Stages of Faith

Upon doing research this week I discovered something that re-integrated me into a further journey of understanding myself and others.
Some people have been asking what I am learning as of lately. One of the key things that I have stumbled upon again is Faith development Stages. Perhaps some view the idea that faith development be marked out into sets of stages as problematic. Your concerns are heard and shared readily. Although I would ask a simple--keep open to scholarly work that can explain others around us. Who knows you may learn something.

James Fowler has developed a continuum of the seven stages of faith.
It should be noted that an individual is never fully at one stage or another, but it is more a continuum which we humans move back and forth on. It also is not intended to be a hierarchy, each stage is still a representation of faith, and there is not one greater or lesser. We are all “faithing” individuals who must have meaning in order to survive.
IT should also be noted, that individuals facing a transition from stage to stage is a breaking experience. Breaking isn’t even the right word, shattering of worldview. It is also an incredibly dark and anomic time for the individual. It is the dark night of the soul, and in some ways we should be cautious about wishing someone transfer between stages.
(For those that are interested in finding out who James Fowler is: He is a Professor Theology and Human Development at Candler School of Theology, Emory University)

Let us go over the stages briefly (o.k, maybe not so briefly but I will try).
Stage 1: Intuitive-Projective Faith: This is fantasy-filled imitative phase in which the individual (usually children at this point) can be powerfully and permanently influenced by examples, moods actions and stories of the visible faith of related adults.
The main factor in transition to the next stage is the emergence of concrete operation thinking.

Stage 2: Mythic-Literal Faith: Is the stage in which the person begins to take on for him or herself the stories, beliefs and observances that symbolize belonging to his or her community. Beliefs are appropriated with literal interpretations, as moral rules and attitudes. Symbols are taken as one-dimensional and literal in meaning.
The factors initiating transition into Stage 3 are the implicit clashes or contradictions in stories that lead to reflection on meanings. New cognitive conceit leads to disillusionments with previous teachers and teachings. Conflicts between authoritative stories must be faced. The emergence of mutual interpersonal perspective taking (“I see you seeing me; I see me as you see me; I see you seeing me seeing you) creates the need for a more personal relationship with the unifying power of the ultimate environment.

Stage 3: Synthetic-Conventional faith: Person’s experience of the world extends beyond the family. Faith must provide a coherent orientation in the midst of the more complex and diverse range of involvements. Faith must synthesize values and information; it must provide a basis for identity and outlook.
It is a conformist stage in the sense that it is acutely tuned to the expectations and judgments of significant others and as yet does not have a sure enough grasp on its own identity and autonomous judgment to construct and maintain an independent perspective. There has not been occasion to step outside them to reflect on or examine them explicitly or systematically. A stage 3 person has an “ideology” a more or less consistent clustering of values and beliefs, but they are unaware of the fact that they have it.
A breakdown of Stage 3 include the following: Serious clashes or contradictions between valued authority sources; marked changes by officially sanctioned leaders or policies or practices previously deemed sacred and unbreakable. Frequently the experience of “leaving home” emotionally or physically or both-precipitates the kind of examination of self, background, and life guiding values that gives rise to stage transition at this point.

Stage 4 Individuative Reflective faith: This is when the adult begins to take seriously the burden of responsibility for his or her own commitments, lifestyle, beliefs and attitudes. The person at stage 4 must face certain unavoidable tensions, individuality versus being defined by group or group membership; subjectivity and the power of one’s strongly felt but unexamined feelings versus objectivity and the requirement of critical reflection; self fulfillment or self actualization as a primary concern versus service to and being for others; the question of being committed to the relative versus struggle with the possibility of an absolute.
A break down in stage 4 comes when the person is ready for transition, or find themselves listening to what one may define as anarchic and disturbing inner voices. Elements from a childish past, images and energies from a deeper self, a gnawing sense of the sterility and flatness of the meanings one serves any or all of these may signal readiness for something new. Stories, symbols, myths and paradoxes from one’s own or other traditions may insist on breaking in upon the neatness of the previous faith. A realization that life is far more complex then previously considered pushes the individual into a stage 5.

Stage 5 Conjunctive faith: involves the integration of self and outlook of much that was suppressed or unrecognized in the interest of Stage 4. This stage develops a healthy outlook on the meta-narratives of all “other” created beings. Instead of reading and analyzing the symbols, metaphors, and narratives, they learn to submit to the “reading” and illumination of their situations that these and other elements of traditions can offer. A conjunctive stage manifest a readiness to enter into the rich dwellings of meaning the true symbols, ritual, and myth offer. AS a correlate of these qualities, this stage exhibits a principles openness to the truths of other religious and faith traditions.
Transition to the Conjunctive stage involves the embrace of what Carlyle Marney once called a necessary “ego leak”. It requires nurturing methods of meditation and therapy. There must be a context of love and grace that makes it safe to bring the deepest insults of body and soul from previous experience into the sunlight of a presence that can dissolve the strain of bypassed shame, even as it is being named, raged over, and grieved. In order for this to take place there must be a spirit of love and acceptance, of healing and forgiveness, beyond the powers of humans alone.
The last stage is entitles the Universalizing stage (which we don’t have time to go into, but it is Jesus, Mother Teresa, Ghandi).

I don’t think it is helpful to try and pin stages on people, so I will a rough idea of where I am: sometimes stage 5, sometimes stage 4, sometimes in-between. This explains a lot about my journey of being at Providence. My Sociology professor explained to all of us, that the mere journey of education at a university level, by sheer intellectual content pushes students into a stage 5. This is problematic for a few reasons. Much of the church that functions at the Evangelical level (I am not trying to pick on Evangelicals but merely draw out why we may see a decline in college age students in church), function at a stage three level (synthetic conventional faith level). This is not a bad thing by any means, nor does it negate the fact that there is truth within those churches, and I have no doubt that God uses them. But for a stage 4, or even 5 faith level it is extremely difficult to enter back into such levels of faith. Stage 5 especially finds stage 3 abrasive in their techniques (assuming they have all the answers to truth) and not welcoming for their some what needed expressions of paradox and a longing for truth outside of conventional ways (where as stage three is predominately conventional). This is also why we see a decrease in chapel attendance at Providence College. The chapel also caters to a stage three faith (again noting the fact that many students are entering a stage 5).

The point of all of this is to understand that everyone is at a different place and to include room for existence. Stage 3 can often get offended and somewhat impulsive in light of paradox and even contradiction, but I would encourage stage 3’ers to remain open, and perhaps to see the world through new eyes. As far as Stage 4-5 goes, it is important to remember that you must enter into dialogue and participate in things that maybe you disagree with. Stage 5 by nature pushes individuals into an anomic state of passivity, not wanting to act in any way because there are simply too many contradictions, and what is truth anyways? Don’t become stagnate. Remain open to dialogue. Also stage 4 remember that just because a symbol has lost all meaning for you, doesn’t necessarily mean it has lost meaning for everyone else. Let us have grace for each other to exist and move and have our being, as we pursue God through faith.