STAGES OF FAITH James W. Fowler

Fowler’s work is not focused on a particular religious tradition For Fowler, faith is a universal quality of human life “Faith” is a dynamic, changing evolving process, a way of being Fowler’s “stages” are “still shots” in a complex, dynamic process Fowler’s stages are not meant to be an evaluative scale. There are individuals at each stage who are persons of serenity, courage and genuine faith

PRIMAL FAITH Infancy: bonding and attachment, relationship, trust, baby’s memories of maternal and paternal presence These early experiences shape the images of God that take more or less conscious form by the fourth or fifth year of life

STAGE 1: INTUITIVE – PROJECTIVE FAITH Age 2 – 7: language development, communication, interpretation of the world Perception, feelings, and imaginative fantasy make up the child’s principal ways of knowing and transforming their experiences Stories, symbols and examples help give the world unity and sense The symbols, stories and shared life of a religious tradition give a child an expanded horizon of meanings

STAGE 2: MYTHIC – LITERAL FAITH Concrete operational thinking: stable categories of space, time and causality make the child’s constructions of experience much less dependent on feeling and fantasy Ability to recognize others’ perspectives: recognize right, wrong, goodness, evil Faith becomes a matter of reliance on the stories, rules and implicit values of the family’s community of meanings Narrative & story become important Faith involves valuing the stories, practices and beliefs of one’s faith community & tradition

STAGE 3: SYNTHETIC – CONVENTIONAL FAITH Typically begins to emerge in early adolescence Formal operational thinking: ideal possibilities, hypothetical considerations Synthetic: pulling disparate elements of one’s life into an integrated unity Conventional: Values, beliefs derived from a group of significant others Strong, deeply held beliefs, yet largely unexamined, no critical self-reflection Strong sense of identity through face-to-face membership with those with shared beliefs

STAGE 4: INDIVIDUATIVE – REFLECTIVE FAITH Persons objectify, examine, make critical choices about the defining elements of their identity and faith More explicit commitment and accountability Emergence of “self,” no longer defined by the composite of one’s roles or meanings to others Bringing beliefs and lived experience into unity This transition may typically occur in early adulthood, but for others it comes, if at all, later

STAGE 5: CONJUNCTIVE FAITH Midlife or beyond; ‘coincidence of opposites’ – emergent awareness of the need to face and hold together polar tensions in one’s life: life/death, old/young Acknowledges paradox of different perspectives on truth as being intrinsic to that truth Genuine openness to the truths of other traditions and faith communities We try to “shape our dance in relation to God’s movements” Realization that God shows forth the divine purpose for all persons and nations

STAGE 6: UNIVERSALIZING FAITH Few individuals reach this stage A sense of being in but not of the world A decentration from self: circle of those who count expands – all of humankind Valuing and valuation are centered in the Creator: the individual participates in the valuing of the Creator and values other beings, and being, from the standpoint of the Creator Examples: Mother Teresa, Ghandhi, Martin Luther King, Dietrick Bonhoeffer

STAGES OF FAITH DEVELOPMENT: John Westerhoff III EXPERIENCED FAITH: (preschool, early childhood) Interactions with other ‘faithing selves’; experiencing God’s love through others AFFILIATIVE FAITH: Belonging to a faith community, identifying with its ‘story’, participating in its activities

SEARCHING FAITH (adolescence, early adulthood): Doubt, critical judgment, inquiry into meanings of the “story”, experimentation, testing one’s tradition by learning about others, a need for commitment OWNED FAITH: “Conversion” – sudden or gradual, desire to witness to faith in both word and deed, conscious part of a person’s identity, desire to reach full potential as intended by God, sense of lifelong faith journey