Inducting the Socratic Method of Forming Faith in African Contexts

Abstract

The Socratic method of questioning and answering as a learning and teaching strategy has been used widely over time, for it effectively stimulates meaningful learning. Its learner-centered and transformative nature promotes ongoing dialogue. Since cultural differences influence the nature of questions asked, induction of the Socratic method is inevitable so that faith formation leads to thinking theologically where faith becomes a contextual form of thinking and thinking a form of contextualized faith. Some mainline churches in Africa have adopted catechisms with pre-asked and pre-answered questions formulated in Europe between the sixteenth and eighteenth centuries. The challenges of time, culture, and geographical contextual differences create a gap between the church’s faith formation and context-based spiritual quests. These gaps demand asking the right questions that challenge and inverse wrong attitudes that foster deep reflective self-evaluation, interpretation, and understanding, shaping appropriate perceptions to address the contemporary spiritual quests of Africa. Using the qualitative literature review methodology, this article discovered that there are some gaps between questions and answers in catechisms used in mainline churches and contemporary spiritual quests of Africa. This article aims to discuss the means of closing the gap between questions and answers in catechism and context-based spiritual quests. It recommends induction of the Socratic method so that the questions and answers in catechisms are contextual, communicable, assimilable, and appropriable in African contexts. This study contributes to faith formation by recommending the induction of the Socratic method so that the questions and answers in catechisms are contextual, communicable, assimilable, and appropriable in African contexts. Keywords: Inducting, Socratic Method, Faith Formation, Questions and Answers Communicability, Assimilability, Appropriateness