STORY OF THE WEEK: Finding Deeper Faith Amidst Doubt and Disillusionment

Unmasking the Truths We Rarely Question in Church

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I have a confession to make. I have lost my faith in the Church, and I’m not the only one.

In the USA, around three and a half thousand believers walk away from the Christian church every single day. According to the online publication The Christian Century, in the USA, an average of nine churches per day shut their doors for good.

As for me, I grew up in the church and, for the first thirty-five years of my life, never really thought about leaving. In fact, I imagined myself sitting faithfully in the pew until the day they took me out in a casket.

However, as I progressed through my teenage years and then young adulthood, I began to observe many people who not only thought about leaving but had the audacity to follow through. More alarmingly, I began to notice that people who had genuine faith questions and, especially those who had doubts about whether church systems and structures were truly what God had in mind, were shut down and then, eventually, shut out.

I have seen the Church systematically shunning and shaming people who expressed these doubts. I have had the first-hand experience of church leaders actively encouraging congregants to cut off people who had walked away, warning them of the potential negative influence they might have. I am ashamed to admit that I participated in the judgment of “backsliders,” turning up my nose at them in self-righteous indignation and then with great evangelistic zeal trying to win them back to the faith — or at least my version of it.

Then, one day, something changed in me.

I began to question everything as well. Like many people, this was precipitated by a life crisis that caused me to examine everything I believed. It snuck up on me like a thief in the night and stole away my certainty. I had always imagined I would have a more robust faith than all those “others.” The words of Peter the Apostle were my mantra: “Surely, not I, Lord!” Yet, despite this, I found myself in a place of terrifying doubt.

I began to wonder what was wrong with me to the point of beating myself up. So, I expressed these concerns to a much older, wiser friend who suggested to me that doubt and disillusionment are, in fact, a sign of spiritual growth rather than spiritual decline, and he pointed me to the work of James Fowler, a Professor of Theology and Human Development.

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The Six Stages of Faith Development

In 1981, Fowler published a work called Stages of Faith, where he built on the work of renowned thinkers like Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg, to give a framework for understanding how faith, and our own quest for meaning, develops in us over the course of our lifetime. Hey, it’s old, but it still rings true. Here is a brief overview of each stage: