Chapter 3: The Evolution of Faith

Where the individual potential for development exceeds
the cultural limit, the need for new meaning erupts.
D. S. Bond

In 1995, Dr. James Fowler emerged as one of the great developmental psychologist’s of our time with an important book entitled “Stages of Faith: The psychology of human development and the quest for meaning.” Synthesizing and building on the work of such royalty of human development theory as Piaget, Erickson and Kohlberg, Fowler constructed a model for understanding the development of faith. In Fowler’s 6 stage model, we can trace not only the development of faith within the individual, but the evolution of spiritual consciousness within the larger culture.

In infancy, the ground from which faith will later spring is being cultivated. As infants are nurtured and experience the care of parental figures, trust and hope are created that will give rise to stage 1 faith in the second year of life, identified by Fowler as Intuitive-Projective Faith. This first stage of faith, most characteristic of children between the ages of 3-7 is, according to Fowler, “the fantasy filled, imitative phase in which the child can be powerfully and permanently influenced by examples, moods, actions and stories of the visible faith of primally related adults” (p. 133). Unable to grasp the ideas behind the images, the growing imagination expands and elaborates on the sermons and rituals that they experience in the adult world of religion. It was during this first stage when terrible images of hell, fire and brimstone were indelibly and extravagantly painted within my psyche. Adults should realize just how vulnerable developing minds are during this time, and try to protect young children from imagery or symbols that are frightening and violent.

At 10 years old, most children are now able to distinguish between the “real” and the “imaginary.” Their focus shifts to the world of fact and empirical observation. At this age they may be full of questions as they seek to interact with and understand the natural world. In terms of spiritual development, the child begins to move into stage 2, the stage of Mythic-Literal faith.

As children move into this stage, they are able to engage a story as more than just a series of images. At this age children can follow the flow of the narrative, and are able to narratize his/her own experience. Now they can not only listen to the stories of others, but create stories that tie together their own experiences. Fowler suggests that

This capacity for and interest in narrative makes the school-age child particularly attentive to the stories that conserve the origins and formative experience of the familial and communal groups to which he or she belongs. Stories of lives and of great adventures – true or realistically fictional – appeal because of their inherent interest, but they also appeal because they become media for the extension of the child’s experience and understanding of life (pg. 136).

This is the stage of development to which Fundamentalism speaks the most fluently. The great Bible stories of the old Testament begin to come alive as the child is now able to insert him/herself into the narrative; to imagine what it might be like to be David confronting the terrible Goliath. This is the stage of vivid literal thinking; and while the stories of the Bible are captivating and concrete, the Mythic-Literal faith cannot look inside the stories for the symbolic truths and transfer them to other situations. Fowler goes on to explain that

Stage 2 tells stories that describe the flow from the midst of the stream. The stage 2 person – child or adult – does not yet step out on the bank beside the river and reflect on the stories of the flow and their composite meanings. For stage 2 meanings are conserved and expressed in stories. There is also a sense in which the meanings are trapped in the narrative, there not being yet the readiness to draw from them conclusions about a general order of meaning in life (pg. 137).

This ability will arrive with the development of stage 3 faith, or Synthetic – Conventional faith.

Stage 3: Synthetic – Conventional Faith

Stage three faith most often emerges as adolescence emerges. Adolescence is the time in which identity formation takes center stage. During adolescence, the child is trying to figure out who he/she is beyond the identity that has been assigned by or inherited from parental figures. In order to do this, Fowler tells us, the adolescent needs “mirrors.”

Now, I am a mother of a teenage girl. I know from experience how important mirrors are when one is fourteen and trying desperately to present an acceptable image for the peer group. Many hours per week are spent in front of the mirror – looking, judging --- change the hair, change it back; change the clothes and change them again. Parents who, like me, are tempted to get cranky and impatient must realize that self-image is everything at 14; and self-images can be brutally crippled in the peer group by bad hair and the wrong clothes.

What Fowler is talking about includes, but goes beyond the importance of physical mirrors. What Fowler is referring to are the psychological mirrors that reflect the self back to us so that we can see who we are. Just as teenagers use mirrors to check physical appearance, they use the evaluations of their peers to check their psychological appearance. If they like the same things, are disgusted by the same things, talk the same way and act the same way as the opinion leaders in their group, then they will probably be “certified” by these leaders as a competent and acceptable person. During this stage, conformity is everything. It is through conformity to group norms that the child is validated. To the adolescent, what is “true” is what is believed by the peer group. In many ways, this adolescent mindset characterizes the mindset of religious fundamentalists.

As parents, we encourage our children to move beyond peer evaluation as a basis for self-esteem; and as the self grows and matures, evaluations of self should become more and more centered on intrinsic, self-determined measures rather than extrinsic group standards. This is an important task of psychological maturity; this should also be an important task of spiritual maturity. Unfortunately, a large number of people put off this task of maturation into mid-life, or don’t accomplish it at all.

Fundamentalist religion is quite concerned with issues of “doctrinal purity.” No where is this more evident than in the culture of the Assemblies of God. Beyond the statement of the 16 fundamental truths, there are 25 denominationally sanctioned “position papers” which state the normative views on issues such as drinking, gambling, homosexuality, women in ministry, and even Transcendental Meditation. Many Fundamentalist churches and colleges require every new member sign a pledge card, agreeing to maintain certain and specific normative standards of behavior . Fundamentalism, like adolescence, is pre-occupied with conformity.

One reason that conformity is so important to fundamentalists can be found in another characteristic that they share with an early adolescent worldview: the belief that authority and truth exists externally to the self. Because the self has not yet fully formed, adolescents locate truth, and the voice of authority, outside themselves. While they might affirm certain beliefs or values, at this stage in their development these values have been handed down, or offered up, by significant others. God, to this point, has been filtered through others and is in many ways, “out there” and impersonal. While conformity to the group identity brings security and a point for self-definition, the maturing adolescent also longs to meet God personally. In the same way that he/she seeks acceptance from the peer group, the child raised in the fundamentalist environment longs for acceptance and approval from God. Adolescence is a time when the message of “being conformed to the image of God” rings deep and true. When this message of conformity and obedience to God is accompanied by the validation of strong emotions, it becomes a vehicle perfectly suited for connecting the adolescent to the spiritual impulse. Pentecostalism is the perfect religious expression for the adolescent, and incidentally, the movement has been especially successful in the area of youth ministry since its beginnings.

Yet, adolescents must grow up and move on. We expect that teenagers will begin to think independently as they grow older, and become less and less dependent upon peer approval. We should expect that spiritual growth would take the same path; but unfortunately, fundamentalist Pentecostalism sees the conformity based, highly egocentric and emotional stage of faith as the ultimate expression. Fowler’s description of stage 3 faith reads like a contextual analysis of a Pentecostal congregation:

"It structures the ultimate environment in interpersonal terms. Its images of unifying value and power derive from the extension of qualities experienced in personal relationships. . . While beliefs and values are deeply felt, they typically are tacitly held—the person “dwells” in them and in the meaning world they mediate. But there has not been occasion to step outside them to reflect on or examine them explicitly or systematically. . . the person has an “ideology,” a more or less consistent clustering of values and beliefs, but he or she has not objectified it for examination and in a sense is unaware of having it. Differences of outlook with others are experienced as differences in “kind” of person. Authority is located in the incumbents of traditional authority roles (if perceived as personally worthy) or in the consensus of a valued, face to face group" (pg. 173).

Fowler points out that, while stage 3 faith usually arises in adolescence, it often becomes a “permanent place of equilibrium” for many adults. In the case of fundamental, Pentecostal religions, it becomes the place of equilibrium at which a person is expected to spend an entire lifetime.

In the social climate of the early 1900’s when Fundamentalism saw it’s hey day and Pentecostal fundamentalism was growing as a movement, people often led relatively static adult lives; living in the same place, doing the same work, and interacting within the same social group throughout a lifetime. Few went on to college, and identity attained in the formative years remained relatively unchanged in later life. In that sort of a situation, stage 3 spirituality could be maintained indefinitely with little impetus to grow beyond. But life in the mid 20th century began to take on a new fluidity. As people flocked to colleges in greater numbers and the population became more mobile, the equilibrium of adulthood was giving way to the constant change and redefinition that characterized life in the 20th century, and continues to characterize life today.

Fowler tells us that stage 3 faith often begins to break down in times of change. Mobility leads to encounters with new kinds of people, and formal education leads to encounters with new ideas. These encounters “lead to critical reflection on how one’s beliefs and values have formed and changed, and on how ‘relative’ they are to one’s particular group or background.” Leaving home, whether in a physical or emotional sense, “precipitates the kind of examination of self, background, and lifeguiding values that gives rise to stage transition” (pg. 173).

Stage 4: Individuative – Reflective Faith

There had always been seeds of doubt; things that didn’t make sense, truths of the faith that seemed less than evident. But I suppose there had always been so many good reasons to stay within the bounds of my fundamentalist, Pentecostal upbringing that the doubts just seemed unimportant. I’ve heard it said that humans are naturally adverse to change, and tend to resist it at great costs; in fact, until the pain of staying where we are becomes greater than the fear of change, we’re probably not going to budge. Perhaps that’s why many never make the transition to stages 4 and 5 in their spiritual life. For those who do, Fowler tells us, it is not uncommon to put it off until the late 30’s or 40’s when the crisis of mid-life hits.

Stage four never comes on gradually. One is usually jarred into stage 4; and in turn, jars those around him when he picks up and moves out of Ur lock, stock and barrel. In mythological terms, stage 4 faith is the hero’s journey. Stage 4 begins when one boards a little skiff, points the sail into the wind, and takes on the sea. Stage 4 begins when one leaves the safe, green plain of dualistic religion behind and ventures alone into the mountainous terrain of complexity and uncertainty. Stage 4 faith is the faith of the initiate; and to go there must always be a deliberate choice. I stepped out of dualism and into stage 4 that day at my computer, when I stood in my mind’s eye as Abraham on the ridge between the plain and the wilderness, and chose the wilderness. Stepping forward into stage 4 is always stepping out of the naiveté of dualism – and never being able to truly go back. Stepping into stage 4, in the experience of a fundamentalist, is the opening of the mind, the dawn of independent thinking; but it is also stepping into exile.

In stage 4, the individual steps back from the meanings and symbols of childhood, and begins to question and interrogate these elements. “What do these things mean?” the emerging individual asks. This is the stage of the deconstruction of a faith once unchallenged. Faith becomes objectified for critical reflection; and in that reflection, the power of the symbol is lost. It is in stage four that one steps out of the whale. Fowler recounts a story told by a classmate that illustrates the loss one encounters in stage 4:

"I once heard theologian and cultural analyst Harvey Cox share with a class a memory of his experience of the loss of the primal naivete regarding a central symbolic act for Christians. Though himself a Baptist, Cox said that as a high-school lad he often attended services with his friends at the Catholic church next to his home. In one period he had been dating a Catholic girl a year or so older than he. She went on to college while he stayed at home to finish high school. When she came back for Christmas vacation Harvey went with her to a beautiful midnight Christmas Eve mass. As the mass climaxed and the people were receiving the Eucharist, Harvey said his college-aged girl friend, who had just completed Anthropology 101, turned to him and whispered, “That’s just a primitive totemic ritual, you know.” Harvey said, “A what?” She replied with great self-assurance, “A primitive totemic ritual. Almost all pre-modern religious and tribal groups have them. They are ceremonies where worshipers bind themselves together and to the power of the sacred by a cannibalistic act of ingesting the mana of a dead God.” Communion, Cox said, was never the same again. A symbol recognized as a symbol is a broken symbol" (pg. 180-81).

I had the same kind of experience during my stage 4 journey. Since the days of youth camp and “Holy Ghost” night, I had been struggling with the ritual nature of the practice. I was ambivalent; there were doubts and questions, and yet the experience still held a sacred power over me. I was reading a text on the elements of Buddhism when I came across a discussion of the use of Mantras. The mantras, the text explained, was a way to silence the mind through focus on an unintelligible sound. By doing this, one is able to reach a meditative state. Suddenly, a light clicked on. In that moment I saw the act of speaking in tongues in a new way. The same device is used in many religions. The Catholic Church reads the scripture in Latin during corporate worship. Rabbis read the Torah in Hebrew during corporate worship. Buddhists and adherents of other Eastern religions chant mantras; and Pentecostals receive – or appropriate – the power to speak in tongues. In an instant, the sacred act became a ritualistic tool for reaching an altered state of consciousness. Not that I devalued it now – in truth, I came to see it as an even more legitimate practice – it’s just that it was no longer religious ”magic.” Toto had pulled back the curtain, and the great oz was revealed. The symbol was broken, and sublime, sacred mystery was illuminated.

This stage of initiation may take years, as one makes sense of a lifetime of religious experiences. For the initiate emerging from fundamentalism, this stage is often characterized by anger – the kind of anger that one feels when they realize that their “perfect” parents are just normal, flawed individuals. Every experience from the former belief system is put under the microscope, and the analysis is sometimes less than kind. From the perspective of friends and family still in the “faith,” this process of deconstruction appears to be fueled by the devil himself. The initiate, feeling disillusioned and alienated, is alienated even further by the reaction of those with which he once shared a deep communion. He/she may be shunned by the brothers and sisters, interaction being limited to occasional attempts by those still living in a stage three spirituality to bring the “lost sheep” back into the fold. Stage four is an exciting time of new perspectives and enlarged understanding, but this excitement is seldom shared.

There is a wonderful old Russian fairy tale about a peasant girl named Vasilisa. The story of Vasilisa is similar to our own tale of Cinderella. In the story, Vasilisa’s mother dies and her father eventually remarries. The new wife and stepsisters show themselves, in time, to be small-minded and unpleasant (as fairy tale step mothers and children always do), and the father begins to spend less and less time at home until he disappears from the scene all together. The step mother and sisters are cruel to Vasilisa, and plot to leave her to die in the forest, or to be eaten by the terrible old witch who is thought to live in its dark depths. One night, the light in the family cabin is”accidentally” extinguished by the girls, and Vasilisa is ordered to go into the woods and bring back fire to provide light for the house.

In many ways, the story here reminds us of the Greek myth of Prometheus, the great Titan who stole fire from Zeus and gave it to mankind. This act angered the gods; and Prometheus was chained to a rock in the wilderness where vultures feasted on his liver. Every night, the liver would regenerate and the vultures would return to feast again the next morning. The story of Prometheus tells us that the visionaries who bring back fire from the Gods are the transformers of culture; but they are often punished for their efforts.

But I digress. Back to Vasilisa. Poor Vasilisa goes into the forest and is promptly taken prisoner by the old witch, or crone. Here, at the mercy of the frightening and grumpy old woman, she is made to attend to certain chores; sorting bad grains of wheat out from the good, and sorting the dirt out of the poppy seeds. When these tasks are accomplished, the crone is satisfied and the old woman allows Vasilisa to ask her a number of questions about the nature of her power. Only now is the old lady willing to share her knowledge with Vasilisa, and she answers most of the young girls questions (not All her questions, of course. . . such is the quest for truth!) The crone then promptly kicks her out of the house, but gives her a fiery skull to take back to her wicked stepmother and her stepsisters.

As in the case of Prometheus, Vasilisa is not rewarded for bringing back the fire. When the stepmother and stepsisters see the glowing skull, they are frightened. The fire is too bright, too hot, and the unenlightened step family is singed by the heat. They run away, frightened and screaming, into the night. Vasilisa, understanding now that the burning skull that had been so useful to her was not so useful back at the cabin, buries it in the yard. She is then goes out into the world to find her father. There she is reunited with him, and, of course, they live happily ever after.

Like so many other fairy tales, the story of Vasilisa carries within it some profound truths. The story of Vasilisa is the story of the individual’s quest for knowledge; the story of stage four spirituality. The story tells us that the initiation process often involves being exiled into the dark forest of doubt, and being taken hostage by the crone.

In the tradition of fairy tales, the crone symbolizes the deep wisdom of the soul, that power that pushes us relentlessly to grow, to evolve, and to take responsibility for ourselves in the world. Life can be difficult at the mercy of the crone, and we are left to the tedious work of sorting things out before any answers will be found. According to Fowler, this work involves the task of demythologizing the old symbols. If this work is done well, we will be rewarded with answers to our questions, and fire to take back into the world. Only then does the initiate emerge from the forest; changed and empowered. Unfortunately, though, the fire we carry may not be received by those who have never experienced the initiation. The wise initiate buries this fire deep in the psyche, where it becomes the guiding inner light, and goes back home. An old Zen saying tells us that before enlightenment, we chop wood and carry water. After enlightenment, we chop wood and carry water.

Stage four faith takes us deep into the forest to meet the crone, to sort things out. But we must eventually come out of the forest. When we do, we emerge with new found light. Now we face the task integration; integrating ourselves back into the world, and integrating the old truths with the new truths to create a unique and meaningful personal mythology.

Stages 5& 6: The Rebirth of God

This task of integration is the heart of stage 5 in Fowler’s model of faith development. Fowler calls this stage “conjunctive faith.” During stage 4, the individual is searching and sorting to find a direct and personal revelation of truth. This is a necessary step, because the authentic identity of the individual emerges during this process, and with it a new found power and authority. During stage 5, the individual now turns to embrace the truth of the “other.” Now possessing the tools of analysis and understanding, the self chooses to submit again to the power of the symbolic.

During my stage 4 tenure in the woods, I was greatly concerned with what was “true” in the scientific, literal sense. One by one I held up the concepts and dogmas that fundamentalism had handed to me against the light of analysis. A literal hell, the virgin birth, the teachings of the trinity and the rapture. . . sorting and separating, each and every concept was studied and scrutinized under the microscope of reason as well as revelation; and one by one, I had to let go and watch as they fell away. It seemed during that time that the ground on which I once stood was melting beneath my feet; but I determined to find the bedrock, if there was a bedrock, that would remain firm under scrutiny. Once I came to the bedrock, (and I eventually did . . . this is the subject of part II), I felt as though I had discovered the divine for the very first time. The divine, having been stripped bare of the symbolism and residue that for centuries had encrusted and paralyzed it, was pure and authentic. Faith was reborn. Having arrived at the truth that lay at the bottom of all the symbolism and ritual, I found myself free to explore the symbolic truths of other religions.

In the culture of fundamentalism, there is a deep seated fear of “the other.” The rituals and symbols of the Buddhists, Hindus, and even the Catholics are seen as false and meaningless at best, and dangerous and demonic by the most strict interpretations. Fundamentalists are taught to reject and avoid everything “religious” that is outside the parameters of fundamental Christianity. This fear and paranoia is a by-product of simplistic, literalistic thinking. Having not been taught to think symbolically, the symbols themselves are the reality; and to a Bible believing fundamentalist, the symbolic images of other faiths are seen as demons, devils, and unintelligible nonsense.

Now willing to confront and decipher the symbolic and having identified my bedrock truths, I no longer needed to fear what I had not yet come to understand. I found myself delving deep into the imagery and ritual of Judaism, Buddhism, and even paganism. I began to study religions in a comparative way, and found to my delight that they were, at the heart, concerned with the same deep truths. Eventually, an interesting thing began to happen. In stage four, I was bothered by the Christmas story, since I had come to reject the virgin birth. In stage 5, I found myself appreciating again the Christmas mythology and the deep truths that lay behind it. I was also delighted to find the same deep truths in the heart of mythologies from other religious traditions. I remember one Easter when I cooked Passover dinner on Saturday night and Easter dinner on Sunday. I practiced Ramadan that year, and bought a laughing Buddha figure for the living room. The imagery and ritual of religion --- all religion, became rich and precious to me. Fowler asserts that “This stage develops a ‘second naivete’(Ricoeur) in which symbolic power is reunited with conceptual meanings” and that in this stage, “there must also be a new reclaiming and reworking of one’s past.” This is the stage in which I begian the reconstruction of Osiris.

Having dismembered him in stage 4, I had come to a new appreciation for and understanding of what he was and what he represented in the lives of our predecessors. I begin to search out the pieces and put them back together; fashioning from contemporary wisdom new parts to replace the missing pieces. I am still in that process, and closer to a place of wholeness, an integration of old and knew understandings that was not possible in stage three. This is stage 5; the calm after the storm, the emergence from the woods. According to fowler, there is still one level of spiritual development to be achieved; stage 6.

"Stage 6 is exceedingly rare. The persons best described by it have generated faith compositions in which their felt sense of an ultimate environment is inclusive of all being. They have become incarnators and actualizers of the spirit of an inclusive and fulfilled human community . . . Universalizers are often experienced as subversive of the structures (including religious structures) by which we sustain our individual and corporate survival, security and significance. Many persons in this stage die at the hands of those whom they hope to change. Universalizers are often more honored and revered after death than during their lives. The rare persons who may be described by this stage have a special grace that makes them seem more lucid, more simple, and yet somehow more fully human than the rest of us. Their community is universal in extent. Particularities are cherished because they are vessels of the universal, and thereby valuable apart from any utilitarian considerations. Life is both loved and held to loosely. Such persons are ready for fellowship with persons at any of the other stages from any other faith tradition" (Fowler, 1979, pg. 13-14).

The Story of the Hammer Man

In my own spiritual journey, I have found that journaling has been helpful in finding my voice and hearing my thoughts. For more than a year now, I have written a regular blog in which I lay out my developing ideas for anyone who wants to listen. I have met fellow travelers during this process, and their own struggles have often helped me frame my thoughts. One of these friends is a twenty something recovering fundamentalist. Here I include a blog that I wrote for her, because it seems now to embody the courage required of stage four faith development.

Imagine the man who is presented with a slab of rough stone and told that it is a God. There are the men who, afraid of standing alone in the universe, believe unquestioningly. They worship the stone even though, in moments of candor, they find it dull and even ugly. But locked in their dualism, they see only God or not God; and not God is a thought they cannot allow themselves to think.

Imagine the man who is presented with a slab of rough stone and told that it is a God. This man, as a child, embraces the stone as his parents do. This child also sees the dull ugliness of the stone; but he is not afraid. He too is locked in dualism, and he sees only God or not God. As this child grows, strong and brave, he dares to pick up the hammer. He smashes that which he knows to be only stone and he curses, angry at the God who is not God.

But there is another man. He too, is presented with the rough stone slab. He is told that it is God, and he, too, sees the dull ugliness of the stone. What he does not believe is that God or not God are the only possibilities. Maybe God, all-this and all-that, is not what is in the stone. Maybe "God," all-this and all-that, is not out there at all. . . but he knows that there is something. There is beauty, and Goodness, Inspiration and honor, and this comes from somewhere. So he looks at the rough stone slab, and he looks, and looks, and this man sees what others cannot. He too, picks up the hammer; not to destroy the God who is not God, but to free the truth that has called to him from the depths of the stone. He picks up the sharp tools of his intellect, and his faith, and begins to hammer; here, there, chiseling away that which does not speak to him. Careful – he steps back to look – to see through the stone – and then he chisels again.

The people of the village are horrified. Who is this awful man who is defiling the stone? They cannot see what he is doing. Blinded by fear and by ultimate categories, they plead with him to stop; but he hears another voice, and he sees what they cannot. This is the man who has stepped beyond dualism, who may not be sure about God, but he's sure about Goodness and beauty and the inspiration that calls to him from the depths of the stone. He is able to focus on his work and block out the voices of the fearful villagers and the angry critic. Patiently, quietly, he works with the hammer and in time, he reveals the very heart of the stone; a breathtakingly honest and beautiful form, a work of art that inspires like the dull ugly stone never could. And those who come after call it divine.

Just as this stage of ultimate integration and highest compassion is the goal of the individual, I believe that on a larger scale, it is the goal of humanity and of the universe itself. I believe that we are on the verge of an evolutionary leap; but it is religion itself that is holding us back. Religious fundamentalism is an expression of faith carried over from the pre-modern world. It cannot and does not translate easily into a world where humanity is being pushed to make the leap into a stage 6 consciousness.