STAGES OF FAITH

Some people, like Billy Graham, enter into a full-blown faith all at once when they experience a spiritual conversion or personal encounter with Christ. More people, like Billy’s wife, Ruth, experience a slow growth of their faith over a lifetime. The apostle Paul noticed this in his comments about the Christians at Thessalonica: “We ought to give thanks to God for you.. and rightly so, because your faith is growing more and more.”

When something grows, it develops from one stage to another. Shakespeare portrayed man as developing through seven ages:

All the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players:

They have their exits and their entrances;

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling and pewking in the nurses arms.

And then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel,

And shining morning face, creeping like a snail

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like a furnace, with a woful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in honor, sudden and quick in quarrel,

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon lin’d,

With eyes severe, and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws, and modern instances;

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slipper’d pantaloon,

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose well sav’d a world too wide

For his shrunk shank; and his big, manly voice,

Turning again towards childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,

Is second childishness, and mere oblivion,

Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Men and women develop through different stages in life so that the same person may appear in different roles, and may re-invent himself for the purpose. Opinions may change over a lifetime as new knowledge is received and assimilated. Faith is no different. Faith looks different at each stage of its growth. When we physically or emotionally develop, we change over the years. Our faith changes also. Let us look at these stages of faith and see what they can tell us about the process of change that is involved.

There have been several studies of the development of faith. During a time of great stress and challenge I came across The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith, by Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich. It is a description of the spiritual journey which addresses the struggle to find meaning and purpose, the crisis of values and identity at mid-life, the quest for self-actualization, and the healing of early religious experiences. The authors’ goal is to help their reader to understand where he is in his search and where others are on theirs. The sections on the journey inward, and coming up against a wall in my relationship with God, spoke to me about the stage I found myself in at the time. It was an accurate diagnosis of my condition. I found it invaluable as a guide to moving on to the next stage of my faith.

In Will Our Children Have Faith? John Westerhoff suggests four stages.

The first two stages he characterizes as faith’s infancy and childhood. That is when we experience faith from those around us. We don’t actually have to choose faith for ourselves because it is part of our environment as children. Paul talks about Timothy being raised in the faith of his grandmother, Lois, and his mother Eunice. Or we may go through a conversion experience, a born again experience and be babies in the faith, needing to be spoon-fed for a while. “Like newborn infants, long for the pure spiritual milk, that by it you may grow up to salvation.”

When people came to faith in Christ in my church in London we would ask them to attend the Nursery Class, so named because it represented where they were in their faith. Like babies and young children it is a beautiful stage when people are open, innocent, sincere and delightful. We affiliate with the faith of our church, or youth group, or denomination. That is why young people can be so enthusiastic about their faith. They have accepted what they have been taught, and can be intolerant of those who disagree with them.

The third stage is faith’s adolescence when we begin to question everything in order to decide what we are prepared to believe. It is part of individuation, of becoming our own person rather than being the clone of our community or peer group. Westerhoff calls this ‘searching faith’. It is healthy to question so that we can make choices for ourselves that mean something to us. If this stage is discouraged, it can drive seekers into negative options. They may walk out of their rigid church, or their high-control family, in search of freedom of inquiry. Or, if they stay in their group, they may retreat inwardly and become angry and silent. Or, they may stifle their questions, and pretend to believe like everyone else, and sacrifice their integrity. Later in life searchers who have stifled their growth may blame their repressive churches, or their dogmatic parents, for their indifference. But we all have to take responsibility for our own growth in faith.

I can remember, when I was Dean of the Chapel at Gordon College, there was a student who would not attend chapel, or participate in an alternate chapel program of small discussion groups. He was in a high state of rebellion against his father, and all that he represented as a prominent Baptist pastor. In the end I met with him one on one and we discussed anything he wanted to talk about. He worked through his adolescent questioning, went through a failed marriage, and is now a successful Christian writer, and a practicing Roman Catholic.

This stage can be prolonged way beyond what is healthy. We may call it a case of arrested development. The searcher may “slip into a holding pattern, forever circling, never landing, and thus effectively avoiding responsibility.” Although he may no longer be an adolescent physically speaking, the adult searcher becomes an agnostic, taking refuge in the questions as a means of keeping commitment at arm’s length. The apostle James has this person in mind when he wrote, “he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think that he will receive anything from the Lord, he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.”

“If we let reasonable doubts linger indefinitely, they can make us spiritual hypochondriacs – or perpetual adolescents. Paul talks about those who are “always learning but never able to acknowledge the truth.”. There is a time when you have to ‘fish or cut bait’. You can’t sit on the fence forever. Those who will not move, who will not get off the fence, are making the decision to remain immature. They play mind games with themselves and take refuge in intellectual excuses for not being able to make a commitment either way.

The fourth stage is faith’s adulthood. This is when we own our faith in Christ as authentically ours and not just borrowed from someone else, or something we profess in order to fit in with others. It has to do more with a personal relationship with Christ than the rituals of an institution.

Adult faith doesn’t know all the answers, but is comfortable with trusting in God who does. The faith that has grown to this point is able to give up control to Christ and be comfortable in some settled convictions. The apostle Paul could say in the midst of his sufferings, “I know whom I have believed, and am convinced that he is able to guard what I have entrusted to him.” It is trust in the person of Christ, who, we are convinced, is able to deliver on the promises we have received, and our future well-being.

Where is your faith? What stage are you in? Are you beginning to wonder if your faith is simply a reflection of the group with which you have been affiliated all your life? Or do you feel unsettled, confused, doubting more than you are believing? Doubts need not be bad. Your questions may be genuine. They may need to be addressed in order for your faith to grow to the next stage.

On the other hand, how long have you been searching? If you find that you take more delight in with-holding commitment, and you secretly resent having to close your options, be careful. Your well-fed doubt may really be a cop-out, and it may be time to move on. Don’t be afraid to break out of your holding pattern and resume your flight plan! When we get stuck in our stage of faith, we are no longer growing. We can become hardened and defensive about where we are.

People get stuck for all sorts of reasons. When we get stuck for long enough we get trapped, and we may not know it. Our stage becomes a cage. “By this time you ought to be teachers… but you need milk like a child.”

Getting stuck occurs sometimes from our fear of facing the unknown. Other times it comes from crises that we cannot control. Or it maybe our fear that we cannot control God or our future. Some of us are never satisfied with our stage of faith. We are always looking for more information. We are insatiable learners in the faith. We go to every personal growth experience available. Self-growth can be addictive. We appear to be very open on the surface, true seekers of the truth. But we are closed just below the surface. We are simply afraid to surrender control to God. The risk is too high.

One of the difficulties in relating to others is that we become aware that they may be in a different stage from us. Being in a meeting with others at different stages from us can leave us perplexed and frustrated. It is like adolescents trying to understand what it means to be living in adulthood, or children trying to understand the inner life of seniors. For example, people at the adult stage, secure with what is right for them and with a strong sense of belonging, may think that those who appear to be questioning, or even rejecting their childhood faith, are not strong enough, not faithful enough, not willing enough, or just plain not Christian. There have been times when I have been stuck in my faith development. I have lost my vision, or become disillusioned, or have felt depressed and tired. It is not that I have doubted God, but his presence has seemed less real than at other times. During one such period, I had to be prepared to listen to what God was saying to me rather than trying to keep in control of the agenda. I became aware that my shadow side consisted of those things I saw in other people that I did not like. I had to learn about forgiveness for myself and others. That led on to acceptance and love. Because of my vulnerability, I could sense God’s presence in a new way. It meant asking why I was doing some things. It involved taking a risk in listening to what God was leading me to do that was different from before. I sang: “Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me. Melt me, mold me, fill me, use me. Spirit of the living God, fall afresh on me.” All this required time away from my busyness, a time of solitude – time to reflect.

Faith can go through all stages every day. Some of us find ourselves moving back and forth between stages of faith, searching awhile, and then reverting to childhood trust. There is nothing wrong with childhood faith. Jesus said that we must become children to enter into the kingdom of heaven. Even mature faith keeps on searching, and sometimes cycling through periods of doubt.

Sometimes we cannot see beyond the present difficulties of life. In those times of darkness God gives us just enough faith to take the next step in the fog. We grow in faith as we trust that we are following Christ, even though we cannot see him clearly. Yet we believe that he is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that true Joy is to be found in going forward in faith, even when we do not completely understand.

King George VI, in his Christmas broadcast in 1939, when the United Kingdom was facing the Nazi threat, quoted Minnie Lou Haskins,

“And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year: ‘Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.’ And he replied, ‘Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God. That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.’”

A Prayer:

Lord God, you know what stage of faith I am in at the moment. Enable me to move forward and not be stuck. Help me to let go of my ego, and to recognize that you are God, and to accept you as the Lord of my life. Enable me to be open to your direction. Direct my every thought, word, and action. May I experience your presence in my life, and respond accordingly. I surrender control of my life to you. May the love of Christ control me, and the power of your Spirit refresh me. Give me the courage to follow where you may lead, and to grow in faith, hope and love in my relationships with others. Amen.