches us, in various and sundry ways, a highly reductionist account of what it means to know someone or something—including, especially, what it means to know God. With a metaphysic stripped of any real connection to a transcendent source of being, we cannot help but imbibe a truncated form of knowledge and learning.
By mining the depths of patristic mystagogy—instruction in the rites of initiation (usually right after baptism)—Hanna Lucas brings to light a rich pedagogical tapestry that can show us a better way forward. Through patient and careful engagement with writings of Ambrose of Milan, Cyril of Jerusalem, John Chrysostom, and Theodore of Mopsuestia, Lucas shows how patristic mystagogy grounds a theological epistemology that sees knowledge as part of the “capacitation” of our nature for heavenly mysteries and union with God. The patristic catechists teach us how even the mundane aspects of knowledge, including the rudiments of matter and sensation, fit into a larger divine gift of capacitation.
The result is a holistic and integrated theory of knowledge that envisions one all-encompassing divine pedagogy that orients toward union with God. This union is experienced fully in the eschaton, but it breaks into time through the sacraments of the church, and it echoes down through the ordinary modes of knowing we encounter in daily life. Mundane knowledge beckons the knower to become capable of a sublime intelligence: to become capable of union with the divine. This integrative, unitive, and eschatologically oriented vision of knowledge stands in stark contrast to modern and postmodern epistemologies. Sensing the Sacred positions mystagogy as a timely remedy for the “incapacitations” that modernity offers us.
26 Oct 2023
Humility as the Crux of Christian Teaching: Insights from St. Augustine
For Augustine of Hippo (354-430), Christian teachers who surrender self in loving humility for the sake of their hearers capture a core dimension of the faith that they teach. The same humility that Christ models, that Scripture communicates, and that seekers germinate as they come to be taught, teachers also share in.
In this public lecture, renowned Augustine scholar Dr. Michael Cameron explores the pedagogical dynamics of humility in Augustine’s great treatise, De catechizandis rudibus (On the Instruction of Beginners), showing it to be the treatise’s hidden crux, in two senses: both as a central theme of Christian teaching, and, paradoxically and counterintuitively, as the mainspring of the teaching act.
This lecture was co-hosted with the Religion and Philosophy Department at Hillsdale College on October 9, 2023.
24 Oct 2023
Attaining to the Full Stature of Christ, with Rev. Prof. John Behr, Dr. Natalie Carnes, and Dr. Thomas Breedlove
A keynote presentation on theological anthropology in Gregory of Nyssa, given by the Rev. Prof. John Behr, followed by responses from Dr. Natalie Carnes and Dr. Thomas Breedlove. General Q&A following.
11 Jul 2022
Curtis Freeman: Making Christians
Rev. Dr. Curtis Freeman, Research Professor at Duke Divinity School, introduces the concept of catechesis and its relevance for Christian discipleship today. He also provides a guide for how catechesis can be implemented in Baptist and Free Church traditions.
24 Feb 2022
Greg Peters on Monastic Theology as a Model for Catechesis
Greg Peters on the nature of medieval monastic theology as a model for contemporary Christian catechesis. Delivered at Christ Church Waco in 2022.
14 Feb 2020
Catechesis as Monasticism 5: Q&A with Greg Peters, Gerald Sittser, Lee Nelson, Ryan Jones, and Elizabeth Jones
Q&A with the keynote speakers and responders from the 2020 Catechesis Colloquium, Catechesis as Monasticism.
13 Feb 2020
Greg Peters, Catechesis as Monasticism 4: Monastic Catechesis in the Parish
Greg Peters on how monastic catechesis can be implemented in parish life. Part 4 of the 2020 Catechesis Colloquium: Catechesis as Monasticism
12 Feb 2020
Gerald Sittser, Catechesis as Monasticism 3: Catechesis in John Cassian
Gerald Sittser on Catechesis in John Cassian, part 3 of the 2020 IRCC Colloquium, Catechesis as Monasticism
11 Feb 2020
Greg Peters, Catechesis as Monasticism 2: Catechesis and the Rule of St. Benedict
Greg Peters on Catechesis and the Rule of St. Benedict, part of the 2020 Catechesis Colloquium: Catechesis as Monasticism
10 Feb 2020
Gerald Sittser, Catechesis as Monasticism 1: From Catechumenate to Monasticism
Gerald Sittser on Catechesis in the early church and how it formed the seedbed for monasticism. Part 1 of the 2020 IRCC Colloquium, Catechesis as Monasticism
2 Dec 2019
Bruch Hindmarsh on Catechesis and the Spirit of Early Evangelicalism
Bruce Hindmarsh, James M. Houston Professor Spiritual Theology and Professor of History of Christianity at Regent College, on his 2018 book, The Spirit of Early Christianity
28 Mar 2019
Hans Boersma, Catechesis as Mystagogy 4: Catechesis and Scripture
What is the purpose of catechesis? What is its place in the (post-)modern world? How does catechesis relate to ongoing, lifelong discipleship? What is the ultimate goal of catechetical theology?
Learn from theologian Hans Boersma how a robust sacramental approach to theology can strengthen and enliven the ministry of catechesis in the church today. "Mystagogy" is an ancient term meaning "leading into the mysteries." In this conference, we will explore how the notion of catechesis as mystagogy—as being led into life with God—can enable the flourishing of lifelong discipleship. More than just learning the catechism, more than just a "check list" of ideas to memorize, catechesis is about preparing for and entering deeper into life in Christ.
27 Mar 2019
Hans Boersma, Catechesis as Mystagogy 3: Catechesis and Memory
Hans Boersma on the role of memory in catechesis. The third of four presentations on the topic "Catechesis as Mystagogy." From the 2019 IRCC Catechesis Colloquium.
26 Mar 2019
Hans Boersma, Catechesis as Mystagogy 2: The Rise of Modernity
Hans Boersma on on catechesis in a post-modern world?
25 Mar 2019
Hans Boersma, Catechesis as Mystagogy 1: The Purpose of Theology
Hans Boersma on the purpose of catechesis. The first of four lectures from the 2019 Catechesis Colloquium, "Catechesis as Mystagogy."
Reach and audience
Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.
Apple Podcasts (US)
5.0 / 5
2 ratings
Contact Catechesis Institute
Guest appearances
Books guests
Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.
Host of Catechesis Institute?
Claim your podcast to manage its listing and keep your show details accurate.
Pod Engine is an independent podcast discovery and analytics service and is not affiliated with or endorsed by this podcast. Artwork and show content belong to their owners. Full legal notice.
Explore this show Podcast research with Pod Engine
