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Cette analyse historique du Catéchisme d’Ostervald permet de mieux comprendre l’évolution de la catéchèse protestante au commencement des Lumières. La réflexion d’Ostervald est resituée dans l’évolution de la réflexion protestante sur le lien entre morale et doctrine de la justification de la foi. Il jugeait les manuels en usage trop vagues sur l’enseignement de l’éthique chrétienne. Il fallait aller vers une pratique plus stricte de la religion, donc vers un nouveau catéchisme. La résistance au Catéchisme d’Ostervald a été révélatrice des changements qui s’opéraient alors et de la crainte de voir le Catéchisme de Heidelberg ne plus jouer son rôle de confession de foi normative. Un véritable changement de paradigme était en train de s’opérer au sein de la catéchèse réformée.

Pierre-Olivier Léchot, in this historical analysis of the Catechism of Ostervald, helps the reader better understand the evolution of the Protestant catechism at the beginning of the Age of Enlightenment. After recalling the Protestant catechism and pedagogy of the 16th and 17th centuries, the author goes on to analyse the development of Protestant thinking about the link between morality and the doctrine of justification by faith. That is where Ostervald’s reflection is situated. For him, the handbooks in use at the time were too vague about the teaching of Christian ethics. It was necessary to move toward a Protestant catechesis that leads Christians to a stricter practice of religion, and hence toward a new catechism. The author explains that resistance to Ostervald’s Catechism was revelatory of the changes that had been taking place at the time, and of the fear that the Heidelberg Catechism may lose its position as the normative confession of faith. Analysing in detail the way in which this new catechism effectively broke with Protestant theology, Léchot shows that a paradigm shift was then under way within Reformed catechesis. Finally, he asks whether Ostervald’s insistence on the necessity of “good works”, to the detriment of the inner life, did not in turn contribute to shaping the image we have of Calvinists as paragons of virtue. This image should therefore not be traced back exclusively to Calvin himself.