 |
| ALL THINGS ARE SOLVED BY WALKING... |
FAITH
FAITH is a word that often is tossed around in religious venues. FAITH also implies a complete trust and
confidence in a person you are in close relationship. As the TWENTY-MINUTE COACH, I am going to
introduce you to the James Fowler’s work, The Stages of FAITH. Fowler outlines stages of FAITH just like Erik Erickson teaches about developmental stages of growing up. Fowler contends that we grow up in our FAITH.
The six stages are:
Stage 0 (0-2) Primal –Undifferentiated where babies learn to trust or
mistrust the environment
Stage I (3-5) Intuitive-Projective
struggles between imagination and logic
Stage II (school age) Mythic-Literal very concrete about justice and
fairness
Stage III (12-adulthood) Synthetic- Conventional learning to be
logical, deduct reason and understand abstract thought
Stage IV (20’s-30’s) Individual-Reflective marked with angst and
struggle taking responsibility for FAITH beliefs.
Stage V (mid-life) Conjunctive often a look into the unconscious self
Stage VI (later stage) Universal Faith practicing compassion to all
people
To read more about the stages go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fowler's_stages_of_faith_development
The point of investigating these stages is that often people become
stuck in a certain stage and his/her FAITH becomes stagnated. I experience many people stuck in Stage I
where God is more like Santa Claus who is quite magical. The goal of adulthood is to move toward a
Universal FAITH and co-exist compassionately with all beings. FAITH is progressive and healing when we
allow ourselves to grow up. Growing up
is a part of becoming whole and embracing our FAITH by taking personal
responsibility for our beliefs is part of being a healthy adult.
No comments:
Post a Comment