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STAGES, STYLES, OR STORIES?
A BRIEF GUIDE TO FAITH DEVELOPMENT

Frederick Buechner, in his witty, yet provocative way, acknowledges that "faith is better understood as a verb than as a noun, as a process than as a possession. It is on-again-off-again rather than once-and-for-all. Faith is not being sure where you're going but going anyway. A journey without maps" (Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC [Harper & Row, 1973] 25). 

The Apostle Paul also acknowledges that a relationship with Christ is a work in progress: "that he who began a good work in you will carry it to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Phil 1:6b). What Buechner and Paul share in common is that faith develops-it is a dynamic, and not a static, dimension of a person. Hence, faith is a verb ("faithing"), rather than solely an object. We have probably seen the bumper sticker, "Be patient with me. God isn't finished with me yet." Faith development theories explore how faith develops during the life cycle. 

This essay will briefly introduce what I consider to be the major contributors to adult faith development theory in North America. I am painting with a broad brush and inevitably will overlook some theories; nevertheless, it is vital, for seminarians, pastors, and other Christian practitioners (e.g., counselors) to have basic knowledge of the following faith development theories. I hope this essay will motivate the reader to become further acquainted with these and other authors. 

James W. Fowler

Director of the center for Research in Faith and Moral Development at Emory University, Fowler is considered by many to be the "father of faith development." His pioneer work, Stages of Faith, integrated cognitive (developmental) psychology with the quest for meaning (i.e., faith). Fowler broadly defines faith as "…a human universal. We are endowed at birth with nascent capabilities for faith. How these capabilities are activated and grow depends to a large extent on how we are welcomed into the world and what kinds of environments we grow in. Faith is interactive and social; it requires community, language, ritual and nurture. Faith is also shaped by initiatives from beyond us and other people, initiatives of spirit or grace. How these latter initiatives are recognized and imaged, or unperceived and ignored, powerfully affects the shape of faith in our lives" (xiii). 

For Fowler, then, faith is a universal human activity. It may or may not be religious, yet it is an orientation to life and incorporates all our senses. We are, in essence, "faithing" all the time. Fowler constructs his theory upon the foundations of moral development, using J. Piaget (1896-1980) and L. Kohlberg (1927-1987) as well as his own empirical research. 

Before listing Fowler's stages of faith, it is useful to highlight the general assumptions of cognitive psychology, since his theory embraces these assumptions to some regard. According to B. Clouse (Teaching for Moral Growth [Victor, 1993] 238-42), there are a least six: (1) Moral development occurs within the individual.; (2) Moral development parallels intellectual development; (3) Moral development occurs in a series of stages that are invariant, hierarchical, and universal; (4) Moral development comes by cognitive conflict (5) Moral development is philosophically sound and is not contrary to any major religion; and (6) Moral development is a fully scientific claim about human nature and can be measured. 

Summarizing each stage is no easy task; nevertheless, C. McCullough's Heads of Heaven, Feet of Clay (Pilgrim, 1983) offers the following descriptive title for each of Fowler's stages (see italics): (1) Intuitive-Projective (Early Childhood): The Innocent-God is often associated with parents or parental figures; (2) Mythic-Literal (School Years): The Literalist-what emerges is the idea of fairness; (3) Synthetic-Conventional (Adolescence): The Loyalist-the individual is basically a conformist, there is a deep hunger for acceptance by peers, and the individual believes what the church believes; (4) Individuative-Reflective (Young Adult, Plus): The Critic-there is a movement from conformity to individuality as in a student going away to college; (5) Conjunctive (Mid-life and Beyond): The Seer-one's faith expression is no longer that of parents, church, or tradition, but becomes one's own, so that persons in this stage have the ability to see and evaluate other perspectives; and (6) Universalizing (Exceedingly Rare): The Saint-one is motivated by the guiding sense of a supreme authority in all aspects of life. 

John H. Westerhoff III

Professor of Theology and Christian Nurture emeritus at Duke University Divinity School, Westerfoff describes faith development as "styles" in Will Our Children Have Faith? Interestingly, Westerhoff compares four styles of faith to rings of a tree trunk. The analogy is simple: a tree is a tree with one or four rings; however, as a tree matures, more rings are evident. Faith, then, according to Westerhoff, "is an action which includes thinking, feeling, and willing and it is transmitted, sustained, and expanded through our interactions with other faithing selves in a community of faith" (91). 

Stated simply, the styles, moving from the core outward are (1) experienced, (2) affiliative, (3) searching, and (4) owned faith. Experienced faith is the basis of one's spiritual journey. "A person first learns Christ not as a theological affirmation but as an affective experience" (92). This can be called tactile faith-one enhanced by sensory experience (e.g., seeing a nativity scene, lighting a candle, etc.). 

Affiliative faith focuses on the sense of belonging within the community. Faith begins individually and then moves outward communally. The logical extension of experienced faith is belonging to or identifying with a specific community or religious tradition. Rites of passage, like baptism or The Lord's Table, facilitate this belonging. 

The third style of faith is searching faith, often evident of late adolescence and young adulthood. Searching faith encompasses three characteristics: doubt, experimentation and commitment. "In order to move from an understanding of faith that belongs to the community to an understanding of faith that is our own, we need to doubt and question that faith" (96). 

Lastly, there is owned faith, the largest tree trunk ring, or what Westerhoff calls "conversion"-whether gradual or sudden, which involves one's searching faith becoming one's owned faith. Owned faith is maturing faith, one that allows the individual the fullest expression of God's power and love. 

Robert Coles

Coles, professor of psychiatry and medical humanities at Harvard University and Pulitzer-prize winning author of the "Children in Crisis" series, employs a "narrative" approach to faith development-namely, examining an individual's "story" to explore one's moral reasoning. Coles was primarily influenced by A. Freud, the daughter of Sigmund, and teacher-colleague E. Erikson. Whereas a strict Freudian approach is psychosexual in nature, an Eriksonian approach is psychosocial. Coles maintains that moral reasoning (read: faith development) is psychosocial and, thereby, fundamentally phenomenological. He believes moral behavior is not necessarily paralleled with one's cognitive development. One example is Cole's recent essay, "The Disparity between Intellect and Character," published in The Chronicle of Higher Education (22 September 1995, A68), which recounts a visit with a female college student confused by a classmate's immoral actions. She acknowledges that he gets A's in his moral-reasoning courses, yet continues to proposition her. She concludes by saying, "What's the point of knowing good, if you don't keep trying to become a good person?" 

Coles is perhaps best known for his work with Ruby Bridges, a 6-year-old African-American girl, who was federally mandated to attend an all-white school in New Orleans in 1960. Teachers as well as students boycotted the school, so Ruby attended school by herself with one brave white schoolteacher, Ms. Hurley. Each day Ruby had to be escorted by federal marshals as she walked by the mobs of angry people shouting racial epithets. Before entering the school, Ruby would say the following prayer: "Please God, try to forgive those people. Because even if they say those bad things, They don't know what they're doing. So You could forgive them, Just like You did those folks a long time ago, When they said terrible things about You." 

Coles was summoned to determine what effect desegregation would have on this vulnerable child. What he discovered was shocking-this seemingly immature child had a well-developed moral certitude: "Ruby had a will and used it to make an ethical choice, she demonstrated moral stamina, she possessed honor, courage" (The Moral Life of Children, 29). Hence, although Ruby was only cognitively 6 years old, she had a highly developed moral reasoning. 

It is not surprising that each of these theories has attracted criticism. For example, Fowler has often been criticized for reducing faith to predictable stages; Westerhoff for his apparent lack of quantitative evidence and Coles for his emphasis on story-the phenomenological approach of faith. 

Other Voices

What now follows, although not typically viewed as "theories," are two authors' works that have aided in a more balanced approach to faith development. 

Carol Gilligan's watershed work, In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development, challenged the male biases in Kohlberg's sampling. This work was so significant that it landed Gilligan on the list of Time magazine's 25 most influential people in 1996. Gilligan discovered that men and women interacted with the Heinz moral dilemma differently: Woman approached a situation with, what Gilligan termed as, an "ethic of responsibility" through a "web of relationships." Women, thus, were not unsophisticated in their moral development; rather, their moral logic was very different than men's. Women were able to move beyond explicit relationships and begin to see the implicit impact their decisions had. 

Carol Lakey Hess in her recent work, Caretakers of Our Common House, offers an interdisciplinary approach to faith development in women. Hess evaluates the theories of R. Niebuhr (The Nature and Destiny of Man), R. Kegan (The Evolving Self), and Gilligan in the milieu of the biblical narratives. Her aim is practical-theological and her use of the biblical texts is "to recover liberating texts, remembered silenced texts, and offer alternative perspectives on texts that heave been interpreted in ways harmful to women" (16). In many respects, Hess's work stands in the tradition of feminist hermeneutics. 

Which, then, is the best and most reliable theory to describe faith development: stages, styles, or stories? Perhaps we can agree again with the apostle Paul that we see in a mirror dimly (1 Cor 13:12a). So too with faith development theories: each collectively adds to a fuller understanding of the complexity and depth of the concept of faith. 

Recommended Reading

R. Coles, The Moral Life of Children (Houghton Mifflin, 1986); The Spiritual Life of Children (Houghton Mifflin, 1991). 

J.W. Fowler, Stages of Faith (Harper & Row, 1981); Faith Development and Pastoral Care (Fortress, 1987). 

C. Gilligan, In A Different Voice: Psychological Theory and Women's Development (Harvard University Press, 1982). 

C.L. Hess, Caretakers of Our Common House (Abingdon, 1998). 

K. Stokes, Faith is a Verb: Dynamics of Adult Faith Development (Twenty-Third, 1989). 

J.H. Westerhoff III, Will Our Children Have Faith? (Seabury, 1981). 

By Joseph B. Modica, Ph.D., Chaplain and Assistant Professor of Biblical Studies, Eastern College.