Stages of Faith

The Rev. John Scott Millspaugh

A parishioner said to me this past week, “You know, my husband and I sometimes find your style of speaking to be more like a college lecture than what we’re used to thinking of as a sermon. And … we like it that way!”  Well, for all of you who feel similarly, this one is for you.

Sermon
We gather this morning to explore our faiths. Faith is one of those words that “tends to be difficult for people. For some, it is one of those church-y, off-putting words that make them squirm. It reminds them of their own difficult childhood religion and tends to shut the discussion down rather than open it up. Faith is one of those words that gets tossed around freely by people and everyone thinks they know what's being talked about. ”[1]  But when you get right down to it, what does it mean?  It means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.

James Luther Adams, the preeminent Unitarian Universalist theologian of the last century, wrote of faith: “To many people the word signifies the acceptance of something that puts a strain on intelligence. Accordingly, faith is to them a belief in what is not true or in what is by nature not fact but wish.”

Adams continues: “To others the word faith signifies the acceptance of some belief simply because a church, a tradition, a state, a party demands it.
They may recall that St. Ignatius of Loyola once said, ‘We should always be disposed to believe that that which appears to us to be white is really black, if the hierarchy of the Church so decides.’ [Faith so conceived is] a ‘dear deceit’ . . . which relieves one of the responsibility of thinking for oneself; it is therefore a positively dangerous thing, a form of bigotry that will brook no questioning or criticism”[2] Yet James Luther Adams wrote that indictment in his own book entitled, “A Faith for the Free.”  So in the passage I just read Adams was criticizing not faith per se, but the limited thinking that
misunderstands the nature of faith and leads us to reject it as a useful concept.

Faith, simply, has to do with the ultimate concern that gives meaning to one’s life.  According to Adams and most theologians, all of us are men and women of faith, whether or not we consider spirituality relevant to our lives. 
One’s ultimate concern may be one's religion, but it could also be one's family, nation, profession, ideology, or a host of other concerns.[3]

As developmental psychologist James W. Fowler writes, prior to our being religious or irreligious...we are already engaged with issues of faith. 
“Human beings are genetically potentiated—that is, gifted at birth-- with readiness to develop faith.” [4] 

“Whether we become nonbelievers, agnostics or atheists, we are concerned with how to put our lives together and with what will make life worth living. Moreover we look for something to love that loves us, something to value that gives us value, something to honor and respect that has the power to sustain our being.”[5]

Faith comes from the Latin word "fides" which means trust.  Faith is a kind of trust, having to do with which powers we fear and which we cling to, which goals, institutions, causes, and dreams we pour out our lives for, what receives our best time and energy, and how we find coherence and meaning in life.[6]

Faith is something that changes, that is ever growing or decreasing and rarely standing still.  In the past three decades most psychologists have come to accept that people move through stages of faith, stages that are remarkably consistent across religions and other ideological orientations. 

The most widely known theory of this sort of faith development was assembled by James Fowler, who I quoted above, who drew on the work of Jean Piaget in cognitive development, Lawrence Kohlberg in moral development, and Eric Erikson in psychological development.  After extensive research and interviews, Fowler posited that each person goes through six distinct and recognizable stages of faith development.

Before I explain these six stages, many of which you have already been through, I’d like to note that this is one model.  It’s a model that is based on 359 interviews of persons ranging from three years old to eighty-four;[7] it’s a model that has stood up surprisingly well during the thirty or so years it has been public; nonetheless, as a model, it is necessarily a flawed representation of reality.

It’s also important to note that the six stages only signify possibilities for one’s life, and it is not a bad thing to remain at a so-called lower stage for the entirety of one’s life.  As Fowler says, “Each stage has the potential for
wholeness, grace and integrity and for the strength sufficient for either life's blows or its blessings." [8]  Some adults find that the ways of seeing and being in the world at stage two or three meet their needs for a lifetime, while others find the boundaries of those earlier stages too confining and move on to the challenges and gifts of the next stage.

The third and final idea that is important to understand before we get to Fowler’s stages is that although he presents his six stages as linear, they are better thought of as a series of concentric circles. The linear scheme suggests that we go through one stage and are done with it, but that is not the idea. We go through a stage and go on, but we retain the previous stage in our repertoire. There are times when it is appropriate to fall back into a previous way of thinking and behaving.

Even though I may spend most of my time at, say, Stage 4, sometimes I need to be able to be at Stage 3 or Stage 2 to make sense of the world. [9]

So what are the six stages? 

“Everyone begins at stage one, which starts around age 2. Children at that stage are, as one psychologist phrased it, “uninhibited by logic.”  Faith in stages one, two, and three, is caught, taught, and bought, and in stage one, it is caught. Small children of Hindus are Hindus, of Muslims are Muslims,
and of Humanists are Humanists. Children internalize family taboos and prohibitions.  Parents are perceived as the ultimate authorities.  The child trusts that they know everything, and will provide everything the child needs.
The child’s image of the divine is anthropomorphic and parent-like:  God, like my parent, somehow knows everything I’m up to, watches out for me, protects me, and punishes me when I do wrong.

It’s also worth noting that children in this stage have vivid imaginations and excessive fear of large animals, monsters and death. Rather than shield children from such subjects, Fowler concurs with Bruno Bettelheim that
“stories, parables, fairy tales and myths can help young children externalize their fears [and solidify their values].” [10]

Stage one is an unreflective stage in which faith is “caught” from one’s family.  In stage two, faith is “taught.”  This stage begins somewhere between seven and twelve.  Children at this stage are able to “separate fact from fantasy, yet they are not yet ready to stand back and reflect on the meaning of events.” (does this need to attributed to a specific work?)  Thinking is more concrete, and sometimes children will ask for evidence for what they are being invited to believe.  Whether or not they believe a particular story, they understand stories literally, not symbolically. Thinking is black and white, as is morality—there are no gray areas.  Fowler writes that stage two people are “trapped and carried by” stories—stories provide a sustaining orientation even as they limit one’s perspective. 

You know, it’s these sorts of characteristics of the first two stages of faith
that makes our new religious education curriculum, CenterQuest, so effective.  CenterQuest is offered during the first service, and it’s open to children from 4-12.  Normally it would be difficult to find a
curriculum to engage a group of kids with that large of an age range, 4-12. 
But CenterQuest was built on an understanding of both developmental theory and the work of Carl Jung.  CenterQuest uses story to help kids explore values and meaning.  While listening to or watching the story, teachers ask the children the right kinds of questions to help them connect to the story
as appropriate to their stage of faith development.  It’s faith development in action.  Kids in stage one will find the mornings relevant to the tasks and orientations their faith stage, and kids in stage two and even stage three will do the same.

But I digress. I’m just excited about the addition of CenterQuest to our Religious Education Curricula.

The majority of the population finds their permanent home in Stage 3, which typically begins around age twelve.  In Stage Three, one forms an ideological orientation which synthesizes their earlier experiences and coheres with the belief system of their community.  One begins to understand that some other people in the world have radically different ideologies than one’s own, but one does not yet have a sure enough grasp on his or her own identity to construct and maintain an independent perspective.  So the individual takes identity from a group.  Stage Three is the predominant stage of teenagers, who are very concerned with which groups to identify with and which to reject.  Those who hold significantly different ideologies are perceived as “the other.” 

In Stage Three, one clings tightly to the symbols and meanings one has caught and been taught in earlier stages, and any attempts to demythologize religious or secular symbols are perceived as threatening.  This is the stage when faith is either rejected wholesale or “bought.”

As I have noted, the majority of the population finds its home in Stage Three.  Or you tell me—do you think there are a lot of people in this country and in this world who see things as black and white, right and wrong, like us and not like us?  It’s a perspective particularly common to fundamentalists of all kinds, regardless of their religious identity or lack thereof.

Those people who do make it to Stage Four usually do so in their early thirties and forties, although some do it as soon as their early twenties. 
In the beginning of Stage Four, the individual finds the struggle against doubt no longer possible.  The individual must detach from the defining groups, and must—perhaps for the first time—take personal responsibility for his or her beliefs and feelings.  One can no longer tolerate being a different person when he or she is with different groups, saying one thing with one group and another thing with another group. Fowler notes in passing that many people in UU congregations spend a lot their time in Stage 4.

In Stage Four, one finds authority in oneself more than in any group. One’s ideology, which once was mostly unquestioned, is now subjected to critical scrutiny.  Childhood values and authority are re-evaluated.  Symbols, stories, and meanings are demythologized in favor of more concrete concepts. 
Disillusionment can reign, as can overconfidence in our abilities to approach the world exclusively through our critical faculties like reason. 

“This stage is not a comfortable place to be, and although it to can last for a long time, those who stay in it do so in danger of eventually trusting in nothing and no one.  But most, after entering this stage, sense that not only is the world fare more complex than his or her stage three mentality would allow for, it is still more complex and numinous than the agnostic rationality of stage four allows.”[11]  They can feel stage five beckoning.

If they wish to move on to stage five, their internal challenge at this phase of their development is to shift their faith to an ultimate orientation that is concrete enough to grasp, transcendent enough to trust, and nuanced enough to survive their doubts.

Stage Five is no less rational than Stage Four. In stage five, one keeps one’s critical facilities intact, but realizes the limits of reason’s application.  One develops a comfort with paradox.  One can return to the symbols and stories
one may have rejected in stage four and acknowledge the reality that lays behind these inherited systems.

One sees the meaning behind the metaphors one had previously rejected, and is also drawn to the symbols and metaphors of other belief systems. 
One recognizes that all symbols and doctrines are incomplete, and is drawn to appropriate and reorganize them. At times, the mind struggles to assimilate and integrate the insights of other faith systems faster than it can work through its own cultural and psychological baggage.  Sound familiar?

People in Stage Five are less ego-driven than those in any other stage.  They think in terms of mutuality. Their view of justice goes beyond the vision of their own culture or people.   The world, which was de-mythologized at stage four, is perceived as sacred once again.  This stage is usually characterized by deep commitment to one spiritual and usually religious path, but also characterized by openness to the truths coming from other traditions as well.  In summary, those in Stage Five find paradox comforting and awe-inspiring.  They don’t need to be in control, or to have all the answers.  They have given up arrogance and discovered humility.  They struggle with, on the one hand, their need for self-preservation, and on the other hand, their longing to align themselves fully with the Ground of Being.    

 “And, of course, for the super-achievers among us, there is a final Stage Six
that Fowler describes as “Universalizing Faith” in which boundaries between religious traditions begin to fade and the integration of faith commitments
overcome the entire personality, overcoming not only tribalism but fear, even unto death.

Fowler describes it best when he writes: “Persons described by stage six typically exhibit qualities that shake our usual criteria of normalcy. Their heedlessness to self-preservation and the vividness of their taste and feel for
transcendent moral and religious actuality give their actions and words an extraordinary and often unpredictable quality.

“In their devotion to universalizing compassion they may offend our parochial perceptions of justice. In their penetration through the [usual human] obsession[s] with survival, security, and significance they threaten our measured standards of righteousness and goodness and prudence.
Their enlarged visions of universal community disclose the partialness of our tribes and pseudo-species."[12]

The greatness of their commitment and vision often coexists alongside great blind spots and limitations.  They remain human, yet they become transforming presences to those who encounter them.  There is a handout in your order of service to help you keep track of the six stages.  Remember that these faith stages are not confining boxes, but concentric circles. 
Each new stage includes the behaviors and attitudes of earlier stages.  None of us is consistent in responding to the world in one particular way.  In one situation, my response may be stage five and in another stage two.[13]  Each stage builds on the strengths of that which came before, and in some situations, we find our needs better met by the language and tools and understandings of an earlier stage.

We are all of us men and women of faith in this particularly welcoming faith community. “So the question is not so much, “do you want to have faith,”
but “Are you ready to move ahead in your faith life?” If so, you’re in the right place this morning, among people whose answer to that question is, “Yes.”
People who are on that journey, as they search for ways of developing a transcendent ultimate concern and responding to it with their own personal ministry. If you haven’t yet, but would like to, I’d invite you to take that journey seriously. There are many here, myself included, who are ready to walk with you along it.” [14] I wish you good companions for the journey.

Shalom, Salaam, Namaste, Blessed Be, and Amen.