http://www.psychologycharts.com/james-fowler-stages-of-faith.html
This was mentioned in a Bishop Spong post - the good bishop has stopped doing weekly essays, and working on his latest book. So others are filling in for him. The 3/8/2017 comment by Felten mentioned this book, and applied this insight into maturing religious beliefs to, of all things, political "beliefs". I found it helpful. I could not find another published commentary like this by Felten, so I am reduced to giving you a brief summary of what he said. The Spong essay is a for-fee group, which you can find here, if you are interested. It was entitled:
The author has a good command of how Twitter works, and is well aware of the current brouhaha with traditional news sources, so it is also fun to read. BUT . . . you have to be a paying member. I am reduced here to a few quotes of salient points.
Basically, he discussed the recent problems of "fake news" and "alternative facts" as they are being bandied about by the somewhat erratic defenders of our current elected fearless leader. He referenced this book about the development and maturing of religious beliefs as a way to better understand what is going on in the realm of political "beliefs". That alone is a major step - recognizing that we humans do not do "rational" things with political ideas, any more than we do with religious ones or economic ones. There is excellent research supporting that - and I have made a few comments in this space about that. I am persuaded that the "science" of economics is much better understood as a collection of "schools of belief" - people defend their position in the face of any amount of contrary information. Politics is exactly like that. Our brains treat it the same way.
If you read the post above about the stages of religious development, it makes some sense. I do not know if these are based on any hard research or science, or whether they are simply the reflections of the author - but they FEEL good to me. They follow along with the stages defined by the work of Piaget, and Kohlberg, M. Scott Peck and Erickson.
Kohlberg's work is very similar around how people make moral or ethical decisions. We seem to grow from self centered individuals, to ones more focused on peers and our tribe, to a final, mature adult who can, pretty much, think and operate independently of these influences. I think the key is our increased empathy with others. And that we seem to "grow up" in different realms at different speeds, so we might be at one stage in one part of life, like religion, and in another in our political, or economic. But . . . they are all belief systems, so . . .
The author sees the source of this problem in Christianity and the bizarre belief system people set up to maintain their simplistic, mythic beliefs in the face of modern science and knowledge. But, in fact, humans are just this way. Christianity had nothing to do with it. It takes a LOT of work to do things rationally. It takes more than just the passage of time to move someone up the scale of belief, be it in the realm of religion or politics. And we have yet to discover a better mechanism for teaching people how to grow up, as it were, in this realm. I remain hopeful that we will eventually figure this out, but we have come a long way just to recognize the problem.
Here are a few pithy excerpts from the essay:
- As many Christians grow up, they are expected to believe that the biblical story of “Noah’s flood is actually a historical, factual account” – despite the impossible logistics and the appalling theology. Every day, countless fundamentalist Christians congratulate themselves for being able to suspend disbelief and embrace the “divine wisdom” of an all-loving and gracious God committing global genocide.
- In analyzing people’s susceptibility to “fake news,” Christopher Douglas notes that this tendency has its historical origin in Christian fundamentalism’s rejection of expert elites.” While many Catholics and Mainline Protestants have taken the last 150 years of expert Biblical and theological scholarship to heart, Fundamentalism has proudly embraced the rejection of science and rational thought as a badge of honor – oftentimes creating whole universes of “alternative facts” (the so-called “Biblical Worldview”) to defend a literal 6-day creation, intelligent design, and Jesus’ literal virgin birth and physical resurrection.
- So, as in our current political sphere, no matter how articulate Progressive Christians are in expressing the wisdom of Progressive Christianity, Fundamentalist Christians will simply never come around. Never. After all, their very identity is, in part, rooted in the ability to not only dismiss any evidence that contradicts their worldview (fake news!), but to double down on the veracity of their “alternative facts.” As objective and well-grounded as Progressive Christian apologists might be in pointing out the shortcomings of a Fundamentalist mindset, it will make no difference. Theological liberals can choose to continue the debate, but to what end? Any serious conversation is doomed before it starts, a casualty of the war between two irreconcilable tribes.
The author does not have a real "solution" to how these folks operate, but rather one for the rest of us, who see the problem. His suggestion is that we need to let go of the idea that we are right, and they are wrong. These are just different "views" or "stages" of the problem. To quote again:
- Once liberated from the dualism of being “right or wrong,” there’s no need to try and convince a Stage 3 person of anything. Simply be who you are where you are on the spiritual journey. Don’t be deterred from being a person on the way to Stage 6 for fear of offending someone in Stage 2. Just get on with it. We no longer need to feel the urge to give in to our tribal impulse to prove others wrong and ourselves right.
- If we’re familiar enough with Fowler’s stages, we can endure a sermon that is theologically medieval and resist the urge to shout, “You’re WRONG!” Instead, we can simply acknowledge, “Wow, that was a seriously “Stage 2” sermon. There may even be an opportunity to demonstrate some Stage 5 compassion by empathizing with the pastor: “I know she’s a Stage 5 Christian, but the demographic of her church is Stage 3. That must be really hard on her spiritual integrity to preach to where people are rather than where she’d like them to be…”.
- Think of how helpful a “Stages” labeling system could be. For the benefit of the consumer, whole churches or denominations could be designated as Stage 2, 3, 4, or 5 – saving people a lot of grief in choosing a faith community. Like English 101 or 102, Bible studies could be identified as Stage 4 or Stage 5. Perhaps truth-in-advertising would lead to announcements indicating “WARNING: Stage 2 Bible Study!”
#tremendous #huge
It reminds me somewhat of my "rules of thumb for life". This is the way things are - stop worrying about it, there's no way to change it. You can adapt to it, but you can't "fix" the other person, because there is really nothing wrong with them. They are where they are. It would be like trying to introduce the idea of economic interdependency to a 2 year old. You are better off talking about the tooth fairy and Santa Claus to convey the idea. BUT, it still upsets me that we have elected fearless leaders that seem to be perpetually stuck in stage 1 or 2, not even up to the "normal" level of 3. I am somewhat similarly upset that I cannot explain the Santa myth to a child, but I can live with it!
The other side of that, it would be a great mistake to just write off all of those "immature" humans who do not agree with my "rational" approach. There is little to be gained in that. Rather, this helps a bit to really get inside how they see things, and understand that they are NOT the enemy, NOT stupid, NOT crazy. Since they are not going to "move forward" or "upward" in any hurry, we had best be about trying to speak at their level if we want to make any progress at all.
But I am persuaded that we might yet find a way out of this perpetual gut instinct thing. I have seen some research that "mindfulness" or "meditation" in almost any form provides people with more empathy, and more openness to the views of others - offering the slim hope that we might be able construct social mechanisms of education or the like that will actually move us forward as a society. That is, as soon as we fix the serious structural problems with our economic systems and form of government. Or perhaps not. We shall see.
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