And so begins the series on faith development.
In seminary, we talk a lot about how faith development intersects with human development and how people learn and grow and know. I won’t bore you by getting into all the differences between the theories of development, but you should know from the beginning that I’m leaning heavily on the work of James Fowler for faith development, and that my education is steeped in Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg. Oh, and while it would probably be a lot of fun to go further (have you picked up yet that I’m kind of a nerd?), I’ll stop at stage 3, which gets us safely to middle school age kids. If you want more, I can certainly point you in the direction of some great books (and then I’ll really get to nerd out).
The first stage of faith is not really a stage at all, but that doesn’t mean it’s not important. Fowler calls it Undifferentiated Faith. I might not agree with that name, but I do agree with him that it sets the stage for faith development. This pre-stage begins at birth and lasts until a child is about two. Although it’s really hard to do research on this stage of development (have you ever considered interviewing a 10 month old?), we do know some things about what’s important for infants.
It’s pretty widely recognized that babies form a basic posture of trust (or mistrust) towards the world based on the interactions they have with adults during this pre-stage. Are their needs met? Can they count on caregivers? Are they held? Smiled at? Talked to? Fowler emphasizes balance during this time–not neglecting the baby, but also not letting the baby experience him or herself as central. In addition to this basic posture of trust or mistrust, it is also widely thought that a person’s basic pre-images of God are formed during this time. It makes sense, doesn’t it, that the first way we experience God is as like our parents?
Whatever we call this beginning of faith, it’s clearly really important. The rest of faith development lies on this foundation.
Next week we move on to Stage 1: Intuitive Projective Faith.
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