When my revision of the Catechism of the Free Methodist Church was published in 2006 as Classic Catechism, I had hopes that it would be put to good use in America. To date, it has been used in America – a bit. But what I did not expect was interest in it overseas. Apparently, the question and answer format is still one of the preferred teaching styles abroad. Also a basic, cheap doctrinal resource is needed in places where a pastor may not own any theological books besides a Bible. It is very popular in India (in English) and has been translated into Chin, a language of Myanmar, and recently into Chinese. I have just received word that there are plans to see it translated into Bengali. My hope is to see it in Spanish in the near future as well.
Revising the old catechism was a labor of love to provide a basic doctrinal teaching tool for teaching my daughter. The revision of questions was extensive as the phrasing, vocabulary, etc. had to be brought from the 1902 way of speaking to present-day usage. Plus I added about 30 new questions to fill in gaps and to better sync it with our Articles of Religion.
If you are interested in reviewing a list of changes I made to the original catechism, read Microsoft Word – Changes List for published catechism. If you want to read a document from a workshop on the Classic Catechism I did at the 2007 General Conference, see (Microsoft Word – Teaching the Classic Catechism – General Conference 20.)
The Classic Catechism may be ordered from Amazon and from Wesleyan Publishing House.
This post was written by Russ Veldman. For the original post, go to: http://fasteruntothee.wordpress.com/2014/09/03/classic-catechism-possibly-in-third-translation/
