Stages of faith – the flight-path of a relationship

Posted on May 22, 2014 by jamesbradfordpate

The Evangelical Liberal

One of this blog’s central, recurring ideas is that faith has a life cycle with recognisable phases or stages (an idea originally developed by James Fowler).

It’s an idea that’s helped and supported me through the experience of my own faith and theology changing – at times changing quite drastically. Rather than this being a negative sign that I’m losing my way or backsliding, the ‘stages’ framework allows me to see it as a potentially positive sign of growth and development. That I no longer believe quite the same things as I did when I was a new Christian (or no longer believe them in quite the same ways) needn’t be a bad thing; quite the contrary.

Faith is a journey, and journeys imply movement and change. Faith is not a static state of being. Rather it’s a living and dynamic thing, and living things have a life cycle. Alan…

View original post 1,332 more words

About jamesbradfordpate

My name is James Pate. This blog is about my journey. I read books. I watch movies and TV shows. I go to church. I try to find meaning. And, when I can’t do that, I just talk about stuff that I find interesting. I have degrees in fields of religious studies. I have an M.Phil. in the History of Biblical Interpretation from Hebrew Union College in Cincinnati, Ohio. I also have an M.A. in Hebrew Bible from Jewish Theological Seminary, an M.Div. from Harvard Divinity School, and a B.A. from DePauw University.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

1 Response to Stages of faith – the flight-path of a relationship

  1. laurieanichols says:
    May 27, 2014 at 3:07 pm

    I found this interesting,never thought about it this way before. 🙂

    Like

Comments are closed.