Article of Interest... Three Clergymen, Three Faiths, One Friendship

Faith IQ??

Today's edition of the local newspaper had an interesting article about faith. It essentially summarizes James Fowler's book Stages of Faith.





The article is called
Stages of faith: What's your spiritual quotient?
Many thinkers are making the case that humans are capable of evolving spiritually, of progressing to higher rungs

By Douglas Todd, Vancouver Sun
March 7, 2009

We all have IQs. Or Intelligence Quotients. IQ measure human's ability to reason with language, numbers and spatial relations. We also have EQs. Or Emotional Quotients.

Made famous by psychologist Daniel Goleman, they describe humans' skill handling emotions. We also have what could be called MQs, or Moral Quotients. Researcher Lawrence Kohlberg has been among those measuring humans' capacity for empathy and ethical reasoning.

We also, I would suggest, have SQs, or Spiritual Quotients.

Psychologists have done incredible work in the past century measuring the developmental stages of humans as they transform from mother-hugging infants into rebellious teenagers and, with a bit of luck, responsible adults. Some complain that religiosity, or belief in God, should not be similarly categorized. In this politically correct era, they don't want to hear about (gasp) spiritual hierarchies -- in which one spiritual stage is considered higher than another. But why not?

Just as Swiss social scientist Jean Piaget mapped out the four stages in which children learn to take in reality, and psychologist Erik Erikson outlined eight healthy stages we can go through from birth to death, many thinkers are making a good case that humans also spiritually evolve.

People are capable of progressing up a spiritual ladder. It doesn't mean they become smug on the higher spiritual rungs. Au contraire. But they can learn to function at a more complex, subtle and profound spiritual level.

Some of the scholars, psychologists and mystics who have been mapping the stages of spiritual growth include Clare Graves, Robert Kegan, Sri Aurobindo, Don Beck and especially Ken Wilber in his book, Integral Spirituality. In Vancouver, educator Chris Dierkes is among those specializing on the subject.

One of the spiritual development experts I find most intriguing is psychologist James Fowler of Emory University, author of the classic book, Stages of Faith. Fowler believes every baby starts out "undifferentiated." Babies don't make a distinction between a mother's warm, safe breast and God.

Fowler doesn't even call this primal beginning a stage. As a result, he says the first stage of spiritual development, which lasts from ages two to seven, is the one of unconscious religious fantasy.

After this comes the "mythic" stage. It's when people begin holding to literal and absolute truths. They might, for instance, believe the Genesis account of a six-day creation is fact. After this comes the third stage -- of "conventional" faith or spirituality.

It occurs when people move beyond their family of origin and seriously engage schools, peers and the media. They accept the judgment of significant others, like teachers and clergy. This conformist stage is when people develop loyalty to an ideology, group or lifestyle -- whether religious, military, artistic, economic or political. It is also when many religious groups often choose, unwisely, to hold "confirmation" classes, requiring teenagers to commit to a religious doctrine.

Many people, however, move on from this conformist approach -- to stage four, which is where Fowler says spirituality becomes more of an individual struggle. Stage four, to Fowler, marks a more reflective time, where self-actualization becomes the prime concern, and people try to take personal responsibility for their beliefs. In stage four a person starts listening to often-disturbing inner voices that challenge orthodoxy. They begin looking seriously at other religions and belief systems, realizing some of their convictions may be relative. This stage can happen in young adulthood or in one's 30s or 40s.

It often rises up just after religious "confirmation" classes, leading many teens to completely reject the religion of their youth. It is a "demythologizing" stage, Fowler says. It includes some atheists.

"It's dangers are inherent in its strengths; stage four comes with an excessive confidence in . . . critical thought and a kind of second narcissism."

The fifth stage of spiritual development leads to integration. In this stage, which is unusual before mid-life, Fowler says we recognize our own weaknesses and can see truth in paradox. The religion scholar Paul Ricouer would see stage five as one of "second naivete," Fowler says.

It's a helpful phrase. "Second naivete" occurs when people no longer take literally the stories of any spiritual or cultural tradition, either western or eastern. Instead, they deeply explore in themselves the "symbolic power" of stories about Moses, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha and others. They treat the stories "as if" they were true, mining them for transcendent meaning.

Finally, there is the highest stage of spiritual growth -- six: The universal. Fowler says it is "exceedingly rare" to achieve stage six, which some might call enlightenment. People in this stage "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) by which we sustain our individual and corporate survival and significance. Many persons in this stage die at the hands of those whom they hope to change," Fowler says.

No doubt thinking of people such as Jesus, Gandhi, Thich Nhat Hanh, Buddha, Aung San Suu Kyi and other courageous luminaries, Fowler says universalizers don't necessarily have to believe in God. But they do "have a special grace that makes them seem more lucid, more simple and yet somehow more fully human than the rest of us." They are not necessarily perfect. But people who have reached this enlightened sixth stage of spiritual development think globally, while still cherishing the particular.

That includes their specific communities, which at their best can be "vessels of the universal." Life, for those at stage six, is "both loved and held to loosely," Fowler says. "Such persons are ready for fellowship with persons at any of the other stages and from any other faith tradition."

To me, Fowler and his ilk make a convincing and eloquent case: Not all spiritualities are created equal.

comment about "living our faith"

I ran across this article in a local rag and I get a kick out of a comment in it.

"Some people go to church, but black people have church. It's a different thing. It's a full-contact sport with us."

This is an interesting comment about the attitude or self-expression of worshippers of the Christian traditions in North America. The speaker goes on to say that Canadian congregants tend to reserved in their expression of their belief/praise in comparison with African -Canadian persuasions. Why is this? Why do we (Canadians typically not black, as per the speaker) not loosen up and shout praise? Why do we look with disdain upon those who do when they are within our walls, with a "thatisnothowwedothingshere" attitude. Is this something we learn? or or is this something that we do because it is this way, but don't really wish to ponder why we do what we do? I went through religious studies courses as part of my training and there was one course that the professor told us had a "smoker's warning", it was hazardous to our spiritual health. The course was called the "Psychology of Religion" and it basically was an opportunity to examine why I believe what I do. Is it because it was what I was raised with (because my parents made me) or because it was what I wanted. In my roundabout way, what I'm getting at is that "having church" versus "going to church" connotes an expression of how deeply one's spiritual life is manifested. Do we just get a weekly dose or put in our time, or do we express what is our lives everyday not just on the day of worship? Something to think about. And now the article, that goes on about a different tangent...

Although St. James Hall has long been deconsecrated, Marcus Mosley is happy that the site of the Sojourners' upcoming CD-release party was once holy ground. It's not that he minds performing in secular environments–the Sojourners see a lot of blues clubs when they're on the road with their friend and occasional employer, singer Jim Byrnes. Still, the sanctified aura that permeates the former chapel is going to make it easier for Mosley and his fellow vocalists Ron Small and Will Sanders to achieve their goal: having church.

"Some people go to church, but black people have church," says Mosley, calling the Straight from his Vancouver home. "It's a different thing. It's a full-contact sport with us."

The affable singer and former missionary is laughing, but he's serious, too. For people who have been brought up in the African-American tradition, one of the most puzzling aspects of Canadian life is the grave solemnity that attends religious functions north of the border. "I'm not criticizing Cana­dian church and worship," the Texas-born Mosley notes dryly, "but it's a little bit different than African-American Baptist or Pentecostal church services."

One difference, I posit, is that in Canada the church has generally been an instrument of social control, whereas African-American pastors preached a kind of liberation theology long before that term came into vogue. Mosley counters that it's not quite so cut and dried: in some southern areas of the U.S., the church encouraged obedience to obviously unjust laws. Still, Sunday services were one of the few opportunities slaves and sharecroppers had to join together as a community.

"The church was a source of survival, not just physical survival but spiritual survival," he says. "If you want to go back to the slave period, it was that one hour or so on a Sunday when blacks were allowed to gather together and form a circle and start singing their songs. It was that one moment where they were able to be totally open, and self-empowered, and in touch with their higher selves–and then, of course, it would be back to the whip and the slave-owner mistreating them. So it was an hour of personal expression and freedom–an hour of grace."

The conditions of exile that apply to Vancouver's small African-American community are not so harsh, but for many U.S. transplants the church retains its social purpose. "Many of us miss the kind of church that we have back home," Mosley says, and as the leader of the Christ Church Cathedral–based Good Noise Vancouver Gospel Choir, he's in a position to do something about it. The 85-voice ensemble is also home to Sanders, who leads the men's chorus, and Small, its de facto patriarch. But the Sojourners didn't come together until 2006, when Byrnes was putting together his own gospel-inspired House of Refuge.

"Jim called me and said, 'Marcus, I'm working on a CD project, so can you get a couple of guys together and do some background vocals?'" Mosley explains. "So we did, and that became House of Refuge, which has been really successful. I mean, he's gotten like at least five different awards for it, Junos and all that stuff. And then [guitarist and producer] Steve Dawson came to us and said, 'You know, you guys are probably going to go on tour with Jim, so I'd like to produce a CD for you so you'll have some product.' So we got our heads together and came up with some songs and some arrangements, and then went into the studio. We spent about three days and put it all down on disc. Very down-and-dirty, and not over-produced; we just kept it very simple. But I liked the way it turned out."

Hold On, the Sojourners' debut, justifies Mosley's pride. With Dawson's expressive slide lines and Roebuck "Pops" Staples–approved rhythm work fleshing out the sound, the disc is already finding favour with roots-music enthusiasts as well as gospel zealots. It's Small, however, who just might be the record's biggest fan.

"Ron's having his 70th birthday on the seventh of December," Mosley notes. "And when we've been performing, he's started telling the audience, 'I've been singing all my life, but since I've been with this trio, it's like I'm having a whole new career. So if I die, I'm going to get up to those pearly gates and say: "I'm ready to go back! I'm not finished!"'"

Does this mean that the Sojourners are going to be more than just a one-album experiment?

"Well, I'm sure hoping so," Mosley confides. "From your lips to God's ears, as they say!"

The Sojourners play St. James Hall on Saturday (November 24).