Stages of Faith

[geekchic9]

I just read this fascinating book called Finding Your Religion: When the Faith You Grew Up With Has Lost Its Meaning by Rev. Scotty McLennan. In the first chapter, he covers 6 stages of spirituality: Magic, Reality, Dependence, Independence, Interdependence, and Unity. He goes into good detail about all of them, more than I can describe here. However, he does provide an easy checklist to determine what stage you're in right now.

WHAT STAGE ARE YOU IN?
A Faith Stage Checklist

Stage One (Magic)

1. Is your world full of spirits and demons?
2. Are fairy tales your favorite kind of literature?
3. Do you think God makes everything happen, for good and bad?

Stage Two (Reality)

1. Do you spend a lot of time trying to determine what's real and what's not?
2. Are scriptures true in a concrete and literal sense, rather than being stories and maxims that may or may not be real?
3. Do you feel that you can influence God's actions by being good?

Stage Three (Dependence)

1. Do you have a very important peer group or leader who is primarily responsible for shaping your faith?
2. Is it important to you to understand and follow religious doctrine and moral rules?
3. Is your main image of God that of a perfect parent?

Stage Four (Independence)

1. Is your spiritual life unique and personal?
2. Do you often find yourself wanting to demystify scripture?
3. Do you think of God or Ultimate Reality primarily as an impersonal force or spirit (or as nonexistent)?

Stage Five (Interdependence)

1. Do you find a spiritual community important to you at the same time that you maintain your own distinctive faith?
2. Do you experience spiritual power in religious symbols and myths that you can also analyze objectively?
3. Do you conceive of God or Ultimate Reality both as a person and as an impersonal force?

Stage Six (Unity)

1. Do you sense your self in community with religiously committed people of any and all traditions?
2. Is your consciousness ego-free and beyond paradox and ambiguity?
3. Do you often feel that God or divine spirit is in everything and that everything exists in God or divine spirit?

[Matthew Shea]

Very interesting topic, geekchic.

Stage 5 pretty much describes me to a tee, but it's pretty enlightening and very interesting to see the way this Reverend lays out the six different stages. Thinking about the people with whom I'm close enough to understand their spirituality, this makes a lot of sense.

[{aspiring_to_clarity}]

I voted 5, but sometimes I'm on 4. I can definitely remember being at all the previous stages. Very interesting.

[geekchic9]

I wish I didn't return the book to the library yesterday. Otherwise, I'd tell you all more about stage 5, which is the level we are all in thus far. Here's another chart I'm trying to recall from memory:

Stage: View of God
Magic: All-Powerful God
Reality: Cause-and-Effect God
Dependence: Parent God
Independence: ??? [memory is blank here]
Interdependence: Paradoxical God
Unity: ??? [memory is blank here, too]

[Sam988]

I didn't like this categorization. Are you meaning, geekchic9, that the higher the stage, the higher consciousness we have?

I don't believe someone in stage 6 has any higher consciousness over anyone who's in stages 4 and 5. It's all about our beliefs about reality. Just because a person has a certain belief doesn't mean that the person has a lower consciousness than someone who has a different belief (as long as this belief isn't limiting their potential).

[geekchic9]

Originally Posted by Sam988

I didn't like this categorization. Are you meaning, geekchic9, that the higher the stage, the higher consciousness we have?

Where did I say (or imply) that? The questions I posted were directly quoted from the book.

I don't believe someone in stage 6 has any higher consciousness over anyone who's in stages 4 and 5. It's all about our beliefs about reality. Just because a person has a certain belief doesn't mean that the person has a lower consciousness than someone who has a different belief (as long as this belief isn't limiting their potential).

The only thing that makes me suspect that level 6 may be higher than 4 or 5 is the 'lack of ego' question. If you have no ego, you're probably in a higher state of consciousness than the norm. Otherwise, I don't see much of a correlation between level of consciousness and level of spirituality.