As people begin to age their view an outlooks on life begin to change due to their life experiences. Their views on religion and spirituality will consequently adapt with their outlook on life. James Fowler designed a model of faith development that explains all forms of faith including nonreligious faith. Fowler’s model is an attempt to capture the essence of faith development in a generic sense. According to Paloutzian and Fowler, faith development proceeds in the following order.
• Intuitive-Projective Faith: This is the stage of preschool children in which fantasy and reality often get mixed together. However, during this stage, our most basic ideas about God are usually picked up from our parents and/or society. This corresponds to Piaget’s …show more content…
During ones teenage years the brain becomes more developed when compared to childhood. At this point in life, critical thinking and logic can be applied to a variety of issues within religion. This would be a more appropriate time to introduce a person to religion because of their ability to form educated and informed thoughts. As a teenager begins to form their social identity, they can then incorporate religion into their life. I also found it interesting that once a person reaches their mid-twenties and the brain is fully developed, it is rare for religious conversions to occur. The textbook noted that after life changing experiences, a person either becomes more or less involved with their religion. I agree with this statement and have seen it happen first hand within my congregation. After the death of a loved one, an older man in my church became even more religious and has devoted himself to God. This may be attributed to religion bringing the gentleman closer to his wife and God spiritually or his loneliness driving him closer to the congregation to fill the void. I would enjoy seeing research on how religious conversions affect the family dynamic. More specifically, if a child converts to another religion, how does this affect other family members? Would they begin to doubt God because he allowed their loved one to abandon him or would they become more religiously involved and view this as a test of their faith? In conclusion, this portion of the semester has been a perfect addition to the basics we have previously covered. The human body is very complex and understanding how ones religious beliefs change with age is interesting. Many of these concepts tie directly into what was learned in general psychology and make perfect
• Intuitive-Projective Faith: This is the stage of preschool children in which fantasy and reality often get mixed together. However, during this stage, our most basic ideas about God are usually picked up from our parents and/or society. This corresponds to Piaget’s …show more content…
During ones teenage years the brain becomes more developed when compared to childhood. At this point in life, critical thinking and logic can be applied to a variety of issues within religion. This would be a more appropriate time to introduce a person to religion because of their ability to form educated and informed thoughts. As a teenager begins to form their social identity, they can then incorporate religion into their life. I also found it interesting that once a person reaches their mid-twenties and the brain is fully developed, it is rare for religious conversions to occur. The textbook noted that after life changing experiences, a person either becomes more or less involved with their religion. I agree with this statement and have seen it happen first hand within my congregation. After the death of a loved one, an older man in my church became even more religious and has devoted himself to God. This may be attributed to religion bringing the gentleman closer to his wife and God spiritually or his loneliness driving him closer to the congregation to fill the void. I would enjoy seeing research on how religious conversions affect the family dynamic. More specifically, if a child converts to another religion, how does this affect other family members? Would they begin to doubt God because he allowed their loved one to abandon him or would they become more religiously involved and view this as a test of their faith? In conclusion, this portion of the semester has been a perfect addition to the basics we have previously covered. The human body is very complex and understanding how ones religious beliefs change with age is interesting. Many of these concepts tie directly into what was learned in general psychology and make perfect