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.

Nineteenth-century liberalism within the Church of England together with the opposition of Anglo-Catholic and Evangelical wings of the church created a confusing and volatile religious environment for many of its adherents. In the twentieth-century English modernism, adding scientific naturalism to the mix, rejected Christian creedal assertions which were seen as mere dogmatism. As the century progressed many Anglican scholar-clerics began the struggle to find a theological via media which accepted liberalism’s use of the historico-critical approach to the Bible but not the rejection of Anglican creedal affirmations. Alan Richardson was one of these and this article will examine his neo-orthodox development of a faith principal which rejected the modernist dichotomy between theology, science and history that he believed was undermining public faith.