Ecclesial Enculturation: John Westerhoff's Appeal to Catechesis in Contemporary Theological Education

This article explores the appeal to catechesis in the writings of Anglican theologian and educator John Westerhoff III (1933-2022). I argue that he proposed the concept of catechesis as a way of critiquing and incorporating the streams of liberalism and neo-orthodoxy from the early and mid-twentieth...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Fogleman, Alex (Author)
Format: Electronic Article
Language:English
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Interlibrary Loan:Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany)
Published: 2025
In: Journal of Anglican studies
Year: 2025, Volume: 23, Issue: 1, Pages: 175-188
Further subjects:B Retrieval
B Catechesis
B Neo-orthodoxy
B John Westerhoff
B Education
B Liberalism
B Ressourcement
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Summary:This article explores the appeal to catechesis in the writings of Anglican theologian and educator John Westerhoff III (1933-2022). I argue that he proposed the concept of catechesis as a way of critiquing and incorporating the streams of liberalism and neo-orthodoxy from the early and mid-twentieth century into a more comprehensive and theologically substantive approach to theological education. In doing so, he used the language of catechesis as a means of integrating the strengths of liberalism's emphasis on nurture and enculturation and neo-orthodoxy's accent on conversion, the church and the uniqueness of Christianity. His appeal to catechesis, then, was not a retrieval or ressourcement of patristic catechesis. While he appreciated the term's antiquity, the way in which he described the term was more indebted to contemporary education theory than patristics, particularly the anthropological insights of socialization theory.
ISSN:1745-5278
Contains:Enthalten in: Journal of Anglican studies
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.1017/S1740355323000670