“…one of the greatest sins of our sinful Christian Church has been its discouragement, through the ages, of doubt. In so doing, it has consistently driven growing people out of its potential community, often fixating them thereby in a perpetual resistance to spiritual insights…it is only through the process of questioning that we begin to become even dimly aware that the whole point of life is the development of souls.”
-M. Scott Peck
Kendall Smith, No-Div
Kendall is an elementary science teacher and an avid lover of books, nature, and long walks. She is easily distracted by thunderstorms and loves a good conversation over coffee.
When I was working towards my undergraduate degree in elementary education, my favorite class was the Educational Psychology class taught by Rod Frey. There were a number of reasons I loved this particular class, one of which was learning the patterns of healthy, normal child development.
We spent time observing the artistic progress natural to maturing hands and brains—from dots and scribbly lines to circles, squares and triangles. We noticed how developmentally appropriate it was to start drawing people as a head with four sticks coming out for legs and arms. We came to understand that writing letters backwards and spelling only the beginning sounds of words are very normal for 5- and 6- year olds. As a result, when I began my career as a teacher, I knew to watch for these things, to expect them, and to assure worried parents that their child’s letter reversals were normal, and they would likely correct themselves with time. I found myself fascinated as a parent each time my children would learn to grip a crayon, scribble out their first lines, and then mature to more complicated shapes.
Learning the process of normal development normalizes imperfection and growth. It gives us a framework for how and when growth and maturity will happen. And it gives us parameters for abnormal growth and development.
It came as somewhat of a surprise when, while working through seminary, I have come across authors who speak of spiritual development stages. I was even more amazed when one of these normal, healthy developmental stages includes “skepticism”. In my conversations with people, it seems that we—Christians, churches, pastors, etc.—are slow to acknowledge or admit this is a legitimate and healthy stage of a growing and maturing faith. Maybe it’s because we don’t know? Maybe it’s because this stage of “deconstructing” is scary?
When I was in my late 20’s- and early 30’s, I had a lot of questions. It felt like questions were scary—that if I asked one aloud, and no one had a good answer for it—then my whole carefully constructed “house of cards” that was my faith would fall apart. What I found as I asked more questions was that it did get messy. Many cards fell down, and the house became pretty unstable. Personally, I think I had an innate sense that GOD was there, somewhere. (I wasn’t sure exactly who this GOD really was, but I clung to the person of Jesus and considered him my anchor.) Many other things fell away.
These years represent a move from a “formal and institutional” stage of spiritual development to a “skeptic and individual” stage*. Questions like, “Who IS God? Can I trust what my church/parents/grandparents teach me? How do I know the Bible is authoritative? Why should I even care about all of this?” represent this stage of questioning and skepticism.
Even moving from faith to agnosticism or atheism can be seen as a developmental step. This is uncomfortable! As churches and pastors and parents, we try to do everything in our power to avoid this. Even our current conversations about how to keep youth and young adults (and young families!) in church seem to have their roots in this discomfort with deep doubts and questions.
What is most challenging about this skeptic stage is that we don’t know where it will end up. The fourth developmental stage is described as “mystic and communal”—moving from understanding God as One up there and out there to One who resides within. There is a deeper understanding of mystery and a growing comfort with it. “While stage IV men and women will enter religion in order to approach mystery, people in Stage II, to a considerable extent, enter religion in order to escape from it.” ** (emphasis mine)
Those coming out of doubt and cynicism may find an increasing awareness of the work of God in all of the world, a settledness and peace in God’s work, and a willingness to rest.
Why all this talk about spiritual development stages?
In all of our efforts to disciple maturing Christians, it seems we sabotage sincere growth when we demonize deconstruction and doubt. Even more important than de-constructing is the process of re-constructing after a season of skepticism and confusion.
Remember what we learned about stages of normal childhood development? “Learning the process of normal development normalizes imperfection and growth. It gives us a framework for how and when growth and maturity will happen. And it gives us parameters for abnormal growth and development.”
I wonder about a few things:
*How could we, like loving and attentive parents, anticipate these normal stages of spiritual development without being terrified of their onset?
*In what capacity could we build relationships with each other so that our journeys through these different stages are well-supported?
*Could normalizing these natural ‘seasons’ of spiritual life cause them to be less scary for all involved?
I’m convinced that part of our healing as the Church body here on Earth is to walk with people through these hard seasons and grow in our ability to hold those tensions of doubt and questioning. I am audacious enough to think that part of the reason people are leaving churches is because we have not created those places.
The other piece of this is that we desperately need each other for our healing. Witnessing to the doubt and questions and staying present with each other is no small part of the reconstruction. Rather than be terrified and leery of those hard conversations and stages, we would be wise to anticipate them, to expect them, and to prepare each for them. Normalizing doubt prevents it from becoming a source of shame and guilt. Bringing these developmentally appropriate struggles into a place of community ensures that we won’t wrestle alone—but in the presence of each other and the One who holds us all together.
*M. Scott Peck describes these stages of spiritual development in his book The Different Drum.
**M. Scott Peck’s book mentioned above, pg. 193.