Faith Integration

Child development theorist and child development framework

Psychologists have increased the interest in researching religious development on areas based on faith and religious identity. People interpret emotions and actions and these helps in understanding the unknown. For example, faith helps trusting the God’s existence and all people live by faith.  Bruce Powers is a theorist who has done a thorough research and has found that faith is something which is interpreted by people in terms of experience (Roehlkepartain, 2006).  He believes that there are various phases of faith and the first one is nurture (0-6 years). In this stage, children gains awareness and influence from church and family. A child feels secured and loved.  The second stage is (indoctrination 7-18).  During this stage, children build a strong foundation and start a new journey of seeking God by reading the word (Roehlkepartain, 2006).

 John Westerhoff states that that every stage of faith development is important in life.  He introduces the first stage as experienced faith and assert that this stage occur during early childhood where children imitates things without knowing the meaning. The second stage is affiliative faith and children at adolescent age gains a sense of belonging to church groups and activities. The third stage is searching faith and during this stage, children at late adolescent gains personal conviction and have the power to interpret one’s religion and practice one’s faith (Roehlkepartain, 2006).

 Temp Sparkman states that the first stage of faith is child of God and this occurs at early childhood. Children during this stage believe that they are children of God.  The second stage is child of promise and during this stage; children at adolescence age are engaged in the community of faith and given the opportunity to create an identity. The third state is the affirmed believer and children aged 16 years makes personal declaration and receives Jesus as their savior (Roehlkepartain, 2006).

Larry Stephenes introduced initial faith as the first stage of faith development. Children aged 0-2 years gain spiritual foundation from parents. The second stage is unconditional love and children aged 2-3 are taught about God’s love and forgiveness. Children are taught the right and wrong things and act as a separate individual. The third stage is grace and during this stage, children aged 3-5 years develop spiritual concepts and understand the bible, sins, heaven and hell (Roehlkepartain, 2006).

James Fowler and child development framework

James Fowler states that faith creates a bond which unites individuals with the world.   In human development, faith is also an aspect of development similar to cognitive or motor development. He introduces primal faith as the first stage in faith development. This stage occurs during infancy and children develop trust and hope through parental influence. They need positive experience for them to build trust with the divine and negative experience increases distrust. The second stage is Intuitive-Projection Faith which occurs at early childhood (Dowling & Scarlett, 2005). Children develop moral emotions and gains self-awareness through learning from parents’ and parents’ impressions. They are engaged to religious rituals and gains experience through interacting with others. The third stage is Mythic-Literal Faith and this stage occurs at early adolescence where children gain a literal and concrete thinking and understand diverse beliefs. The fourth stage is Synthetic-Conventional Faith and children as middle adolescence develops an operational thinking and reflects on past experience to derive meaning. Children have cognitive abilities and reflect on future life such as career. They build personal relations and needs to be close to God (Dowling & Scarlett, 2005). They are closely attached to the church and adhere to religious rules.

Comparison

In comparison, John Westerhoff’s third stage which is ‘searching and Fowler’s fourth stage which is Synthetic-Conventional Faith have similar themes. This is because, adolescence at this particular stage are closely attached to beliefs and values and tend to stick on tacit formulations.  In ideology construction, they employ cognitive abilities so that they can understand the world and make meaningful interpretation (Dowling & Scarlett, 2005).  Individuals create sense of identity and tend to adhere to external authorities. In addition, individuals employ philosophical formulations and experimentation in understanding the faith and religion.

 

Reference

Roehlkepartain, E. C. (2006). The handbook of spiritual development in childhood and adolescence.

Thousand Oaks, Calif. [u.a.: SAGE.

 

Dowling, E. M., & Scarlett, W. (2005). Encyclopedia of religious and spiritual development. Thousand

Oaks, CA: Sage.