The New City Catechism: 52 Questions and Answers for Our Hearts and Minds: THE GOSPEL (The Gospel Coalition)

Nice easy handbag or pocket size book about Gods 10 commandments, broken down with meanings

great book to help think about the "nuts and bolts" of christian faith.

Useful for answering basic questions

Although bits of the various historic confessions and catechisms have been cut and pasted and modernised, the 52 simple questions and answers leave much to be desired. You will probably only notice the difficulties with this catechism if you are familiar with more helpful (and orthodox) catechisms. A few examples of some difficulties with this [“New City”] catechism: Q1 "What is our only hope in life and death? That we belong to God": this is taken from Heidelberg and replaces their very helpful, "that we belong to Christ, our faithful Saviour". By comparison, this Q1 in this shortened form could be read as universalism - 'we all belong to God'. Christ and His saving work has been airbrushed out, which is not necessary given the number of words available to the author per question. Q2 "What is God" - we might have expected, "Who is God", because He is a person. Q6 "How can we glorify God?"? The answer in the Westminster Shorter Catechism is that we do so according to the Word of God, the Scriptures, the Bible. Here the Bible has been removed and replaced with 'love': "By loving Him and obeying His commands and law" – this is a pity. Q10 re Command 4. "That on the Sabbath day we spend time in worship of God". Orthodox catechisms point out that the w h o l e day is for God. For a modern and American audience, this fact has been removed. Q15 re "what is the purpose of the law" - regrettably (perhaps because of space) only one of the three classic purposes of God's law gets mentioned in the answer. Q16 "What is sin?" has been supplemented with Keller's personal theology, so Q17 adds "What is idolatry?" This reflects a significant shift in belief, from man's basic problem being sin alone, to his problem being sin+idolatry (I don't have space here to develop fully why that is so vital an error). You need to work through what Keller teaches about idolatry and sin. To give a very brief summary, he says, "behind every sin is an idol ... idols are usually wanting too much of something good (e.g. family, work, recreation)" - this argument can lead to a redefinition of sin: "it's just a bit too much of what God approves of anyway", which undermines the whole meaning of sin, and thus of the purpose of salvation and Christianity. Q18 puts sin and idolatry as a pair - you will not find this in any orthodox confession - it is 'in house' heterodoxy from Mr Keller's own mis-reading of Scripture, sadly. Q34 gives "love and gratitude" as the s o l e motivations for obedience. This is, I think, a common modern weakness. These two motivations are indeed two Biblical motivations for obedience, but Scripture reveals about another eight at least. This concentration on two-only is, I think, a weakness of the very early Heidelberg catechism, from which this idea may be taken. Overall, the word 'love' occurs six times, and 'repentance' does not get mentioned at all. For those who know nothing, they will learn something from these very basic statements. For those who have access to the Westminster Shorter Catechism or any orthodox Catechism, this will be a downward move. Catechising is something you will do well to ‘get into’. I am working through the 1689 confession with a group of teenagers on Sunday afternoons and we are learning so much, it is very special & a great joy. You would do better, I think to consider one of: For children aged 4-10: 9781857925708 "My First Book of Questions and Answers", Paperback – 20 Mar 2011, by Carine MacKenzie, published by Christian Focus ... or ... for adults ... 9781500862350 "Spurgeon's Catechism: With Scriptural Proofs" ... or ... 9781870855242"Baptist Confession of Faith 1689" … all of which reflect the Bible’s teaching more accurately. I hope you will gain as much from good catechisms as (not so very) many of us have. What a privilege it is to have good short and accurate summaries of what the Bible teaches us :)

This is a well put together resource. I didn't realize the benefit of the contemporary language until I compared some answers to the Heidelberg Catechism. This is much more accessible, yet still expresses the same truths. I also love the highlighted parts of the answers which provides a shorter response for young children. And free music of every question and answer is amazing! It is available for download at no cost on bandcamp, or check out youtube.

Had used new city catechism in app prior, book is pretty useful! Using in our family worship

This is a wonderful book, with clear and concise doctrinal statements. It is a great book for my wife and I to go through and we are ecstatic that it has now been translated into Japanese so that we can study in both languages. If you are raising a family with elementary school-aged children, I think this would be a fine catechism to do home Bible studies with.

I come from a non-catechizing background, so this is an area that is newer to me (less than 5 years). I have used a kids volume for the first 10 questions of the Westminster Catechism with my children in the past and rather than buy subsequent volumes, thought I might give this a try, as I trust content distributed by The Gospel Coalition. I have loved using it with my children after dinner a few nights per week. We focus on the question, answer, and the Bible verse provided with it. The content is challenging at times (for a 12, 10, and 8 year old) and often leads to deeper conversations. So even if it is a bit over their heads (at times), we can work to build a better foundation for essential church doctrine. I am grateful for this briefer catechism and appreciate the ability to grab it and lead my family in study with short notice. Highly recommended!

We are a homeschool family using the Classical method (lots of learning is done "by heart" in the Grammar phase) and this book fits in perfectly with our style of teaching and learning. We are accustomed to learning many subjects with a "prompt" question (i.e. Tell me about the Renaissance.) which this has - its the perfect format to add to our weekly memory work! For now, we'll be using the highlighted portions of the response answers. They are a bit shorter, but still packed with truth! In case you are wondering if you can still use this book if you are not part of a reformed tradition/church, yes you can. We are not part of a reformed tradition (we atttend an interdenominational Christian church) and the only answer I am changing slightly is to question #27 dealing with election - "Are all people, just as they were lost through Adam, saved through Christ?" Simple enough! You can also download an app that has the same info for use in quizzing/memorizing, and you can set it to "child mode" which has the shorter answers if desired. I really love this book and would highly recommend it to anyone!