Thread: Purgatory: Stages of Faith Board: Limbo / Ship of Fools.


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Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
In a recent Hell thread Ken made an amusing diatribe against Myers Briggs and,for good measure, included Fowler's Stages of Faith in his rant.

Stages of Faith is a theoretical framework used in my chaplaincy course.

What do people think about it?
Is there a better framework?
Is the paradigm OK or not?

[ 05. January 2015, 01:41: Message edited by: Kelly Alves ]
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
I think it is sound. I have studied it twice. Once when training to teach Religious Education to secondary school children. Then again when training to be a spiritual director.

I predict that this thread will attract a lot of conservatives who will trash Fowler because he seemed to exalt the liberal over the fundamentalist, the inclusivist over the exclusivist.

They have a vested interest in so doing since Fowler puts them at a lower developmental stage.
 
Posted by tomsk (# 15370) on :
 
I read an alternative in a Rob Parsons book (not sure if he came up with it). It's more simply structured and is still related, in the early stages at least, to development.

Experienced faith (believing what your parents do)
Affiliative faith (from a peer group)
Searching faith
Owned faith
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
Nothing beyond that? No shaking of the foundations?
 
Posted by Avila (# 15541) on :
 
Nicola Slee in Women's Faith Development looked at a less linear approach.

When I first came across Fowler I was very defensive, but at that point people were using it as a stick to beat me with.

Now years later coming back to the original text as part of further study I recognise that Fowler doesn't use his descriptions as a level that needs to be worked through like some kind of exam achievement but more a statement of where things are there and then - like our height perhaps. The aim according to him is to be fully who we are whatever stage we are in.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
True, but there still is a not-so-subtle implication that you are meant to "progress" to the higher stages, and that the higher stages represent "maturity". The other thing that might annoy, say, a stage-3-er would be that the highest stage ("most mature") sounds a lot like Fowler himself.

That being said, it still seems more or less sound. The problems with it are, as the OP suggests, pretty much the same as those w/ Myers Briggs-- overuse, seeing it as a sort of Holy Grail, misapplying it beyond it's scope/intention, using it to rigidly.
 
Posted by Mudfrog (# 8116) on :
 
I quite like it. It fits with my need to have stuff in boxes.

I think it teaches an excellent and very important lesson for churches - we need peer groups for our young people!

I like the way Fowler shows 'how' we believe regardless of 'what' we believe.
There are many who come through the stages who have come to believe very strongly b y conviction those things they once held because of the group.

There is no need to assume that the 'higher up' you go the less conservative you will be. If your conservatism is a well-thought out thing, then it is just as valid as the beliefs held more loosely by others at the same stagte.

[ 11. July 2011, 20:58: Message edited by: Mudfrog ]
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Here is my take on it. I have spent years (over a decade) cycling back and forwards over this one. To my knowledge nobody has done anything like the ground work that Fowler has done and yes I have read a fair number of his critics. I would want to question some of his basic assumptions, I would suggest rather than faith stages, these are faith skills that we can use and develop. It may well be that certain skills can only be learnt by people who have a certain level of maturity, but it does not follow that people cannot still use and develop further skills that could have been learnt earlier. Entering stage III does not mean abandoning stage II.

Jengie
 
Posted by Angel Wrestler (# 13673) on :
 
Two stages, according to some - be raised in the faith. Own it. The end.

Some like boxes, others don't. I'm in-between. Definitions and categories like this can be useful if their drawbacks are also considered. Those drawbacks are that not everyone fits into nice, neat little boxes, and there will be periods of transition where one is moving from one to another box.

It also implies a strictly linear approach: finish this stage, enter the next, and then the one after that. The issue of backsliding aside, there are times when we, on having "matured" (note the quotation marks), revisit the faith with which we were brought up and look at it with new insight and value it.

[ 11. July 2011, 21:20: Message edited by: Angel Wrestler ]
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
I hadn't read this before. I don't need to read this ever again. Fowler should have called his stages:

1. Childish faith.
2+3. Healthy faith.
4. Sick faith.
5. Dying faith.
6. Zombie faith.

The main lessons one can draw is to fight proactively the first symptoms of the illness listed as stage 4, and to avoid at all costs those Zombie faithful of stage 6. They eat brains, and more importantly, hearts.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
What bugs me is that this system seems tailored to those born into a religion--which leaves me and many others out in the cold.

Basically I would have skipped stages 1 and 2, gone straight to 4 but in the form of a conversion experience, wound up in an orthodox position that could be taken to resemble 3 (except it came after struggle), and also to bear some minor resemblance to 5. I'm not sure what 6 is all about, looks to me like "transcend orthodoxy" which I take to be impossible by definition (yes, I know large chunks of the Ship disagree with me).

But AFAIK my experience is fairly common. Which means that his stages don't work for a large bit of the population. I'd suggest he downgrade his system to "a pattern I have noticed in some people".
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
Thank-you for your responses so far.

From my software modeling days I bring with me
quote:
Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.

* Box, George E. P.; Norman R. Draper (1987). Empirical Model-Building and Response Surfaces. Wiley. pp. 688, p. 424. ISBN 0471810339.
I apply this to all models, including Fowler's and the Trinity.

Have to go out just now but will post more when I get back this pm.
 
Posted by cliffdweller (# 13338) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:

But AFAIK my experience is fairly common. Which means that his stages don't work for a large bit of the population. I'd suggest he downgrade his system to "a pattern I have noticed in some people".
Yes. Or, rather than using "stages"-- which, no matter how much he protests, is going to sound like a hierarchical progression ("oh, you're only at stage 4? *I'm* stage 6...") calling them faith "styles" might be more accurate, as well as allow room for adding additional "styles" Fowler didn't recognize in his work.
 
Posted by Lucia (# 15201) on :
 
I found this helpful Stages of Faith: A Map for the Spiritual Journey

It's also based on a stages of faith idea but I don't know how or if it matches up with Fowlers. It's based on a book "The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith" by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich. I'd like to read the book but I don't think it's available in my country. [Frown] However I can certainly identify up to stage 4 where I'm probably wandering around at the moment...
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I predict that this thread will attract a lot of conservatives who will trash Fowler because he seemed to exalt the liberal over the fundamentalist, the inclusivist over the exclusivist.

They have a vested interest in so doing since Fowler puts them at a lower developmental stage.
That's the problem with Fowler. You would think that a child growing up in a liberal church would have to progress through Stage 3. Every year the new Youth Group would invent the Doctrinal Basis for themselves and demand that all new members of Sunday school sign up. But no. Somehow teenagers who go to liberal churches do not generally go through an exclusivist fundamentalist stage, but inherit the liberal religion of their church community.

If leo really believed in Fowler he would be helping Sunday school transition into Youth group by making them all sign up to the Doctrinal Basis and forcing them to sing There is a Green Hill Far Away, so as to help the transition from Stage Two to Stage Three. I don't think leo does that. The fact is that a lot of people only use Fowler to show that the Other Lot are at a lower developmental stage than they are. Where the theory would imply that they should help people become like the Other Lot, they quietly ignore it.

There's a further risk. Liberals who get themselves hooked on Fowler think that they've advanced to Stage 4 solely by virtue of being a liberal. So they can blind themselves to their own reliance on groupthink and approved opinion, and their inability to appreciate other points of view. Clearly those are traits of Stage 3, and those nasty evangelicals are Stage 3, so they can't possibly be exhibiting those traits.

You don't get people like leo saying that they're Stage 3, and happy to acknowledge it. Even though saying something like 'Fowler puts conservatives at a lower developmental stage' exhibits all the traits attributed to Stage 3.
 
Posted by tomsk (# 15370) on :
 
Rob Parsons says something similar. Small children who are taught, say, that God is watching them and is angry when they step out of line maintain that conception of God in later life. Early influences are v. important. Of course, as Lamb C points out, many miss out on these early stages of faith altogether.

Linear views can be risky, 'cos you can see it as a journey with you having 'made it', same way as westerners see themselves as developed and others backward.
 
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 
quote:
All models are wrong but some are useful.
Models like this are derived from research/experience and - yes - they can be useful in interpreting situations.

Too often situations are forced into the framework of a model, and then more damage is caused than the model is worth.

Keep the model in the book: don't let it out of the house...
 
Posted by South Coast Kevin (# 16130) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lucia:
I found this helpful Stages of Faith: A Map for the Spiritual Journey

It's also based on a stages of faith idea but I don't know how or if it matches up with Fowlers. It's based on a book "The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith" by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich.
I read bits of that book for an essay I've just written. There were certainly parallels with Fowler's model although Hagberg and Guelich added some detail about the transition from stages 4 to 5 (IIRC) in their model. They call this transition the 'Wall' and, for them, it's a key experience that you have to go through in order to reach a certain level of spiritual maturity. Again, IIRC - I only dipped in to the book and it was several weeks ago now!

I like M. Scott Peck's model of faith development, partly because it's simple! His model just has four stages and is explained in his book Further Along the Road Less Travelled. And here is my tuppence-worth.
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
I hadn't read this before. I don't need to read this ever again. Fowler should have called his stages:

1. Childish faith.
2+3. Healthy faith.
4. Sick faith.
5. Dying faith.
6. Zombie faith.

The main lessons one can draw is to fight proactively the first symptoms of the illness listed as stage 4, and to avoid at all costs those Zombie faithful of stage 6. They eat brains, and more importantly, hearts.
The snag is that you are then calling Mother Theresa's faith zombie faith, because six is based on people like her.

This is also why I reject stage six as a definite stage, it is built around people who liberal Christianity see as "Saints", it is not well researched like the other stages and I suspect built mainly on guess work.

The other stages are built on thousands of interviews, these are interviews with people of all religions and none. Stages 1 and 2 seemed to exist even for those in none religious settings. This structure is supposed to be totally outside of creedal belief.

Jengie
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
All models are wrong but some are useful.
Models like this are derived from research/experience
No, it wasn't. There is no real research involved at all. Made up out of wholecloth to suit the inventors intentions. Intellectually without foundation.

Like all pseudo-science and pop-psychology its at heart a deeply conservative project, because it is all about preserving the power of a self-appointed elite. A pernicious piece of social control. Secularised priestcraft.
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
Ken

Fowler's was based on thousands of indepth interviews, I think the database is still growing. Most of the rest are not similarly researched.

Jengie
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
The snag is that you are then calling Mother Theresa's faith zombie faith, because six is based on people like her.
Not in the least. This merely tries to co-opt saints like her in order to justify a perfidious progression to just believing whatever the hell you please with fruits that this will never produce. Mother Theresa was firmly Roman Catholic, hence remained firmly "stuck" in phases 2&3, as every healthy believer would. The idea that this somehow would limit her doing good to non-RCs is just plain bollocks.

quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
The other stages are built on thousands of interviews, these are interviews with people of all religions and none. Stages 1 and 2 seemed to exist even for those in none religious settings. This structure is supposed to be totally outside of creedal belief.
Yeah, right. [Roll Eyes] Ask the right questions, and you get the answers that you want, or rather, you get answers that you can interpret toward the answers that you want. It's the oldest game in soft science town...
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
I have heard Fowler's stages used to criticise those who attend and enjoy traditional CofE church services. The assumption was that they haven't moved out of stage 1. Evidence that many people have moved through the stages and have decided as mature adults that the faith they grew up in is the right one for them, years later, is ignored. It can therefore lead to people judging and coming to mistaken conclusions; also feeling self-satisfied about their own journey, which is superior.

I don't doubt that the model has some use, especially in clergy training courses, but it has to be used with discernment, not as a weapon.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
I have a vague remembrance of some other person's "stages of faith,' which put mystical experience as the last and final stage and added "hardly anyone reaches this" (which I think just plain wrong, esp. after being on the Ship). Can anyone tell me whom I'm thinking of? It's bugging me.

[ 12. July 2011, 11:31: Message edited by: Lamb Chopped ]
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ken:

Like all pseudo-science and pop-psychology its at heart a deeply conservative project, because it is all about preserving the power of a self-appointed elite. A pernicious piece of social control. Secularised priestcraft.
My objection to it is that it represents only one particular understanding of reality and faith.

And that "progression" is the ultimate aim.

I don't know where Grace fits in here.

I don't know where living in the moment with God fits in here.

But it's been a while since I looked at this stuff.

Dunno if this site does credit to the stages. It's just what I pulled up on Google.

But actually I found this quite helpful.

quote:
The new strength of this stage comes in the rise of the ironic imagination-a capacity to see and be in one's or one's group's most powerful meanings, while simultaneously recognizing that they are relative, partial and inevitably distorting apprehensions of transcendent reality. Its danger lies in the direction of a paralyzing passivity or inaction, giving rise to complacency or cynical withdrawal, due to its paradoxical understanding of truth.
Surely this is the Pomo position?

[ 12. July 2011, 11:44: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
The snag is that you are then calling Mother Theresa's faith zombie faith, because six is based on people like her.
Not in the least. This merely tries to co-opt saints like her in order to justify a perfidious progression to just believing whatever the hell you please with fruits that this will never produce. Mother Theresa was firmly Roman Catholic, hence remained firmly "stuck" in phases 2&3, as every healthy believer would.
Do you think stages 2 and 3 are where it's at because Roman Catholic's have a very strong sense of communal identity? And veering from that is dangerous?
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Fowler's was based on thousands of indepth interviews, I think the database is still growing.
Anecdotal and, perhaps unconsciously, intepreted as strengthening his ideas. Also, however good his methodology was, a strongly selected sample.

It is probably impossible to do real research in this sort of subject anyway, other than in the anthropological particpant-observer tradition.
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:
The new strength of this stage comes in the rise of the ironic imagination-a capacity to see and be in one's or one's group's most powerful meanings, while simultaneously recognizing that they are relative, partial and inevitably distorting apprehensions of transcendent reality. Its danger lies in the direction of a paralyzing passivity or inaction, giving rise to complacency or cynical withdrawal, due to its paradoxical understanding of truth.
Surely this is the Pomo position?
Looks more like pompous blather to me. Almost a parody.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:
The new strength of this stage comes in the rise of the ironic imagination-a capacity to see and be in one's or one's group's most powerful meanings, while simultaneously recognizing that they are relative, partial and inevitably distorting apprehensions of transcendent reality. Its danger lies in the direction of a paralyzing passivity or inaction, giving rise to complacency or cynical withdrawal, due to its paradoxical understanding of truth.
Surely this is the Pomo position?
Looks more like pompous blather to me. Almost a parody.
That would place you firmly in stage two. [Razz]
 
Posted by Avila (# 15541) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
Ken

Fowler's was based on thousands of indepth interviews, I think the database is still growing. Most of the rest are not similarly researched.

Jengie
In the original book the research sample is given in the appendix.
Conclusions were based on 359 individuals

gender evenly mixed
Ages
0-6 7%
7-12 8.1
13-20 15.6
21-30 25.1
31-40 13.4
41-50 8.9
51-60 4.7
60+ 17.3

All US based interviews
97.8% white, 2.2% black
45% protestant; 36.5 % Catholic; 11.2% Jew; 3.6% Orthodox; 3.6% other

Fowler also notes that trends linked to age may equally be linked to different life experiences of generations. Different attitudes and understanding of faith emerge from war generations, to the 60s to Thatcher/Reagan era to....
 
Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on :
 
The problem is that, in the more 'conservative' traditions, the whole process of coming to faith is structured in a very different way from that assumed by Fowler in his six stages. Thus, there is generally a fixed body of doctrine which has to be believed in order to be a member of the tradition, and the job of the catechumen is to conform his mind and intellect in such a way that he can convince himself that the dogma is in fact true, IOW, he has to be of that type of personality which habitually refuses (or is somehow unable) to think for itself (I have relectantly come to accept that this type constitutes a fairly large proportion of mankind), or if he is of a more intellectual bent, he must be able to suppress his own doubts and feelings in favour of those of the church, i.e. he has the classic struggle of faith, which, in favourable circumstances, he (or rather 'God') 'wins' in favour of the orthodox doctrine.

Thus, the orthodox Roman Catholic doesn't really decide for himself that, say, the Pope is infallible, or that the Virgin Mary was assumed into heaven, based on an objective assessment of the evidence, but he concentrates on the arguments in favour, and on the official apologetics in the Catechism, until such a point where he can truthfully say that he 'firmly believes and truly' that the Pope really is infallible, or that the BVM is in heaven, without consciously lying - what an unsympathetic critic might call a sort of voluntary brain-washing.

Thus, the mature Catholic is probably firmly situated at Stage 3, the 'Synthetic-Conventional' stage, while Stage 4 (Individuative-Reflective) and higher would increasing fall under the 'Invincible Ignorance' rubric, I would have thought. [Devil]

OTOH, for a more liberal Christian, I'm not sure that he would even go to Stage 3 even in passing; it's probably more likely that he would reject the faith in its entirety for a greater or lesser period; the idea of believing something just in order to conform being such an alien idea. [Biased]
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
If leo really believed in Fowler he would be helping Sunday school transition into Youth group by making them all sign up to the Doctrinal Basis and forcing them to sing There is a Green Hill Far Away, so as to help the transition from Stage Two to Stage Three. I don't think leo does that. ...You don't get people like leo saying that they're Stage 3, and happy to acknowledge it. Even though saying something like 'Fowler puts conservatives at a lower developmental stage' exhibits all the traits attributed to Stage 3.
I DID, as a teacher of Religious Ed., follow Goldman, whose research was similar to Fowler. He said that we should never teach kids stuff that they must unlearn later. Also, that the best way to help people grow is to present them with material from one stage 'higher'. That cognitive dissonance irritates and produces development. Material from a 'higher' stage only serves to annoy so a person becomes defensive and refuses to think about it any more.

As for being at stage 3 and OK with it, I think I inhabited a split world all through my twenties because my study of theology, at under- and post-graduate level made me believe one set of stuff, while my heavy involvement in an inner city anglo-catholic church made me practice something different.

Most importantly is what Avila said, above, about the feminist critique suggesting that these stages are cyclical rather than linear. As a forty-year-old man about to undergo a serious operation, I prayed like a 5 year old.
 
Posted by Twangist (# 16208) on :
 
quote:
I prayed like a 5 year old
Frequently that's the only way I know how to pray!
 
Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Do you think stages 2 and 3 are where it's at because Roman Catholic's have a very strong sense of communal identity? And veering from that is dangerous?
Not really. While unkind and one-sided, the analysis of Holy Smoke above is basically correct concerning the practicalities. Just read that. Progress in traditional Christianity simply is not along the lines that Fowler lays out.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
I DID, as a teacher of Religious Ed., follow Goldman, whose research was similar to Fowler. He said that we should never teach kids stuff that they must unlearn later. Also, that the best way to help people grow is to present them with material from one stage 'higher'. That cognitive dissonance irritates and produces development. Material from a 'higher' stage only serves to annoy so a person becomes defensive and refuses to think about it any more.
People coming out of Sunday school into youth group should be about right to be presented with Stage 3 material then.

quote:
As for being at stage 3 and OK with it, I think I inhabited a split world all through my twenties because my study of theology, at under- and post-graduate level made me believe one set of stuff, while my heavy involvement in an inner city anglo-catholic church made me practice something different.
And the implications of that are?
If you don't mind my saying so, you open your post by citing a battery of authorities. IngoB who would like to think of himself as more conservative hasn't been citing any authorities at all. I think that there's a difference in cognitive style between the two of you, and it's the reverse of what one would predict based on your material attitudes to authority.

quote:
Most importantly is what Avila said, above, about the feminist critique suggesting that these stages are cyclical rather than linear. As a forty-year-old man about to undergo a serious operation, I prayed like a 5 year old.
That's not what cyclical means. Also, it rather invalidates the idea that conservative theology can be associated with any particular stage of spiritual development.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Jengie Jon:
This is also why I reject stage six as a definite stage, it is built around people who liberal Christianity see as "Saints", it is not well researched like the other stages and I suspect built mainly on guess work.

The other stages are built on thousands of interviews, these are interviews with people of all religions and none. Stages 1 and 2 seemed to exist even for those in none religious settings. This structure is supposed to be totally outside of creedal belief.
Problems with Fowler's work parallel criticisms of Kohlberg's work on moral development. In both cases the criticism is that, despite the ostensible empirical nature of the claims, modes of reasoning that fit in with a pre-existing theory are privileged over modes of reasoning that don't. For example, in Kohlberg abstract reasoning based on priciples is very highly valued, while reasoning based on emotional engagement is downplayed. One could put forward arguments for and against that idea, but Kohlberg's empirical studies don't address the problem at all.
AIUI Kohlberg, at least initially, found that according to his empirical work that men are more morally developed on average than women. As this seems highly unlikely, it shows that this kind of empirical research does not suffice to guarantee the coherence of the conclusions.

I don't believe that anyone has paralleled the specific allegation of sexism. However, it seems to me that Fowler is open to the same broad lines of criticism: that an assessment of how faith develops is intrinsically normative and therefore can't pretend to be the neutral result of empirical research.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
The problem is that, in the more 'conservative' traditions, the whole process of coming to faith is structured in a very different way from that assumed by Fowler in his six stages. Thus, there is generally a fixed body of doctrine which has to be believed in order to be a member of the tradition, and the job of the catechumen is to conform his mind and intellect in such a way that he can convince himself that the dogma is in fact true, IOW, he has to be of that type of personality which habitually refuses (or is somehow unable) to think for itself (I have relectantly come to accept that this type constitutes a fairly large proportion of mankind), or if he is of a more intellectual bent, he must be able to suppress his own doubts and feelings in favour of those of the church, i.e. he has the classic struggle of faith, which, in favourable circumstances, he (or rather 'God') 'wins' in favour of the orthodox doctrine.

Thus, the orthodox Roman Catholic doesn't really decide for himself that, say, the Pope is infallible, or that the Virgin Mary was assumed into heaven, based on an objective assessment of the evidence, but he concentrates on the arguments in favour, and on the official apologetics in the Catechism, until such a point where he can truthfully say that he 'firmly believes and truly' that the Pope really is infallible, or that the BVM is in heaven, without consciously lying - what an unsympathetic critic might call a sort of voluntary brain-washing.

Thus, the mature Catholic is probably firmly situated at Stage 3, the 'Synthetic-Conventional' stage, while Stage 4 (Individuative-Reflective) and higher would increasing fall under the 'Invincible Ignorance' rubric, I would have thought. [Devil]
Thank you Holy Smoke. That's what I thought. [Smile]
 
Posted by la vie en rouge (# 10688) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by leo:
As a forty-year-old man about to undergo a serious operation, I prayed like a 5 year old.
I'm probably going to express this badly, but here goes…

"Praying like a five year-old" sounds to me very much like something Christians are supposed to do. Receive the Kingdom like a child and all that. Now if that's what the founder of our religion (for want of a better word) told us to do, why should we be aspiring to anything else? It makes progressing to a "higher stage" sound distinctly problematic to me.
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
quote:
In the original book the research sample is given in the appendix.
Conclusions were based on 359 individuals

gender evenly mixed
Ages
0-6 7%
7-12 8.1
13-20 15.6
21-30 25.1
31-40 13.4
41-50 8.9
51-60 4.7
60+ 17.3

All US based interviews
97.8% white, 2.2% black
45% protestant; 36.5 % Catholic; 11.2% Jew; 3.6% Orthodox; 3.6% other

Fowler also notes that trends linked to age may equally be linked to different life experiences of generations. Different attitudes and understanding of faith emerge from war generations, to the 60s to Thatcher/Reagan era to....
There is a very obvious problem here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this basically trying to construct some grand over-arching narrative of faith progression out of the experiences of a single generation of Judeo-Christian Americans? Both Fowler's research and his subjects' responses were no doubt conditioned by a whole host of subconcious assumptions rooted in their particular society, culture and religious formation. I doubt if his stages of faith are even usefully applicable to my generation (born 1980) in the UK, let alone to a non-20th century or non-western experiences. IMO attempts to try and squeeze the diversity of human religious experience into some tidy theory of religious progression are horribly arrogant.
 
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
IMO attempts to try and squeeze the diversity of human religious experience into some tidy theory of religious progression are horribly arrogant.
Check. And stupid. And dangerous.
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
PS I suspect that the desire to locate oneself and others on a ladder of 'faith progression' may be a sign that one's own faith has not progressed very far
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
Here's another vote for praying like a five-year-old. If I could do that all the time, I'd be a blessed woman.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
IMO attempts to try and squeeze the diversity of human religious experience into some tidy theory of religious progression are horribly arrogant.
Check. And stupid. And dangerous.
But we do it all the time.

We judge who is "more holy" or a "better Christian" or who is a "true Christian" and "what that means".

It's just his (Fowler's) apologetic.

Helpful to some that follow his line, unhelpful to others who follow a different line.

Yet his sixth stage would seem to countermand that.

Doesn't matter where you are.

[ 13. July 2011, 11:46: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But we do it all the time.
Then whoever 'we' are need to put a stop to it PDQ. Because it's arrogant. And stupid. And dangerous.

...and because it's plain unChristlike.
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
la vie en rouge ... there's nothiing to stop us praying like five year olds and thinking like 40 year olds, though.

The problems start when it's the other way around, when we pray like 40 year olds and think like five year olds ...

Says Gamaliel the 50 year old.

Who acts like a teenager aboard Ship ...
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
la vie en rouge ... there's nothiing to stop us praying like five year olds and thinking like 40 year olds, though.

The problems start when it's the other way around, when we pray like 40 year olds and think like five year olds ...

Says Gamaliel the 50 year old.

Who acts like a teenager aboard Ship ...
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
quote:
But we do it all the time.

We judge who is "more holy" or a "better Christian" or who is a "true Christian" and "what that means".
I've always had a lot of sympathy for Martin Luther, who famously rejected the 16th century equivalent of stages of faith in favour of the idea that we are all really at the lowest stage imaginable and completely dependent on the grace of God. The only difference is between people who accept their dependence and people who don't.
 
Posted by RadicalWhig (# 13190) on :
 
The problem with this model is that when you get to the latter stages, those who got stuck in the middle think you are a heretic.
 
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Here's another vote for praying like a five-year-old. If I could do that all the time, I'd be a blessed woman.
My kids (one year either side of five) can pray very profound, sincere and moving prayers. And also very silly, selfish and disrespectful ones. A child's prayer is not necesarily an especially pure one.

I don't think I'm that different from a five year old really - I'm just a bit fatter and know more stuff.
 
Posted by Leprechaun (# 5408) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
The problem with this model is that when you get to the latter stages, those who got stuck in the middle think you are a heretic.
And those who reach the latter stages become rather pompous, patronising and superior as this thread demonstrates.

Which may well show they are moving through Fowler's stages of faith, but doesn't really bear any resemblance to Jesus' description of someone who has a deep faith in God.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But we do it all the time.
Then whoever 'we' are need to put a stop to it PDQ. Because it's arrogant. And stupid. And dangerous.

...and because it's plain unChristlike.
You make no such judgments?

The Church, in all its history makes no such judgments? We could start with the creeds. You know, who's in and who is out? Or if you ignore the creeds, you could go for salvation dependent on a particular atonement model. Say Penal Substitution and only that leads to progress?

Puulease. Get real.

quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
I've always had a lot of sympathy for Martin Luther, who famously rejected the 16th century equivalent of stages of faith in favour of the idea that we are all really at the lowest stage imaginable and completely dependent on the grace of God. The only difference is between people who accept their dependence and people who don't.
So all people's souls and faith's are equal in Luther's judgment?

I don't recall such a thing.

He was an opinionated bastard.
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
Leprechaun makes a fair point. For most of history Christians, Jews and Muslims would have understood 'faith progression' as conforming more and more closely to the will of God as expressed through Christianity, Judaism or Islam. Globally most Christians, Jews and Muslims would still understand it on those terms. Fowler however starts from the assumption that 'faith progression' can be measured by universal criteria which supposedly transcend those of any given faith (yet are very obviously the products of a particular culture). In doing so IMO he comes up with a theory of faith progression largely removed from what most of the faithful actually think.
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
quote:
So all people's souls and faith's are equal in Luther's judgment?
Sigh. All people's souls yes. All people's faiths no. And they aren't in your eyes either, given your forthright criticism of anyone a sliver more conservative than yourself. As for criticising Luther for being "opiniated"...pot? kettle?
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
All people's faiths no.
Ah right. That must be a sign that his own faith had not progressed very far.

quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
As for criticising Luther for being "opiniated"...pot? kettle?
Absolutely.

He's one of my heroes.

Ever read him talking to Erasmus of Rotterdam?

Damn he knew how to talk dirty.

[edited for atrocious apostrophising]

[ 13. July 2011, 14:43: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But we do it all the time.
Then whoever 'we' are need to put a stop to it PDQ. Because it's arrogant. And stupid. And dangerous.

...and because it's plain unChristlike.
You make no such judgments?

(snip)

Puulease. Get real.

I am being real. I don't make judgements on people's faith, and I hold out consistently against others' judgements.

And if trying not to be arrogant, stupid and dangerous isn't enough incentive to pack in the judgement game, then try Mt 7.1. It does it for me...
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
quote:
In the original book the research sample is given in the appendix.
Conclusions were based on 359 individuals

gender evenly mixed
Ages
0-6 7%
7-12 8.1
13-20 15.6
21-30 25.1
31-40 13.4
41-50 8.9
51-60 4.7
60+ 17.3

All US based interviews
97.8% white, 2.2% black
45% protestant; 36.5 % Catholic; 11.2% Jew; 3.6% Orthodox; 3.6% other
There is a very obvious problem here. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this basically trying to construct some grand over-arching narrative of faith progression out of the experiences of a single generation of Judeo-Christian Americans? Both Fowler's research and his subjects' responses were no doubt conditioned by a whole host of subconcious assumptions rooted in their particular society, culture and religious formation. I doubt if his stages of faith are even usefully applicable to my generation (born 1980) in the UK, let alone to a non-20th century or non-western experiences. IMO attempts to try and squeeze the diversity of human religious experience into some tidy theory of religious progression are horribly arrogant.
Worse than that. The numbers are at least an order of magnitude too small to come to any conclusions even if there was a decent method involved.
 
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
Worse than that. The numbers are at least an order of magnitude too small to come to any conclusions even if there was a decent method involved.
[Killing me]
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by RadicalWhig:
The problem with this model is that when you get to the latter stages, those who got stuck in the middle think you are a heretic.
That is true - look what happened to Jesus.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
"Praying like a five year-old" sounds to me very much like something Christians are supposed to do.
Depends how3 you prayed as a 5 year-old. I used to have a list for Sunday and, for the rest of the week, basically said to God, 'What I said yesterday is still what I want'.

I was scared before the op. and was bargaining with God, since there was a risk of brain damage.

I think we are 'supposed' to pray, 'Thy will be done.' That is definitely what I was NOT praying for.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
As for being at stage 3 and OK with it, I think I inhabited a split world all through my twenties because my study of theology, at under- and post-graduate level made me believe one set of stuff, while my heavy involvement in an inner city anglo-catholic church made me practice something different.
And the implications of that are?
If you don't mind my saying so, you open your post by citing a battery of authorities. any particular stage of spiritual development.
Battery? I merely mentioned Ronald Goldman.
 
Posted by leo (# 1458) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
the orthodox Roman Catholic doesn't really decide for himself that, say, the Pope is infallible, or that the Virgin Mary was assumed into heaven, based on an objective assessment of the evidence, but he concentrates on the arguments in favour, and on the official apologetics in the Catechism, until such a point where he can truthfully say that he 'firmly believes and truly' that the Pope really is infallible, or that the BVM is in heaven, without consciously lying - what an unsympathetic critic might call a sort of voluntary brain-washing.

Thus, the mature Catholic is probably firmly situated at Stage 3, the 'Synthetic-Conventional' stage, while Stage 4 (Individuative-Reflective) and higher would increasing fall under the 'Invincible Ignorance' rubric, I would have thought. [Devil]
It depends who defines 'orthodox'. A great many adherents of 'dogmatic' denominations stay out of loyalty but do not subscribe to all the official doctrine.

Daniel Helminiac, RC priest, wrote a book called 'The Transcended Christian' to help people who came away from their priests feeling that he could be no help to them since he was immature in his faith and just churned out the official, party line.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
PS I suspect that the desire to locate oneself and others on a ladder of 'faith progression' may be a sign that one's own faith has not progressed very far
Hear hear.
 
Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You make no such judgments? ...
Speaking for myself, I will make judgements as to whether somebody is a good person, but not whether they are a good Christian - the latter question is really of no interest to me.
 
Posted by Lamb Chopped (# 5528) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
Here's another vote for praying like a five-year-old. If I could do that all the time, I'd be a blessed woman.
My kids (one year either side of five) can pray very profound, sincere and moving prayers. And also very silly, selfish and disrespectful ones. A child's prayer is not necesarily an especially pure one.

I don't think I'm that different from a five year old really - I'm just a bit fatter and know more stuff.
I wasn't thinking of purity at all--rather of the very low bullshit factor. A five-year-old in my experience will just come out and tell you (or God) what he wants in the baldest possible language; there's no fake spiritualizing, sugar-coating or self-second-guessing. But sometimes I can barely pray at all for the little self-reflective voices that are saying "But should I really ask this? say it this way? put it some other way?" and other such crap. As if God didn't know the truth about me anyway.
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
A five-year-old in my experience will just come out and tell you (or God) what he wants in the baldest possible language; there's no fake spiritualizing, sugar-coating or self-second-guessing.
Three-year-old maybe. By five most people are quite capable of embarrasment, dissimulation, double-mindedness, or keeping their mouths shut because they know what they say will annoy some adult or other even if they can't quite work out why.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
But we do it all the time.
Then whoever 'we' are need to put a stop to it PDQ. Because it's arrogant. And stupid. And dangerous.

...and because it's plain unChristlike.
You make no such judgments?

(snip)

Puulease. Get real.

I am being real. I don't make judgements on people's faith, and I hold out consistently against others' judgements.

And if trying not to be arrogant, stupid and dangerous isn't enough incentive to pack in the judgement game, then try Mt 7.1. It does it for me...
Onya.

So what, to you, does it mean to be a Christian? Do you judge yourself? Are you aiming for something? Do you accept everything in others and the world?

quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You make no such judgments? ...
Speaking for myself, I will make judgements as to whether somebody is a good person, but not whether they are a good Christian - the latter question is really of no interest to me.
They aren't related in your cosmology? And why bother judging one and not the other?
 
Posted by Gamaliel (# 812) on :
 
Leprechaun, who on this thread has reached the latter stages? I don't see any ...

[Biased]
 
Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
Speaking for myself, I will make judgements as to whether somebody is a good person, but not whether they are a good Christian - the latter question is really of no interest to me.
They aren't related in your cosmology? And why bother judging one and not the other?
They are probably distantly related, but on what (or whose) criteria do you judge someone's prowess in Christianity? Making a judgement about someone's basic overall 'goodness', i.e. what is John or Mary like as a person) is surely of rather more practical benefit, e.g. deciding whether on not to trust somebody in a business or social relationship. If you know that someone is basically out for themselves, then you can take the necessary precautions, and treat them accordingly.
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Gamaliel:
Leprechaun, who on this thread has reached the latter stages? I don't see any ...

[Biased]
Me! Me! You missed me!

I'm just trying to be all things to all people. You know, get down to their level so as to really commune? Like, be missional?
 
Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
Speaking for myself, I will make judgements as to whether somebody is a good person, but not whether they are a good Christian - the latter question is really of no interest to me.
They aren't related in your cosmology? And why bother judging one and not the other?
They are probably distantly related, but on what (or whose) criteria do you judge someone's prowess in Christianity?
Fruit? You know, like Jesus said? Or is that too low church?

I suppose high church would be dependent on how many doctrines you can recite and believe in? And how well you can wave incense?

The trouble is, it's much easier for some people to be good than it is for others....

We don't all start at the same place.
 
Posted by Holy Smoke (# 14866) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Fruit? You know, like Jesus said? Or is that too low church? I suppose high church would be dependent on how many doctrines you can recite and believe in? And how well you can wave incense?
I believe it is the full 360 degrees rotation that is the crucial test of faith. [Biased] But the phrase 'a good Christian' can mean all sorts of different things to different people, which is why I generally avoid it.

quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The trouble is, it's much easier for some people to be good than it is for others....We don't all start at the same place.
Like if you're rich or good-looking or intelligent or white-skinned? Or just naturally good? Not sure that I agree with you there - we all have to make the same decision according to the same criteria, and live in the same world with the same temptations. It's an interesting proposition, though.
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
The trouble is, it's much easier for some people to be good than it is for others....We don't all start at the same place.
Like if you're rich or good-looking or intelligent or white-skinned? Or just naturally good? Not sure that I agree with you there - we all have to make the same decision according to the same criteria, and live in the same world with the same temptations. It's an interesting proposition, though.
I am sure that those who come from families with abusing parents or who grow up in a culture where exploitation of others is the norm and valued have a much harder time of it than me. I think they are going to judged more leniently than me.
 
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Onya.
Please translate.
 
Posted by Jengie Jon (# 273) on :
 
May I point out the subtitle of Fowler's work

quote:
The Psychology of Human Development and The Quest for Meaning
Some how I suspect many don't do the implied equivalence in that of

Faith = Quest for meaning

I personally think humans are meaning makers, and yes I am happy at the suggestion that we develop skills at making meaning as we grow up (for instance we learn to speak a language). I am also happy that elements of faith are related to making meaning. However to call"meaning making" "faith" seems to be stretching things.

I therefore see the title as an eye catcher, something to get people to read it. The subtitle is more accurately what the book is tackling.

Jengie
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
And following from JJs observation. In the Introduction Fowler states
quote:
In these pages I am offering a theory of growth in faith. ... Theories can be exciting and powerful, giving us names for our experiences and ways to understand and express what we have lived. they can also become blinders, limiting our ability to see only those features of phenomena that we can name and account for. Erik Erikson ... once said "We must take our theories with a serious playfulness and a playful seriousness.
BTW, conversion is discussed in this book, and in his model can happen at any stage or transition between stages. In his model people do not have a transition from without faith to having faith, but from one faith to another faith (if i understand correctly) so it does include people like LC.

Thanks for those who have provided other models. I hope to have time some day to see if they are alternative or complementary.

At the moment, though I understand that many here do not like his model, and some criticism seem to have substance, the criticism have appeared to me to be more on the application of the model than to show it to be substantially flawed.

I accept that the sample is skewed to a particular culture, but am not convinced about the inadequacy of the sample size; but then I am more familiar with differential and inferential statistics and something different may be required here.
 
Posted by Dafyd (# 5549) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Latchkey Kid:
who grow up in a culture where exploitation of others is the norm and valued
You mean a culture like capitalism?
[Two face]

[ 15. July 2011, 10:28: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
 
Posted by coniunx (# 15313) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Holy Smoke:
Thus, the orthodox Roman Catholic doesn't really decide for himself that, say, the Pope is infallible, or that the Virgin Mary was assumed into heaven, based on an objective assessment of the evidence, but he concentrates on the arguments in favour, and on the official apologetics in the Catechism, until such a point where he can truthfully say that he 'firmly believes and truly' that the Pope really is infallible, or that the BVM is in heaven, without consciously lying - what an unsympathetic critic might call a sort of voluntary brain-washing.

Thus, the mature Catholic is probably firmly situated at Stage 3, the 'Synthetic-Conventional' stage, while Stage 4 (Individuative-Reflective) and higher would increasing fall under the 'Invincible Ignorance' rubric, I would have thought. [Devil]
Just noticed this discussion, and went and looked up the stages.

I think most of the mature and committed Catholics I know are in stage 5; deeply aware of the contradictions inherent in living in a fallen material world whilst knowing the simplicity of God and the clarity of doctrine; aware that doctrine is a description in words of something far deeper, but that no clearer expression exists; firmly grounded in the understanding and revelation of the Church throughout the centuries, but able to fly for themselves without losing touch with it or commitment to it. Encouraged by the universality of their faith to go beyond their own social and geographical roots, challenged daily by being part of the same whole as people with whom they have nothing else in common, and yet deeply aware that they do not, as individuals, have any guaranteed insight which means they know better than their compatriots in the Church, alive through all the ages; for they have learnt some humility too.

And yes, many of them have seriously questioned the infallibility of Rome, and challenged it, and given up on it for a while, and come back to it, often after deep study, perhaps more often after a profoundly shocking experience of prayer.

That was all in Stage 4; they've gone beyond it, and can only be sympathetic to those who seem to have got stuck in it, for it's a place that first seems exciting but soon becomes an uncomfortable and depressing place - rather like teenagerdom; it has its good bits, but who'd want to be there forever?
 
Posted by Eliab (# 9153) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Lamb Chopped:
A five-year-old in my experience will just come out and tell you (or God) what he wants in the baldest possible language; there's no fake spiritualizing, sugar-coating or self-second-guessing.
Three-year-old maybe. By five most people are quite capable of embarrasment, dissimulation, double-mindedness, or keeping their mouths shut because they know what they say will annoy some adult or other even if they can't quite work out why.
That's my experience. And from three to, well, at least thirty-eight, capable of silliness and showing off.

Tangent: my daughter invented pantheism yesterday. She said to me "Hello, God!" and when I (mindful of what befell Herod Agrippa) told her that I wasn't God, and she shouldn't say that I was, she replied "No - if God is God and God is everywhere, then everyone is God. I'm God, you're God, Ben is God."

She's four. Where's that in Fowler's Stages of Faith?
 
Posted by Chorister (# 473) on :
 
Stage 42.
 
Posted by AberVicar (# 16451) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Onya.
Please translate.
Definition from 'Urban Dictionary'
Is this what you mean?
A response would be appreciated.
 
Posted by Latchkey Kid (# 12444) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
Originally posted by AberVicar:
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
Onya.
Please translate.
Definition from 'Urban Dictionary'
Is this what you mean?
A response would be appreciated.
Although I am a pom, I've been an Aussie for 25 years and here (NSW & Qld, Victoria even and I would have thought in WA as well) onya is short for good onya meaning thanks or well done, but they seem out of context in that post, though a sarcastic onya! might have fitted, but I don't want to do eisegesis. So I also wait for the singer to explain the song.
 
Posted by Yerevan (# 10383) on :
 
quote:
quote:Originally posted by Yerevan:
All people's faiths no.

Ah right. That must be a sign that his own faith had not progressed very far.
By that criteria virtually no monotheist born before about 1960 ever "progressed very far". This is one of the funny little ways in which hardcore liberals and hardcore evangelicals sound oddly similar. Hardcore evangelicals believe that all those poor benighted primitives unfortunate enough to be born before 1517 got Christianity completely wrong. Hardcore liberals believe that all those poor benighted primitives unfortunate enough to be born before 1960 got Christianity completely wrong.
 
Posted by ken (# 2460) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
Hardcore evangelicals believe that all those poor benighted primitives unfortunate enough to be born before 1517 got Christianity completely wrong.
Not at all! There were the Lollards and Hussites!
 
Posted by Johnny S (# 12581) on :
 
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Yerevan:
Hardcore evangelicals believe that all those poor benighted primitives unfortunate enough to be born before 1517 got Christianity completely wrong.
Not at all! There were the Lollards and Hussites!
At a push I've even heard Jesus and the Apostles included.
 


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