The Story of Faith
The difference between catechesis, evangelism, and religious education comes from the target audience and the context of each activity. Catechism happens between believers who are aiming to improve the religious understanding of each other. Catechesis is not forced but is a calling of believers. Evangelism, on the other hand, targets non-believers to pull them into believing in the gospel. Evangelism does not have a specific location of happening and does not select the audience. Evangelism can still be targeted to believers to strengthen their faith. Religious education involves the spread of knowledge to religious pupils who have chosen to be taught. Religious education only involves what is already being believed in and does not involve evangelism or catechesis. Pupils are only taught what people believe in but are not forced to believe what other people believe.
Evangelization is the approach taken by believers to reach non-believers in an attempt to bring them into believing in the gospel. The world is composed of believers and non-believers. The responsibility of the believers is to bring the non-believers into believing in the gospel. Evangelization is believed to be the believers’ answer to Jesus’ call as seen in the sixteenth chapter of the gospel of Mark, which requires the believers to go out and preach the good news to all creation. The believers are further given the authority to baptize individuals who believe in the gospel. However, an allowance is given that believing should only be a free choice with the new believers getting saved, whereas those who fail to believe are subject to condemnation (Simonds. 2017, 100). However, evangelism has a unique feature in that evangelization is a continuous process and at no time is an individual considered to have obtained enough evangelism. A believer’s life is a changing process, and every believer spends their whole life trying to be better in terms of faith and the understanding of God. The primary responsibility of the church is to encourage people to repent their sins and choose life. The church is expected to put every necessary effort to try and ensure that at least everyone gets a hearing of the gospel. Also, the church is required to create an environment that encourages the conversion of the non-believers.
Catechesis is the basic nature that believers are expected to lead. The nature of a believer should reflect a life that should be admired by others. A catechesis is also a form of response to the call of the word as Paul wrote to the Corinthians about living the Christian life. In the fourth chapter of the epistle to Corinthians, Paul notes that Christians should only preach Jesus Christ and that temptations and persecutions should be met with strong faith so that victory can be achieved. As role models, believers are expected to be strong enough to overcome all the challenges that come due to the interaction with non-believers. Believers cannot expect to win more recruits into believing in the gospel without showing the ability to overcome tribulations and persecutions. Catechesis is always done for the community to have a deeper understanding of the gospel and the Christian life. Therefore, the main goal of catechesis is to develop the individual’s faith from the influence of other believers by strengthening and supporting each other through the sharing of experiences. Catechesis does not involve non-believers because the main goal is to improve the body of Christ so that the non-believers can be reached effectively through evangelization. Generally, catechesis is the general sharing of ideas believers help each other to grow in faith.
Religious education is the process of helping pupils to gain knowledge on issues of religion. The idea behind religion is freedom and preservation of dignity by the pupils (Purnell, 75). The procedure of religious education involves helping pupils to understand and make sense of what other people think concerning religion. Religious education has to achieve all the goals of education and therefore, differs from evangelism and catechesis. The reason why religious education is concerned with helping pupils to understand the world believes that education is based on meaning. Education on its basic goals helps individuals to make sense of the world within which they exist. The curiosity of humanity gives rise to questions such as the origin of man, the reason why man exists, as well as the future of man. However, religious education is not tasked with answering the questions that humans keep on asking. Instead, religious education helps learners to understand the reason of living and the fact that the idea of living is based on the attempt to answer the questions that trouble the human mind throughout their life on earth. Religious education brings together the answers that several people have gathered concerning the questions about life and the methods used to find the answers. Therefore, religious education does not serve as an avenue for forcing pupils into accepting a certain belief but rather making the pupils understand the world in which they live.
Evangelization and catechesis are different activities aimed at different target groups. Evangelization aims to win non-believers to the truth while catechesis is the growth of the believers among themselves to deepen the community’s knowledge about God’s word. The target population of evangelization is comprised of non-believers who are hooked on material possession and have little or no sense concerning the purpose of leaving. Evangelization, therefore, attempts to bring back on track the individuals who are defined as the lost flock and creating sense in them concerning grace and love. The success of evangelization is measured according to the number of new believers who join the Christian family and commit themselves to stay within the religion. Catechesis, on the other side, targets the already committed believers. Catechesis cannot be shared with non-believers who do not yet have faith. The idea behind catechesis is to build a network of assistance among believers to support each other on issues concerning faith and personal development. Catechesis does not involve winning new souls into the faith as that would entail evangelization. The Bible requires that believers should be committed to preaching about Jesus Christ and that temptation and tribulations do not destroy believers with strong faith.
Religious education is different from evangelization. Although evangelization can result from religious education, just like religious education can result from evangelization, the two activities are entirely different (Galligan-Stierle, 2014). Individuals might decide to acquire religious education to get a better understanding that might help the individuals during evangelization. Also, evangelization might bring out questions that might need religious education to provide answers. Therefore, evangelization and religious education are interdependent. However, confusion between the two activities could have significant impacts on learners and evangelists. For example, pupils and a religious education program are only interested in getting knowledge and not being made to believe in the religion being taught. Introducing evangelization in a class where religious education should be taking place has a risk of turning away pupils. Evangelism should, therefore, not be done when religious education is being taught. However, religious education could play a crucial role in supporting evangelism. Individuals who learn about the beliefs of a certain religion could become interested in the religion and evangelization could come in to take advantage of recruits. Therefore, confusion should be avoided at all means where religious education and evangelization appear, and each activity should be valued equally.
Catechesis is a life-long process and at no point can an individual say that they have completed catechesis. Similarly, education is a process, and learning does not end. However, religious education is divided into levels, which can be completed. Religious education has nothing to do with the belief held by the pupil, and the only consideration is where the pupil understands the concepts being taught (Sullivan, Murphy and Fincham, 2015, 1998). Catechesis, on the other hand, requires that an individual should be a committed believer before being associated with catechesis. The goal of education is to bring out individuals who have a better understanding of the religion, whereas catechesis aims at creating stronger believers by helping to strengthen their faith. The setting of a school does not fit the right avenue for catechesis. The classes are comprised of pupils from different religions. Therefore, catechesis cannot be taken during the normal religious education classes. However, schools may allocate a special location where children will feel free to express their faith and beliefs.
In sum, catechesis happens between believers who are aiming to improve the religious understanding and the faith of each other. Catechesis is not forced but is a calling of believers. Evangelism, on the other hand, targets non-believers to pull them into believing in the gospel. Evangelism does not have a specific location of happening and does not select the audience. Evangelism can still be targeted to believers to strengthen their faith. Religious education involves the spread of knowledge to religious pupils who have chosen to be taught. Evangelism, catechesis, and religious education, however, have similar goals of ensuring that individuals get a better understanding of their faith.
List of References
Galligan-Stierle, M., 2014. Educating today and tomorrow: A renewing passion.
Pastoral letter from Bishops’ Conference of England & Wales on Catholic schools (May 2000)
Pithy Purnell. Our Faith Story:Chelmsford: Harper Collins 1995
Simonds, S.J., Thomas, A., Brock, B.L., Cook, T.J. and Engel, M., 2017. Seminarian Perspectives on Catholic Schools and the New Evangelization. Journal of Catholic Education, 20(2), pp.98-108.
Sullivan, J., Murphy, A. and Fincham, D., 2015. The story of an educational innovation: the MA in Catholic School Leadership at St Mary’s University College, Twickenham, 1997–2013. Principles, pedagogy and research studies. International Studies in Catholic Education, 7(1), pp.28-45.