Does faith come in stages?
There are a number of reasons why we often feel nosotros desire to nowadays the Christian organized religion to dissimilar groups of people in different ways, either expressing ideas by different means or addressing quite unlike issues.
The near obvious context is that of working with children and young people. Immature people alive in a very different social context from many adults in the same congregation, and they might accept very different questions to engage with. For children, the issue is more fundamental. Depending on what age they are, they only see the earth and think about it in a very unlike way. This means that in well-nigh Christian work with children, both the agenda and the ways of communication are quite distinct from those that are deployed with adults.
There is also some other, broader, context for this question. Many people, particularly within the evangelical tradition, have come to faith in a context of smashing excitement and enthusiasm, where the claims of faith have been presented with a compelling certainty—even with a sense of simplicity. As they have grown older, they have realised that some things are a lot less unproblematic and certain than they had been led to believe! A context which focuses on decision and commitment is not always a context where questions can be asked and explored. This gives rise to a sense of dichotomy between initial commitment and further maturity—one that frequently leads people to move from 1 church to some other, or fifty-fifty i church tradition to some other.
A powerful answer to the such questions was provided past psychologist James Fowler. He identified half dozen (or 7) stages of religion development equally follows:
Stage 0: Primal or undifferentiated faith (birth to 2 years)
Stage 1: Intuitive-projective religion (from 3 to seven)
Phase 2: Mythic-literal faith (later chief, early secondary school)
Phase 3: Constructed-conventional faith (from early on adolescence to adulthood)
Stage 4: Individuative-cogitating faith (ordinarily mid-twenties to late thirties)
Phase 5: Conjunctive faith (mid-life crisis)
Stage half-dozen: Universalizing faith, what some might call a form of "enlightenment"
Fowler's piece of work has been very influential, and was followed upwards by extensive field research, mostly by others (not Fowler himself). Information technology would exist difficult to find a instruction course on working with children and faith that did non feature Fowler very prominently. As a issue of its widespread use, it has too been seen equally the basis for explaining differences among adults and not just differences between adults and children. So the person experiencing enthusiastic conversion who now has many questions might come across him- or herself equally having moved from Stage 3 (or fifty-fifty Phase ii) on to Stage 5 or 6. And in conjunction with this, different faith traditions have been identified with dissimilar stages. Perhaps the 'problem' with evangelicalism is that is it stuck in Stage 3, whereas liberal churches have matured to Stage six!
Fowler's framework has not been without its critics. From a purely psychological perspective it is seen equally being too concerned with cognition, and with being very context-dependent, located within a particular Western understanding of developmental psychology. But it has also been criticised in relation to its understanding of 'religion'. Fowler drew on theologians from a liberal and mail-liberal tradition such as Richard Niebuhr, Paul Tillich and Wilfred Cantwell Smith who saw faith as a universal homo impulse, of which Christian faith was merely i detail expression. It is inappreciably surprising, and then, that the 'universalising' approach is seen every bit the final and most 'mature' expression of organized religion. This highlights a broader weakness: although presented as 'objective' and related to human psychological development, the arroyo is not neutral with regard to the different theological traditions within Christianity.
In that location is a practical problem besides. Although the framework is very helpful when working with children of different ages who are already in the context of organized religion, in a post-Christendom context the chronology of organized religion discovery does not match Fowler's psychology of faith development. A member of our church building came to faith in her 50s after her children had left abode, and describes her encounter with God in terms of a lost kid suddenly finding a parent again. Yet she herself is a psychiatrist with a responsible and challenging chore! I recently preached on how piece of cake it is to settle downwardly, await back on the 'heyday' of early on faith, and at present just coast along at the same level, equally if nothing more was going to change. Every bit many immature people (including university students) responded to this as older people who had been Christians for many years. The questions and challenges we face are perhaps not so dissimilar—nor delineated by age—as Fowler would have u.s.a. believe. Whenever I accept spoken in an all-age context (and I mean 'all age', not just for children) I am struck by how many older men are engaged in what is happening. A concrete, kinaesthetic approach to education and learning, used for the sake of children, suits them much more the verbal, passive approach of much traditional preaching which is supposedly geared to adults.
The New Attestation appears to back up this observation. At that place are some passages which propose a differentiated approach to understanding faith, such as 1 Cor 3.two 'I gave you milk, not solid food, since yous were not withal set up for it' and its parallel in Heb 5.12 'you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of God's give-and-take all over over again. You need milk, not solid nutrient!' It is also notable that Jesus at times differentiates the style and content of his teaching to 'outsiders' and to his inner circle (Mark four.12). But many other examples suggest something much more varied. In one-time age, Anna and Simeon have a confident expectation of God at piece of work coming together their longing for Israel's deliverance in Luke 2.25–38. They announced to be at Stage 2 all the same into their 80s! On the other hand, the 'rich young ruler' seems to take got tired with the certainties of religious legalism, and for one reason or some other has a good few Phase five questions to inquire (Matt 19.twenty). By contrast, fifty-fifty when the Twelve have been with Jesus for a good while, they are slow to grasp or understand him, and demand repeated, unproblematic illustrations of his bulletin (Mark 8.17–19).
The virtually striking case undermining the notion of linear progression in faith development comes from Jesus' education about the kingdom of God:
Truly I tell you, unless you alter and go like lilliputian children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. (Matt 18.three)
It is from this verse that nosotros get the idea of 'conversion'; in the Authorized Version of 1611 it read 'Unless ye exist converted…' Yet Jesus is clear that being child-similar—having no legal condition, beingness the about lowly, having a sense of dependence on others—is non merely the qualification for entry into the kingdom, but likewise the marking of 'greatness.' It appears as though, no affair how sophisticated our religion, no thing how mature our understanding, we cannot move across the phase of being a trusting kid.
To reconcile the ideas of questioning and of trust, we might plow to the French philosopher Paul Ricoeur. In the course of considering how it is that human beings make sense of themselves in the world, Ricoeur introduces the ideas of pre-critical and post-critical naïveté. Pre-critical naïveté represents the kind of faith in Fowler's early stages—the kind of enthusiastic, straightforward trust that is the mark non just of children but also of the newly converted. Disquisitional questions are needed—but on their own they can simply undermine faith, and create a desert where nothing can live. Criticism destroys what is simulated, the 'idols' of human being imagination, simply it cannot give life to the true symbols that nosotros need to make sense of existence. Having asked hard questions, we still need to brand a 'wager of religion' on what is true. 'Beyond the desert of criticism, we wish to be called again' says Ricoeur. This suggests that moving beyond Fowler'southward Stages three and four need non accept us to his Stages five and 6, but might instead have u.s. to a different version of earlier stages—a class of naïve trust, just 1 which has been honed past questioning and critical-reflective thinking.
This has some of import implications for ministry in the local church. It ways that we should avoid contrasting the idea of trusting in God and making a commitment with the idea of questioning God and seeking maturity. It means that, in 'evangelistic' contexts nosotros need to acknowledge that in that location are difficult questions, and in contexts where we are exploring those questions we demand to acknowledge that in that location is still a need for determination. Conversion and delivery therefore mean making a conclusion to embark on a journey of discovery, and not merely to change from one static position (unbeliever) to another (saved). Churches which are effective evangelistically should also be churches promoting maturity in discipleship.
In preaching, we need to consider the needs of the whole range of listeners, from outset-time enquirers to those who have been disciples for many years. Fifty-fifty though I accept a PhD in biblical interpretation and publish academically, role of my Rule of Life is to be involved in something evangelistic, which this year includes speaking on our church building'due south Alpha course on whether we tin trust the Bible. And, if we are going to take Jesus' command to 'change' seriously, nosotros might expect that God will say some of the near profound and challenging things to us in the context of all-age worship which is accessible to children.
(This piece will appear in the next edition of Resources mag, produced by ReSource, the successor to Anglican Renewal Ministries.)
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