The Christian's ABC. Catechisms and Catechizing in England c. 1530-1740 by Ian Green

Abstract

The Christian's ABC Catechisms and Catechizing in England c.1530-1740. By Ian Green. (New York: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 1996. Pp. xiv,767. $125.00.) It has been two decades since Jean Delumeau drew attention to parallel efforts made by Protestants and Catholics in sixteenth and seventeenth centuries to raise level of religious knowledge and spiritual awareness among their co-religionists. Although he does not endorse all of Frenchman's sweeping generalizations, Ian Green, reader in modern history at Queen's University in Belfast, has compiled and collated an enormous amount of data that support Delumeau's principal argument. He draws on Prayer Book rubrics, royal injunctions, visitation articles, episcopal circulars, sermons, pamphlets, and a of treatises of time. Green's principal source, however, is the several hundred Protestant catechisms composed between Reformation and early eighteenth century that come in a bewildering variety from multi-volume works to booklets of a few pages, from question-and-answer-form to lengthy treatises. Green divides his study into three parts. The five chapters in Part One describe medium, that is, catechetical tradition(s) and theory, tasks and techniques as they were practiced in church, school, and home. Green argues convincingly that catechizing not one but a series of activities and was not set in tablets of stone but forever adjusting to new situations and ideas:' The Book of Common Prayer, metrical psalms, hymns, and preaching are some of means that reinforced memorization and retention of catechetical formulae. Part Two concentrates on message found in a selection of best-selling or influential catechisms. Most focus on four staples of catechesis-the Apostles' Creed, Decalogue, Lord's Prayer, and Sacraments (baptism, holy communion). While some offer tell-tale clues to theological leanings of their authors, for most part catechisms eschew polemics and deal cautiously with controversial points or simply omit them as in cases of church government and forms of worship. In chapters 8 (Predestination) and 9 (Assurance,Justification, and Covenant of Grace), Green explores most divisive issues of time, and notes that conformists and godly authors parted ways when it came to role of visible church vis-a-vis a theoretical ordo salutis. …