About the book
Cambridge University Press, 2023.
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 book, Catechesis Institute director Alex Fogleman (PhD, Baylor University) 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.
Event details
Where: Christ Church Waco (1008 Jefferson Ave)
When: Thursday, January 18 | 7:30–9:00 pm
Format: Introductory remarks from David Lyle Jeffrey, followed by a presentation and Q&A with author Alex Fogleman. A wine and cheese reception will follow in the parish hall.
About the Speakers
Alex Fogleman is the Director of the Catechesis Institute, as well as an Assistant Research Professor of Theology at Baylor University’s Institute for Studies of Religion. He holds a PhD in Patristics and Historical Theology from Baylor University and an MDiv from Regent College. His main areas of research include Latin and Greek patristics, the history of catechesis, and theological accounts of human flourishing, and he is the author of Knowledge, Faith, and Early Christian Initiation (Cambridge University Press, 2023). Additional writing has appeared in the International Journal of Systematic Theology, Scottish Journal of Theology, Harvard Theological Review, Church History, Journal of Early Christian Studies, Pro Ecclesia, and Augustinian Studies, among others. He is currently writing a book on the history, theology, and practice of catechesis (to be published with Eerdmans Press in 2025). He is married to Molly, and they live with their four sons in Waco, TX, where they attend Christ Church Waco.
David Lyle Jeffrey is Distinguished Senior Fellow at the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University. He was a Distinguished Professor of Literature and Humanities at Baylor University from 2000 until 2019, Professor Emeritus of English Literature at the University of Ottawa, and Guest Professor at Peking University (Beijing) and Honorary Professor at the University of International Business and Economics (Beijing). He has taught for many Universities in the US, Canada, and China. Among his many books include A Dictionary of Biblical Tradition in English Literature (1992), The Early English Lyric and Franciscan Spirituality (1975); Chaucer and Scriptural Tradition (1984); English Spirituality in the Age of Wesley (1987; 1994; 2000); The Law of Love: English Spirituality in the Age of Wyclif (1988; 2001); People of the Book: Christian Identity and Literary Culture (1996); Houses of the Interpreter: Reading Scripture, Reading Culture (2003); In the Beauty of Holiness: Art and the Bible in Western Culture (2017); Scripture and the English Poetic Imagination (2019).
