The Unitarian Fellowship of Peterborough

Like everything else, one’s faith develops and evolves over time. We’ll take a look at the both the theory and practice of faith. Just how evolved are we?

Religious Exploration:
Spirit Play story is 'Pony and the Stones', about self esteem and trusting in oneself.
Seekers group theme is UU Heritage:  A Heritage of Love

Opening Words

Close To Home   - David Whyte

Come, let us open ourselves, like a slender new moon, to faith.

STORY FOR ALL

Verdi          - Janell Cannon

In this story, a young python resists shedding his youthful yellow skin, and doesn’t want to grow up to be slow and green. 

READING

from Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience         - Sharon Salzberg

One day a friend called to ask if we could meet for tea.  Knowing that I was writing a book on faith from the Buddhist perspective, she was confused and wanted to talk.  “How can you possibly be writing a book on faith without focusing on God?” she demanded.  “Isn’t that the whole point?”  Her concern spoke to the common understanding we have of faith – that it is synonymous with religious adherence.  But the tendency to equate faith with doctrine, and then argue about terminology and concepts, distracts us from what faith is actually about.  In my understanding, whether faith is connected to a deity or not, its essence lies in trusting ourselves to discover the deepest truths on which we can rely. 

For some this will be a very different approach to faith.  Many link faith to narrow-minded belief systems, lack of intelligent examination, or pain at having one’s questions silenced.  Faith might evoke images of submission to an external authority.  Historically, the idea of faith has been used to slice cleanly between those who belong to a select group and those who do not....

I want to invite a new use of the word faith, one that is not associated with a dogmatic religious interpretation or divisiveness.  I want to encourage delight in the word, to help reclaim faith as fresh, vibrant, intelligent, and liberating.  This is a faith that emphasizes a foundation of love and respect for ourselves.  It is a faith that uncovers our connection to others, rather than designating anyone as separate and apart.

Faith does not require a belief system, and is not necessarily connected to a deity or God, though it doesn’t deny one.  ...Faith is not a commodity we either have or don’t have – it is an inner quality that unfolds as we learn to trust our own deepest experience.

The Buddha said, “Faith is the beginning of all good things.”  No matter what we encounter in life, it is faith that enables us to try again, to trust again, to love again.  Even in times of immense suffering, it is faith that enables us to relate to the present moment in such a way that we can go on, we can move forward, instead of becoming lost in resignation or despair.  Faith links our present-day experience, whether wonderful or terrible, to the underlying pulse of life itself.

MESSAGE

Friday evening, I returned home from a few days in Chicago, where I participated in Meadville Lombard Theological School’s January convocation...a gathering of all students and their teaching pastors and supervisors.  It was a rich time of learning, and of collegial conversation.  And, it was a joy to see our ministerial intern, Ric Jones, there, thriving in that environment of learning and growing.

In one small-group session we listened to and critiqued students’ sermons.  They had been tasked with preparing and giving a 10-minute sermon on something they are noticing in their placements that they perceive needs to change.  (Now, I wasn’t allowed to be in Ric’s small group, so I didn’t hear his sermon, but I expect you will hear a version of that sermon someday.)   In the small group I was in, I was particularly struck by the fact that all three of the sermons had something to do with being more open, more welcoming, taking a wider view.  Is this true of all of our congregations?   In what ways might we deepen and grow?

My task for today was to speak with you about the stages of faith development.  As I prepared for today’s message I realized that, below the surface, today’s topic and what I’m preparing for next Sunday’s “State of the Fellowship” address, are closely connected.  So functionally, today will be part I of a two part sermon.

Before I left for Chicago I pulled a stack of research off the internet to read on the plane... sermons and articles and blogs and curricula about faith development.   In one sermon, I found this statement: “Communities that help us explore our faith and develop it are one of the most urgent needs in our big, wonderful, hurting world.”  Curiously, it was a sermon given by a ministerial intern, Leah Hart-Landsberg, for a congregation in New Jersey.   She was speaking about our third principle... our covenant to affirm and promote acceptance of one another and to encourage spiritual growth in our congregations.   She, too, was taking the position that we would do well to be more open, more welcoming, and more willing to go deeper.

 “Communities that help us explore our faith and develop it are one of the most urgent needs in our big, wonderful, hurting world.”   Do you agree with her?  Perhaps it would help if you had a bit more information about faith.   If you feel you don’t have faith, can you open yourself to its possibility, just a sliver, just enough to see that day after day, night after night, there is something beyond yourself that you can trust? 

You’ve already heard this morning some alternative definitions of faith...from Fowler and Tillich and Salzberg.  To further clarify, let me make a distinction between the words faith and belief and religion...words that are often confused or used interchangeably. 

Religion comes from the Latin re-ligio, and means to bind together.  So religion is that which connects us to one another...it is things like rituals, stories, traditions and set practices.  Religion provides a larger container in which we hold our beliefs.[1]  In Fowler’s words, religion is about what we do.[2]

Belief, on the other hand, comes from the German, be lieben, to hold hear.[3]  Wilfred Cantwell Smith, one of the foremost historians of religion of the twentieth century, said that belief is the holding of certain ideas about something.   And Salzberg writes, “With their assumptions of correctness, beliefs try to make a known out of the unknown. They make presumptions about what is yet to come, how it will be, what it will mean, and how it will affect us.[4]   So, belief is what we think.[5]

Now faith...faith comes from the Latin word fides which means to trust.  Fowler used the word faith to mean our most fundamental orientation to the world – our basic images and core assumptions about how the world works and where our place is in that world.[6]  The kind of faith we have affects everything we do, how we respond, the quality and form of our relationships, and even our aspirations.  Faith provides a backdrop of value and meaning in life.  He calls the backdrop we create for ourselves the ‘ultimate environment.’ 

In his book, Stages of Faith: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, Fowler tells a story about trying to explain the concept of ultimate environment to a class of undergraduates.   One student suggests that it is the picture of success or of what we dream.  Another thinks it must be our private utopia.  But the student who nails it says, “I think you mean, Professor, our images of that largest theatre of action in which we act out our lives.  You might say that our images of the ultimate environment determine the ways we arrange the scenery and grasp the plot in our lives’ play.” [7]

I have a theatre background, and this made sense to me.  I know about creating the ultimate space in which to tell a particular story.  And this student’s metaphor helped me to see how a faith might be created and grown over time and with intention.

My original plan for today was to spend the bulk of this sermon telling you all about Fowler’s theory of faith development.  As you have perhaps surmised, my plan has changed, but it is still of value, if not to flesh out his theory, to at least give you some sense of the bones and the shape of it.  

Fowler’s book was written in 1981, yet it remains the central work in this field.  I first heard of his theory when I was doing my clinical pastoral education (CPE) at United Hospital in St. Paul, MN.  These stages of faith are often used by chaplains to assess a patient’s faith and to then determine how to be of spiritual support.  Here are some of his main points:

From his research, Fowler composed a theory that proposes the development of faith over time.  He set out six stages of faith; stage one, two and three are pretty closely tied to psychological development; stages four to six are not so predictable or predetermined...some people move into and through them, and others don’t.   He makes a point of saying that these stages are not hierarchical, none is ‘better’ than another, and that there are blessings, gifts, and limitations at each stage.   More important perhaps than moving forward into the next stage is being aware of and fully integrating the stage at which you are. 

The majority of adults, at least in Fowler’s research, live most of their lives in Stage 3.  This stage is called “Synthetic-Conventional” faith; it emerges in adolescence, and perhaps is best described as “I am my relationships.”[8]  People in this stage are concerned with identity, and are characterized by conformity... by aligning with a certain majority perspective, usually that of the significant others in their lives.  Authority from outside oneself is readily accepted. 

Fowler actually states that most Unitarian Universalist congregations are in Stage 4 (groups can move through stages of faith just as individuals do.)  This stage is “Individuative-Reflective Faith” described as “I create my own identity.”  A person or group in stage four can rationally reflect on the self as separate from the groups and shared world that defines their life.  They take personal responsibility for their own beliefs and begin to have an awareness of the personal worldview that shapes their decisions and actions.

Stage four is marked by an ability to create boundaries that define the self.  Stage five is Conjunctive Faith, and is about then making those created boundaries more permeable and porous.  If we reach a stage five faith, we can acknowledge paradox and transcendence, recognizing that we are more than just our conscious selves.  One can see the bigger picture, and the walls of culture and tradition begin to erode.  In this stage, a person realizes that all the answers will not be found, and also finds the value of community in the journey of faith, because it is only in community that we can see and learn from the perspectives of others.

 The last stage that Fowler identified is stage six, Universalizing Faith.  Only a handful of people ever reach this stage.  Here there is a shift from one’s center being the experience of self to one that participates in ultimate reality.  Some traditions call this enlightenment.  Others call it Christ Consciousness.  At any rate, you get the picture. 

One critique of Fowler’s work is a justifiable resistance to seeing life in stages with such clear cut distinctions.  Of course there are transitions between these stages, when it’s not so easy to tell what stage one is in.  There is also good reason to think that while we might operate in one stage most of the time, we have moments of both spiritual immaturity and moments of enlightenment.  

Another critique, one I find compelling, is that in general, theories of development that see progress as a vertical ladder miss all of the horizontal dimensions of life.  This critique, made by UU minister Edward Piper[9], suggests that the two dimensional model proposed by Fowler be over-laid with a third dimension...one that looks like the rings of a tree or the cross-section of an onion...to show that wherever we might be on the faith continuum, we are also imbedded in layers or fields of influence and inclusion.  Piper contends that at any stage of faith, we can deepen our faith by broadening our level of inclusion...of others, of wisdom, or of perspective. 

It is perhaps an indication of my Stage Four-ness that it is difficult for me to see Fowler’s Stages of Faith as anything but progressive.  I struggle not to feel like the most important thing is to move forward through the stages.  But I will try to be more Stage Five and say that it is a progression, AND, it is something else.   As I said earlier, there is no judgment in this theory...no attempt to say that the stage where one is is the wrong stage, or a lesser stage.  Piper’s critique also suggests that wherever we are we can go deeper, and build a more profound and meaningful faith. 

As I understand it, we move between stages of faith by several means.  In the early stages, we progress rather naturally as we develop psychologically.  In the later stages, we often move into another stage because of dissonance...a crisis of faith, you might say...when we come to see that the ‘ultimate environment’ we have been using as our backdrop is not adequate to explain what is happening in our lives.  This is why many people come in our doors...they have lost faith in something and it no longer sustains them.   Many of you have been attracted to this place where you can form your own set of beliefs...something outside the box of the majority view or tradition...a place where you can grow your personal faith. 

But another way that people move through stages is by choosing to do so.  We can practice faith development in the same way we might practice piano or hockey.  This will be part 2 in this sermon, next week... why does deepening and opening matter, and how might we choose to do it?  If we are a stage four congregation, should we endeavour to move toward stage five?  Can this community help us to explore and develop our faith? 

In closing, let me return to the metaphor of the backdrop, the stage.  In my old theatre days, as we prepared to put on a certain play, we began with production meetings, and the earliest production meetings involved talking about the story we wanted to tell.   I don’t mean the specific play, but rather, we talked about the ultimate message we wanted to portray through that play.  Was it a story of hope, or a story of despair?  Was it a story of human potential, or a story of the power of outside forces?  And, when we understood what the story was, we could begin to imagine the backdrop, the setting in which this story would play out.  What colour was it?  Was it minimalist or massive?  Was it dark or was it fanciful?   Was there music?  The backdrop to a great degree determined the story that could be told.

Likewise, your faith determines the story of your life.  Is your faith one of hope or does Murphy’s law determine your beliefs and actions?  Is your faith one of human potential or one of powerlessness?  Do you put your faith in God, or in some transcendent other, or in love?  Do you have faith in this community?  Ultimately, what do you choose trust?  I propose that we can create that backdrop of faith for ourselves, and when we carefully and intentionally build our trust and develop our faith, we are also building a new world for ourselves, one in which we can tell and live transformative stories. 

In As You Like It, Shakespeare famously penned, “All the world's a stage, and all the men and women merely players”.  Truly this is an expression of a common human response to life...that the stage and the backdrop and the play itself have all been laid out for us.  But in fact, we are co-directors, co-playwrights, co-designers of this production we call life.  May we pay attention to the backdrop we create, in order that we may more authentically live the lives of meaning we are called to live.

May it be so.

Amen. 

CLOSING WORDS

from No Man is an Island - Thomas Merton

Anxiety is the mark of spiritual insecurity.  It is the fruit of unanswered questions.  And there is a far worse anxiety, a far worse insecurity, which comes from being afraid to ask the right questions – because they might turn out to have no answer.  One of the moral diseases we communicate to one another in society comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask. 

May we all have the courage, in one another’s company, to ask the tough questions, the ones with no answers, and to rest in the powerful comfort of the unknown.  So goes our journey of faith...together.

Amen.