To explain the faith journey we go through as a Christian, we can utilize James Fowler’s “Stages of Faith” as a model.
Although this model is proposed by secular scholar, I would like to show the relevance of this model by comparing his model with my spiritual journey.
The first stage is the Early stage. During this stage, I had hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality as I was a little kid. I was unable to understand the concept of devil fully because of my cognitive ability at the moment. When I was afraid of dark, Jesus was like a spell that casts out the ghost and I firmly believed that my house was protected by angels and the power of Christ because my parents are powerful believers. I am not saying that my belief was completely unrealistic, but I did perceive religion …show more content…
I had hard time believing the revelations and other parts of the Bible since it did not make sense to me. Yet, I believed it literally, and my belief gave me a confusion. The third stage is Synthetic or Conventional stage which concurs with puberty (Berger, 2014). However, many adults stay in this stage. While my faith was in this stage, I tried to understand Jesus and believe Him because other people do. Also, I did not try to analyze the religion, because I was bound to what others said about Christianity. The next stage is Individual-Reflective Faith, which people start examining and re-examining their faith without the help of outside authority (Berger, 2014). I think I started to examine why I believe Jesus as a savior and doubting the things I believed without thinking through. In Proverbs 14:15, it says that "The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps" (NIV). Questioning my own faith led to the stabilization of my spiritual journey, as I had doubt deep inside of my heart anyways. In this stage, I was able to critically understand the Bible, my understanding in Christianity became structured. The second to the last stage is Conjunctive Faith
Although this model is proposed by secular scholar, I would like to show the relevance of this model by comparing his model with my spiritual journey.
The first stage is the Early stage. During this stage, I had hard time distinguishing fantasy from reality as I was a little kid. I was unable to understand the concept of devil fully because of my cognitive ability at the moment. When I was afraid of dark, Jesus was like a spell that casts out the ghost and I firmly believed that my house was protected by angels and the power of Christ because my parents are powerful believers. I am not saying that my belief was completely unrealistic, but I did perceive religion …show more content…
I had hard time believing the revelations and other parts of the Bible since it did not make sense to me. Yet, I believed it literally, and my belief gave me a confusion. The third stage is Synthetic or Conventional stage which concurs with puberty (Berger, 2014). However, many adults stay in this stage. While my faith was in this stage, I tried to understand Jesus and believe Him because other people do. Also, I did not try to analyze the religion, because I was bound to what others said about Christianity. The next stage is Individual-Reflective Faith, which people start examining and re-examining their faith without the help of outside authority (Berger, 2014). I think I started to examine why I believe Jesus as a savior and doubting the things I believed without thinking through. In Proverbs 14:15, it says that "The simple believe anything, but the prudent give thought to their steps" (NIV). Questioning my own faith led to the stabilization of my spiritual journey, as I had doubt deep inside of my heart anyways. In this stage, I was able to critically understand the Bible, my understanding in Christianity became structured. The second to the last stage is Conjunctive Faith