Amazing Grace
You’re Not Deconstructing, You’re Growing
We’ve been exploring James Fowler’s Stages of Faith through the lens of Christian discipleship. I’m particularly interested in what happens when an entire culture seems to sit in one stage for a long time (generations) or moves through another stage together. What effect does that have on history?
Today, we’re looking at he conjunctive stage (stage 5), I used to call this the “Blessed Assurance” stage, but I think “Amazing Grace” is more appropriate.
Through many dangers, toils and snares
I have already come:
'tis grace has brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.
Those who persist through the wilderness of stage 4, will spend decades wrestling with God during the individuative-reflective stage and finally make peace with the mysteries of the universe and embrace the freedom of a faith unencumbered by certainty.
Where a healthy stage 3 faith is at peace in the knowledge and certainty of God, and may never need to venture into the wilderness, stage 5 peace is the warm embrace of reconciliation that comes after a long battle.
We stop looking around and wondering where God is in the midst of suffering and injustice. We forgive Jesus for taking up the cross instead of the sword.
The Christian in this stage has come to believe in the resurrection, not because the Bible told them so, but because they experienced the risen Christ in the valley of the shadow of death; they have been sustained by the living water in the desert; and have known the presence of God in the fiery furnace.
It is this assurance of their own salvation that frees them to extend grace to those of other faiths because they know that the God who has done work in them works in ways they cannot comprehend and so they embrace the mystery of faith.
Stage 5 faith is a verb. It understands that the call to love one’s neighbor requires their active participation in the world, not because they will be saved, but because they have been saved.
They conform to the likeness of Christ and step into the valleys, the deserts, and the fires, to hold others.
Conjunctive Stage Christians are often found serving in churches, but also in other spaces where they quietly show up to love their neighbors.
I am reminded of two old parables, In HIs Steps by Charles Sheldon and The Gospel Blimp by Joseph Bayly that exemplify what this transformation looks like.
When enough people in a culture move into this stage, this “social gospel” can produce progressive eras.
The challenge comes when the social gospel is not a stage 5 faith, but an inherited faith, which can grow just as toxic as the fundamentalism that drove people into the wilderness.
American Christianity today is all of these things. There are healthy stage 3 communities, and toxic fundamentalists, as well as, toxic progressives, there are people wandering in the wilderness, and there are those who are just trying to live like Jesus.
I am of the belief that the cure for Toxic Christianity, where fundamentalist or progressive, is the hard work of the wilderness, because I believe in the promise of what is on the other side.
The Conjunctive Stage is not the final stage. Somewhere out there, there are a handful of people who live in stage 6. I suspect John Wesley would say they have found Christian Perfection.
Next week, we will get to those who have that Blessed Assurance.