Discovering Who I Am

In his book Not the Religious Type: Confessions of a Turncoat Atheist, David Schmelzer talks about a turning point in his life when he read a lecture by psychologist, M. Scott Peck, about the four stages of faith.

Peck talks about an odd thing he’d noticed in his practice. Some patients would begin therapy as deeply troubled, deeply religious people. He’d help them, and—to his mind—part of their clear growth would occur when they’d leave their religion behind. Other patients, just as troubled and then just as helped, would find faith as a result of their work together. What did that mean?

That question agitated Peck into proposing a four-stage theory of human spiritual and emotional development. He proposed that, in a perfect world, our spiritual development would exactly track with our emotional development. But, given our actual world, it rarely works that way. Traumas along the way can stop our growth in an earlier stage, which has implications not only on how we see the world but also in the way we regard other people and the purpose of life.

Schmelzer goes on to describe the four stages of faith as Peck saw them. He calls the first stage the criminal stage and corresponds it to the toddler years. Toddlers are completely focused on their felt needs and have no capacity to account for the needs of others or for how their behavior impacts others.

You could make the case that people who get stuck in the criminal stage are often best served by two institutions: jail and the boardroom. Jail for obvious reasons… but high-functioning stage 1 folks can often be quite effective businesspeople (or politicians or, God forbid, pastors), because they’re relentlessly focused on winning, on getting what they want, whatever it takes.

He describes stage two Christians as rule-based and corresponds them to age 6 or 7. During this stage, one realizes that there are a set of rules and behavioral expectations that, once embraced, offer a formula for life that works pretty well.

Two institutions might best serve stage 2: the military and the church. The military, again, for obvious reasons. It has famously been a transitional institution for people coming from chaotic backgrounds. It’s where they find discipline and boundaries. But it was the church part that grabbed my attention. Peck argues that most churches are stage 2. They exist to tell people the rules, to set the boundaries of life.

He takes great pains not to judge this. He emphasizes that whatever spiritual things happen at these churches are undoubtedly completely real and that, to his mind, the teachings there are effectively true. The heart and soul of America and most countries are right here in stage 2. These are the good people who get things done and raise strong families. The larger point rests, rather, in how this and other stages interact with each other. So let’s go on for a moment.

Stage three is described as rebellious and corresponds to the teen years.

At this stage, the healthy kid begins to question the rules she has been taught in stage 2. Why are they the be-all and end-all? What’s behind these rules? Often the answers the teen gets are not convincing, particularly if the world around her is stage 2. Then she’s most likely to hear, “Quit being such a smart aleck!” and not much more. This often hardens the teen into stage 3, and the wars begin between her and all things stage 2.

The institution that seems best to support stage 3 is the university. Periodically we hear cries of alarm from conservative circles that universities are monolithically liberal. And according to Peck’s theory, of course that’s true and always will be true. Universities are filled with eighteen- to twenty-one-year-olds, who—as a group—are transitioning into stage 3.

Now, before going on to Peck’s stage 4, it’s worth qualifying this for a moment. Stage 3 folks are indeed spiritually advanced in one limited sense, but not in all senses. Let’s say a godly, faith-filled, stage 2 seventy-year-old, someone who has given her life to loving God and loving others, was walking through one of Cambridge’s many town squares and ended up in a conversation with some snarky, stage 3, nineteen-year-old. Who is more spiritually advanced? Obviously, in any meaningful sense, it’s the older, godly woman. But Peck’s point is that there is, nonetheless, a sense in which it’s the cocky kid. Hold that thought.

What stage 3 people usually don’t realize is that there is a stage 4, that there actually are answers to the questions they’ve been asking. You might call this the mystical stage. Here, one suddenly realizes that most of the things we were taught in stage 2 are, in fact, true, but in a much richer and more mysterious sense than we would have, or could have, imagined.

Schmelzer suggests that stage 4 is about questions; stage 2 is about answers. In this way of thinking, stage 2 looks at truth from the outside, as if it were a book that can and must be mastered. Stage 4 looks at truth from smack-dab in the middle of it, as if truth is everywhere and will take a lifetime just to begin to traverse (which is the joy of it).

If Peck is right, stage 2, by definition, cannot reach those in stage 3. Stage 3 people, rightly, are never going back. We often meet folks who grew up in stage 2 churches, who led youth groups there, and who then went to college (that home of stage 3) and lost their faith. When they find their way back with us, what they realize is that—to their surprise—they never quit believing in God. What they quit believing in was stage 2.

I found this idea of the four stages of faith very compelling. I have definitely experienced stage one and have lived most of my life in stage two. I believe over the past couple of years I have been, unknowingly, smack dab in the middle of stage three as I have questioned what of my Christian experience is tradition and man-made religion and what is from God and based in authentic relationship.

However, I also see a lot of signs of stage four as I let go of rule-based religion and embrace the freedom to have unanswered questions and not feel that I am in danger of “backsliding” because I question some of what others might consider sacred ground.

I might add some stage four qualities to those Peck described. Stage four faith brings a freedom to not need to adopt and defend doctrinal positions or affiliations with specific denominations or institutions. The Stage four believer is not threatened by others who don’t share their beliefs or who question their religious practices. The stereotypical judgmental and combative Christian is generally one who is so established in stage two that they see anyone who doesn’t follow the rules or who questions the status quo as a threat.

I have found great enjoyment in discussing faith with those who see it very differently than I do because I don’t feel threatened any more. I don’t feel that I need to convince them of my point of view. If they are on an authentic journey in search of God, they will find Him and be richer for the detours they take along the way.

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