Duality

Jam 1:8 A double minded man is unstable in all his ways.

Church is filled with unstable congregants. It doesn’t help that those congregants are taught and lead by unstable pastors and teachers – it is merely a by-product of being unstable. Most of these fine folks will pin the culprit on eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, this passage from the book of James is dealing with the very subject of knowledge, godly wisdom, and church folk just plain miss the point that surrounds them and makes them so unstable. The times, they are a changing.

Evolution. There I said it and a bolt of lightning hasn’t crashed down upon me from the heavenly smiter. Believers of all shades have taken Darwin to task for his employment of this term in relating it to human/animal relationships while ignoring the simple fact that humans have evolved, advanced, and grown up over the course of humanity’s reign on this planet.

IF you have a strong objection to this claim of mine, then might I suggest that your ignorance is amplified in this area simply by the very fact that you are reading this, a talent that has only been available to the mass of humanity for the last 150 years. But wait, consider that you’re also reading this on a device that 50 years ago didn’t exist. Evolution seems to be all round you yet ignorance of its foothold testifies to your instability.

I’m certain that many of you reading this will be unfamiliar with the works of James Fowler. He conducted a huge study which he published in a book entitled, The Stages of Faith. The book documents the growth of a person’s faith through six different levels or stages. It follows upon the work of other human developmental professionals such as Piaget, Maslow, Graves and Loevinger, each of whom spent their lives studying and documenting the growth of human nature from birth to death.

Fowler’s study pinpoints how each of us believer’s transverse the spiritual journey and what are the various indicators, or markers, of where we’re at, similarly to a map with points of interest clearly designated along the route. What is apparent in reading his work is that many, if not most, have never even made it half way through the stages, a phenomenon which is corroborated by the studies of every human developmental professional in their particular area of interest. Yes, it seems we humans, each of us on this journey called life, are constantly evolving into the next stage of growth – possibly.

Allow me to expand that thought for a moment. Let me introduce you to a form of these stages of growth through the use of the following terms, which while not specifically drawn from Fowler’s work, are a composite drawn from multiple studies and represents a workable model for this brief introduction.

1) Archaic – the beginning stage; think of a newborn child
2) Magic – Toddlers
3) Mythic – Seven to ten-year old’s
4) Modern – Teenagers
5) Post-Modern – College Age
6) Integral – Adult

You can see here that I’ve associated certain age groups with the various titles, however, do not get attached to this because I’m only using this as a means to demonstrate the natural progression we’ve already encountered in these titles. Also, I hope that you can recognize that generalization of this nature cannot fully address the complexity which each of these stages might reveal. Furthermore, while I use six stages, human developmental professionals might have more or less levels which they claim we work through. Remember, this is an introduction, not an analysis of which is more beneficial.

So many Levels

Where do think you are in these levels? Initially, most of you might say that you’re at level 6, an adult. If age were the only criteria, then yes, this would be an appropriate answer. However, I know of a number of adults who continually act like toddlers, as I’m certain you do also. So, the first item to recognize here is that we are all at various stages in our life. Stages show up in our emotional development, our basic intelligence, our relational development, our body health development, verbal intelligence, and many other places which we grow into every single day. To say you are at level 6 in every area of your life is denying the realities which we all face every day.

Recall, I stated that Fowler’s work demonstrates how most of us aren’t even halfway up the stages of faith he categorized. This would put many of us at a level 3, maybe just moving into level 4. Simply stated, your faith level is mythic, moving into modern. Honestly, how do you feel right now? Not as big a spiritual champion as you thought, right? Don’t fret, you’re still evolving.

Ok, so let’s take a moment to look across the broad sweep of humanity and see what the landscape looks like through our level names. Today, most people would agree that humanity has reached the 5th level known as post-modern. Granted, not everyone is there, but by and large, a huge segment has reached this stage. It is demonstrated in how we conduct ourselves in schools, businesses, and governments across the globe. Regrettably, it is not the picture of our interactions in the church and herein lays the basis for the instability I’ve been trying to show you.

Many of us believe in documents which were written when humanity was at level 2 moving into level 3. Consider how most of the “civilized” parts of the planet never even reached the opening parts of level 4 until about 500 years ago. Even level 6 didn’t come onto the scene until around the 1960’s! So, while society has grown into these higher levels, the church has stunted its growth to level 3. Yes, intentionally kept itself at a seven to ten-year old.

Have you ever wondered why it is so difficult to get people “in the world” to relate to your fascination in the bible or church? Do you feel you have to hide your Christianity at work or school because of the ridicule it might cause you to suffer? How would you feel today if a ten-year old told you that knew how to live life to its fullest despite what you might think is right? Do you ever wonder why so many teenagers who were brought up in the church, leave after they graduate high school?

Six days a week, believers function quite proficiently in the level 5 environment of school, business, government, and even social media. However, one day a week, sometime two, they eagerly enter an environment founded and static at level 3. All the teaching offered is designed to promote the nature of a level 3. The interaction of the church community culture is based on a level 3 paradigm which promotes excluding anyone who is not like us, just like every group of ten-year old’s do. At the end of the day, back into the reality of a level 5 milieu level 3 believers return, unstable in all their ways.

Do you want to be relevant to the world? Do you believe that your belief is more valid than someone “in the world?” Do you believe… Grow up! Seriously, grow up. Your instability, founded on a level 3 doctrine, has as much relevance as a flat-world believer does to an astronaut. Someone, obviously, knows better.

Duality is not knowing right from wrong, or good from evil. It’s about living a lie just to say you’re a believer. Yes, a lie which requires you to deny that you’re living in a world which has long since passed the level of your belief into a realm which the writers of the bible could only imagine in prophecy.

It’s time to evolve your belief to align with the Truth which transcends time and hasn’t intentionally constrained itself to a flat-world paradigm. The universe lays before us only if we don’t keep people from moving towards the edge of what belief looks like. “Greater works than these…” can only be done by people who accept that levels need to be ascended beyond the small steps of man, and into the giant leaps of the kind of man Christ calls us to be.