New Order Mormon

[sulli]

[mellyleah]

I would be interested in responses about this. I bought the book, read summaries online, etc. and still feel a bit vague and mystified by the concepts. If he can't illustrate it with a solid example, I find it difficult to comprehend, personally.
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"...the fundamental problem with Mormonism is that morality and virtue are subject to the whims of the Church." -Mike Michaels

[fh451]

I'll say that I didn't really "get" stage 5, either. The problem I have with Fowler's "Stages of Faith" is that there is one path to follow. I basically went off the rails at stage 4 and decided that "faith" wasn't really where it's at for me. Stage 5 would mean understanding and accepting all the contradictions, lack of evidence, weirdness of life, and believing anyway. I recall reading somewhere that an author posited that very few ever make it to stage 5. That wouldn't surprise me .

fh451
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I doubt, therefore I am.

[sattva]

[swimordie]

I'm not an expert either but the way I look at it is using the Allegory of the Cave. In stage 3, we know with certainty what we've been told the shadows, etc. mean, is Truth.

In stage 4, we release our minds from this black/white paradigm and maybe get a glimpse outside the cave and discover that, what we thought was Truth was maybe, symbolic, or metaphoric or, simply, meant something different than we had previously believed.

We could get mad that we wasted our lives believing something wasn't what we thought it was, or we are freed to rediscover and re-imagine our own belief system based on all of these new discoveries.

In stage 5, one may decide/recognize that the meaning as we understood it in stage 3 is really just one meaning of many. Our newer meaning in stage 4 was also just that: one meaning amongst many. With that knowledge, one could choose to simply go back into the cave and enjoy the comforting familiarity of the old stage 3 meaning, yet with the new understanding that it is just one of many meanings and that one simply chooses this particular meaning.

And, it's important to remember that these are stages of faith, iow, theological/cosmological meaning for the individual. If, in stage 4, someone chooses to just chuck the whole thing, they are choosing to derive their own meaning, in this case, that it all means nothing.

It's all quite philosophical, so one may need to adjust one's meaning of meaning.

What it might look like?

One in stage 5 recognizes that every individual has their own meaning, their own philosophy, values them all as equal to her own, and can engage others without judgment, prejudice, bias, etc. This may be the unique characteristic of stage 5: the ability to value all meaning as equal. No one's ideas are better or worse than anyone else's.

[alas]

The stages have never made good sense to me either. I don't remember EVER being stage three. I remember as a child struggling with things and saying this HAS to be symbolic, although I didn't have the words to know what symbolic was at that point. I understood the symbolism of Santa at age 4. Only I couldn't explain it to my older brother who was much more concrete in his thinking. I remember sitting in primary thinking how the story of Adam and Eve is like the story of all children growing up and learning right from wrong and then as adults having to take care of themselves in the cold cruel world.

I never did believe in a stage three way. It was like I jumped from stage one to stage four. None of those stages fit my life.

And saying that very few people make it to stage five, sounds like he is bragging about being smarter than the rest of us and his way of doing things is the only right way. I was thirty when I hit what he discribes as stage 5, yet I am not so egotistical as to say that was what it was, because now I am somewhere else and off his chart in many ways. Like fh451, I derailed, but I sort of derailed in childhood before I can really remember. So, maybe I should write about stage six or 5a and 5b and 5c. ???? It is like I discovered that religion (at least the Mormon version) isn't even good, so why stay in a stage five where you feel that peace with the symbolism and deeper meaning of your religion. been there, done that, it didn't work for me. Maybe if I had been raised something else I might be at a different place with it.

I have wondered if it isn't like Kohler's (is this the right name?) stages of moral development, where men and women seem to take a different turn, and he saw all women as stuck in stage 3 because he just didn't understand where they were. They were not his HIS MALE model of stage 5 so they must be stuck in stage 3. How gender centric. Women mostly have a different stage 5, but he was only studying men, so he didn't see the difference and didn't understand it when he did.

I had this same sense of his theory just not fitting my life, and sure enough, when others did more research, they found that women take a different turn and stage 5 is different for them. It is more oriented toward harming others and less egotistical in "I am a good and moral person." I see the stage 5 for women as actually better than stage 5 for men. But then I am a woman.

Maybe this Fowler theory only applies to some people and others are at a stage 5b or 5c or even 6 that Fowler just fails to recognize. He really fails to explain happy atheists.
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[mellyleah]

[sattva]

Yes, these stages can be problematic. Again, this is just an attempt to explain a process that many people go through, not all. I see the pattern in a lot of people's disaffection stories, but it does certainly vary widely from person to person.

It doesn't surprise me that Alas skipped a stage or two! She is after all, very thoughtful, bright and inquisitive!

I simply think of stage 5 as being where somebody has re-integrated themselves after a loss of faith, to a place where they are able to live their truth and heal from any conditioning or pain that their change of faith may have caused.

Does that make sense?

[Ella Menno]

I don't think one must automatically re-integrate themselves at stage 5. I think more of stage 5 as transcending the idea that the rules are what are necessary. To me, stage 3 and 4 are all about the rules. Stage 3 follows rules for the rule's sake. Stage 4 questions the rules and will not follow the rules without good reason. Stage 5 transcends the rules and may or may not end up following those stage 3 rules. If stage 5 follows those rules it is for an entirely different reason than in stage 3. This, I think, is where those who end up stage 5 within the LDS church are. They do it for a different reason than someone in stage 3. I really think there are some within the church that bypass stage 4, as we think of it. DH, for example, hasn't gone through a crisis of faith like I have, but he seems to fit the stage 5 as I see it. I agree that Fowler's SofF may have problems, but it has really helped me in my journey up to this point.

[sattva]

[mellyleah]

[Ella Menno]

melly,
I haven't read the book, but I intend to as soon as I stop reading church history . I'm only 27 pages into Quinn's Extensions of Power so it may be a while. Since I really don't know all about what Fowler is explaining in his book I really can't successfully categorize anyone, so I do not attempt to do so. I am also constantly challenged in my conclusions where others are concerned, myself included. I thought I was stage 3 up until just a couple of years ago, but I have since come to realize that I have been in my definition of stage 4 since Jr. High just not at the angry stage until recently. I think we are constantly in flux so it may be nearly impossible to categorize anyone with any kind of accuracy. Fowler's SofF are just guidelines and should be approached as such.

To answer your first question, they have helped me understand what I am feeling and put those feelings into some kind of context other than apostasy or righteousness. They have given me permission that I was wary of taking while I was TBM to move into a different perspective on faith.

[GT3]

Most interesting to me is to look backward on my own life. I seem to apply a "revisionist history" approach to my old views. Since I doubt more now, than I have in the past, I choose to emphasis my past doubts/issues... i.e. I didn't want to be baptized when I was 7-8. I didn't want to serve a mission. I carried a nuances, and highly symbolic view of some of the churches strange teachings, etc.

I try to do the same thing by wanting to push back the remembered date of my triumphant evidenced based case that Santa wasn't real (on Christmas morning, in front of my younger, far more impressionable sister).

Reality is that I've experienced all of the stages (up to five) to some degree or another, and typically two or more at the same time (but to varying degrees). Right now, I'm ~2% stage 3, 83% stage 4, and 15% stage 5.
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“This above all: to thine own self be true” - William Shakespeare

[Valoel]

Important points about Fowler Stage Theory:
1. This talks about the mechanics of how a person's faith works, not the content of their faith. Mormonism is content. The stages of faith apply just as easily to atheism, which is another form of content. A person can shift from one religion to another and not change stage structure -- like a stage 3, literalistic TBM Mormon converting to a stage 3 fundamentalist protestant Christianity with the same structure.

2. One stage is not better than another. Where a person finds equilibrium and happiness (for a time perhaps) is best. Where a faith is functional and makes a person better or happy is best. I wish they were labeled "apple stage" or "orange stage" instead of numerically. They are different ways of dealing with faith and the world around us.

3. It's just a useful language to talk about how our faith works. People are not just one stage usually, but the way we think about topics could be described using this language.


Stage 3 Characteristics:
1. Authority is external -- in one's group or group leaders. Looks to them to know what is true. It is very important to a Stage 3 person that they be like their group (not so much as a conscious decision though).

2. Builds a story of stories. By this, I mean they develop to a point where they see that other people actually believe different content, so they must build a story to explain why other people are different. The classic example in Mormonism is we got a restoration of truth, and everyone else is being lead astray by Satan who wants to trick them. It generally doesn't occur to them that other people can come to valid reasons why they would not believe the person's content.

3. They don't generally see religion as a system. They are in their faith story completely, and can not examine their faith as an object. They just believe what everyone pretty much believes (their tribe's faith).

4. Stage 3 people form their views of deity in terms of a personal relationship, which transcends Stage 2 focus on a reciprocal relationship (if I do enough good, God will give me something in return). In Mormonism, this often shows up as people talking about a loving HF who pays attention to and interacts with them in their mundane daily life. This is because of their relationship, not that God owes them anything.

Stage 4 Characteristics:
1. Turmoil happens as the person rips their sense of authority away from the group and brings it internal. This is a huge source of the angst IMO. Stage 4 thinking begins to filter everything in faith through their new internal and personal true/false filter. Everything must be sorted based on this radical shift in authority. What do *I* believe or doubt?

2. Deconstructs symbol and metaphor, finally seeing these as a system of faith content. Commonly describes things in terms of dichotomy (either/or, true/false, etc.), also tends to flatten and compress faith as they deconstruct it with descriptions such as “this is just that” meaning there is only one way of looking at it (their new personal truth).

3. They can now examine faith as an object or system from an outside perspective. They see symbols as symbols, but that tends to break them so they no longer function for them.

4. This is the beginning of a completely personal journey.

Stage 5 Characteristics:
1. A comfort level arises in one’s personal, internal authority. The faith content of one’s own group, or of other people/groups is not as threatening and does not have to really be explained and assimilated into their own story of the world.

2. Enough has been deconstructed. The person begins to feel satisfied with this. In fact what can prompt people to shift from Stage 4 to Stage 5 is a sense of too much flatness or lack of flavor in their world. They finally smashed the machine enough and now see a broken pile of symbols and metaphors at their feet. Now what? The reaction leads one to start to allow symbols to just give their message and tell a story. Fowler calls it a “willing naiveté.” The person becomes more comfortable with the paradox of faith and religion, and no longer focuses so much on what is true or false. The down side is that a strong sense of disconnect appears. In Mormonism, this can show as an apathy towards zealousness and a real lack of fear/guilt when it comes to not obeying the rules of culture. It’s not like stage 4 where someone is trying to build a personal identity by proving they are different. This is from a real sense of not being concerned anymore.

3. Not only does the person see symbols as such in faith, but they start to fall in love with them again. They believe and do not believe at the same time. They can more easily participate in their own group’s symbolic practices or dive into another to hear what story that might tell them. It’s a continuation of the personal journey, but not so attached to what is true/false, more like exploration.

4. MOST IMPORTANT: This does not mean you go back to the same Church. You might go to none, the same or a different one depending on what you want (a strong sense of internal authority). You don’t really feel that connected deeply to any of them, which is both a blessing and a curse. The important change is the person no longer feels uncomfortable with the paradox of things being true and false and all things in between, not in regards to how faith functions. It may still be important to have truth.
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AKA BrianJ and Brian Johnston
Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There's a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.
-Leonard Cohen, Anthem, "Little Zen Companion"

[Dathon]

A metaphor for stage 5: