Are Catechisms useful?

I guess when I think "Statement of Faith" I think of a document that tells me what a body believes. But I don't think that it is something that I should learn. I think of a catechism as the teaching that would arrive at a statement of faith.

But baptists (at least recently) have stayed away from Catechism (the baptist catechism is a few hundred years old though.) Perhaps because of the more fundamentalist view that if the RCC does it it must be wrong. A view that I've been all to guilty of at various times in my life.

 

Maybe. But, I don't think fundamentalism or anti-RCC sentiment has anything to do with the prevalence of statements of faith over catechisms. Baptists have traditionally found common expression of beliefs through confessions the London Confession of Faith and the New Hampshire confession. The anabaptists also shared this characteristic and may have been influential in this. I believe modern statements of faith and consitutions are a product of that heritage. However, the London Baptist confession was primarily influenced by the Westminister confession of the Presbyterians who also had Catechisms. Somehow catechisms never caught on with baptists though.