I just want to reiterate that the number of comments a post receives is not necessarily indicative of its impact. This series and the ensuing dialogue have been fascinating, easily one of my favorite things that I have ever read on the bloggernacle. I could echo a lot of what bmortmft has written, but I won’t venture off into redundancy. Thanks again.

Thanks for you kind words, I am glad that you enjoyed the posts.

“I have at one time or another heard every aspect of the Fowler quote above, except for the leaving home part, as describing “apostacy.” That’s like telling someone going through puberty that what they are going through makes them evil, filthy, and dirty.”

For the last few months I have taken the liberty to use my Sunday School time to read Fowler’s book, Becoming adult, Becoming Christian. A good portion of the book consists of an explication of the stages. It has been very heartening to me to realize that the difficulties I’ve experienced in the last few years are not signs I’m on the road to apostasy. I’ve remained an “active” member but I’ve really struggled to find much nourishment in the standard forms of worship employed by our church.

I’ve thought a lot about how Fowler’s theories might be applied to my Mormon experience. I think you’re spot on in highlighting aspects of Mormon pedagogy that support those in the early stages of faith development but may leave those of us who find ourselves navigating the pitfalls of stage 4 feeling slightly crazy.

Thanks again for your work.

I should add that I don’t think this issue really a Fowler issue. The fact is that some people get fed up with one system and merely replace it with a new one. The new one often doesn’t meet their needs any better but at least they feel like they made a change. And sometimes there’s some value they like better. The alternative is people grow up and do start taking a more mature view of the world. (Speaking more in Piaget terms and not necessarily Fowler terms) They may not return of course, but it’s for more complex reasons.

The problem is that ultimately you have to get people a testimony and provide them the resources to deal with hardship. That’s hard in general. It’s made harder in that a lot of problems have no easy answer. In a way the doctrinal issues are the easiest to deal with. How do you deal with someone who is the victim of abuse by a fellow Mormon? How do you deal with someone who has faced a traumatic event? Often there’s little you can do beyond show love. But people in those circumstances often need change for change sake.

Serious, nice one!

Agreed on that. I think David is making a good effort at using Fowler appropriately, and recognizing the limitations of these stages is a key to allowing them to have more meaning, imo. When we move to stage 4 regarding Fowler’s theory itself, eh?

Of course angst and disillusionment can accompany the transition from 3 to 4. Which is what David is probably getting at. But once you make the transition then there isn’t a lot of worry. As BHodges points out though this is why sub-stages might make some sense.

Sure, people who are mature and have good attitudes tend to do better at anything. My question is what do you do with those who feel cheated or deceived?

Condemn them for their stage 3 thinking. (grin) Seriously if they are focused on such deception then under Fowler they are still stage 3 and haven’t yet reached stage 4 maturity. So you have to discuss them under stage 3 where you said the Church is successful.

I have to agree with BHodges, if one accepts Fowler, then saying one is “consigned to solving their problems on their own” is weird. The whole point of stage 4 is that they focus on the individual and their weakness is that they don’t want other help. They are too inward looking. Looking at stage 4 people and saying the organization needs to do more just seems…odd. Unless I’m missing something obvious.

Thus, some say that if a Mormon believes there were literally golden plates that Joseph Smith had, such a person is automatically classified as a stage 3. This assumes there were no gold plates.

Yes. And let me quickly repeat again that this is a misuse of Fowler. I think Fowler wrong but I can at least understand what he is getting at. Many people who use Fowler use him as a kind of axe justifying their beliefs and attacking other believers as unenlightened. (And let me complement David for not doing that – not that I expected him to) This admittedly is what rubs me the wrong way the most about Fowler. But I’ll never criticize Fowler for how others misuse him. I hate when people do that about thinkers I find informative and vowed never to do it.

The problem is that when people judge themselves by Fowler’s taxonomy they like to be as progressed as possible. However when one recognizes that Fowler isn’t really talking about faith (despite the name) nor belief but a general low level comportment with the world then a lot of the use of Fowler is seen as silly.