Faith Development: Von Hügel... 1/3

We have been preparing a session on Faith Development; Kate explicitly went with Fowler, I implicitly used von Hügel's The Mystical Element in Religion - thanks to Gerard Hughes' God of Surprises. Basically von Hügel in two volumes looks at three stages.
  • Infancy - where we absorb information;
  • Adolescence - where we make sense of what we know in our context through questioning and
  • Adulthood - where we have a growing awareness of an inner consciousness relating to God who is incommunicable and mysterious.

It is easy to fall into the trap of seeing these stages as successive stages to pass through; however each contains elements of each other. It is easy to fall into the trap of seeing this as a neat and simple explanation, or to dismiss it for exactly the same reason. What this, Fowler and others offer - with recognised faults - is a helpful support to help understand ourselves as we seek to 'know' the depth, width and height of God.

Infancy/Institutional:

Also known as Institutional this stage is characterised by absorption of facts; an introduction to the great stories of faith and is an important stage on which to build and formulate questions of discovery. Religious infantalism is a real danger, where an individual remains passive in faith development, wanting to remain safe and secure with simple answers that meet basic needs of faith. Approach to scripture and theology is very literal and any questioning of God or faith is seen as disloyal and results in an entrenched approach to theology and faith. In isolation Infancy can result in a state of Christian neurosis as questions and thinking for oneself is a deep source of guilt. For adults religion is kept exactly as it was when they were children and is maintained as a theological security blanket.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A bit of sally bashing....

Came across a good bit of Sally bashing over at salvationsoldiers I have to say we try and make sure that everything we raise goes into projects that build local community in Poplar but hopefully if you read this blog you get that sense anyway.
Read more

Lost Voices of Mission...Fred Brown

Image
Along the world famous Oxford street in London's Westend; nestled in among the classy frontage of designer shops there is almost an unnoticeable, unimpressive wooden door. It is more or less alongside The Regent Hall's main entrance onto the busyness of Oxford Street. People pass the wooden door oblivious to the equally unimpressive wooden steps that go up three storey's to what was Regent Hall's youth club. When I was 10 I played on these bare wooden steps totally unaware of the significance behind and upon which I played. Many years later I discovered a university youth work course - as an induction to Youth Work - stopped outside this insignificant wooden door to point out that Youth Work as we know it in the UK started behind this door. ...whether that be the surbanite flower people that flooded the Westend to express their free love; or the hard core drug community this unimpressive wooden door became the 'portal' that blurred encounter between church an
Read more

Types of Christian Spirituality...

Image
It is easy to think and to limit ourselves to a single approach to Christian spirituality. A 'if it works for me it should work for you approach' tends to narrow our appreciation of other ways which actually impoverishes our experience of spirituality. Urban T. Holmes has developed a means of exploring spirituality and helps develop an appreciation through discovering links between spirituality, temperament and predisposition. The diagram illustrates his ideas together with potential inherent dangers. The vertical continuum speaks and helps us understand our relational orientation to God. This ranges from engaging with God through understanding and theological process to a more emotive response. Horizontally speaks of a persons preferred means of pursuing the spiritual life. Kataphtic speaks of affirmation and the need of something tangible in an individuals spirituality- this may take the form of worship, art, even imagination with the use of metaphors, symbols and images play
Read more