Church and State

Stages of Faith

“The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the ceaseless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe for centuries.”

James Madison

“How dismal it is to see present day Americans yearning for the very orthodoxy that their country was founded to escape.”

Christopher Hitchens

          M. Scott Peck, in his book A Different Drum: The Psychology of Human Development and the Quest for Meaning, identified four stages of faith. And since I live in Alabama, where all the politicians seem to think it’s important to publicize their faith on commercials, I thought it would be a good idea to review these stages.

Here in the deep South a good 95% of people identify as religious Christians, and are as likely to say, “Have a Blessed-Day,” as “hello” in a check-out line at the grocery store. Not only are they self-identified as Christian, they also typically go to large evangelical churches. In Birmingham alone there are 276 Baptist Churches, 55 Methodist + 14 United Methodist, 48 Church of God, and 36 Church of Christ, 57 Non-Denominational-Evangelical, 20 Presbyterian, and a hundred or more of various other denominations—in other words, in this one city of quarter-million people there are more than 600 Christian churches and some of them have thousands of members.

          Peck’s stages of spiritual development are synthesized here, but you can go to the website or the book and read a more in-depth accounting: 

Stage 1: Chaotic, Antisocial. Pretenders. People who pretend to be loving and pious to cover their lack of principles. They think of themselves as religious but their relationships with their fellow humans are manipulative and self-serving. They lack integrity in all aspects of life, and their religion is no different.

Stage 2: Formal, institutional, fundamental. They submit themselves to principle, mostly the law, but do not understand the spirit of the law. They regard it as their responsibility to “save” others who are deemed “not true believers.” They follow a one-sided theology that produces hostility to all others who are not the same, or not of the same faith. These fundamentalists are found in all religions.

Stage 3: Skeptic, individual, questioning. This stage may include agnostics, but also those who are scientifically minded and want measurable, logical evidence. They are often called “non-believers” by fundamentalists, but they may be far more inclined toward the spirit of the law. They are typically great parents and dedicated friends and adhere to a principled and caring lifestyle.

Stage 4: Mystic, communal. People at this stage are committed to the whole. They use their ability to transcend their personal religious beliefs and cultural limitations. They are religious in an individual sense, but not looking for prescribed answers. They are content to reside within the mystery. They recognize the connectedness of all humanity with God, and do not separate themselves from others because of doctrine or scripture. They find all scriptures to contain both truth and untruth and believe them to be the fallible words of humans rather than the “word of God.” They are guided by their personal commitment to principles rather than traditional church law.

          I confess that it truly bothers me to see political advertisements that pronounce the candidate’s deep commitment to Jesus, while showing them with a gun and a dead animal. I just don’t get the connection and I think Jesus wouldn’t either. It is also troubling when they use their religious affiliation to sell themselves for public office, knowing full well that they would also be representing many good people who are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or even atheist. What message does that send to these folks? For the next seven months, we will be inundated with such commercials even though no one likes them, and some of us are truly offended by them. They are clearly stage-one thinking—meant to manipulate and self-serve.

          I hope we can find a way forward without conflicting our religious beliefs with the secular duties of government. Separation of church and state was/is a founding principle of our democracy and it should stay that way.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane