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date: 17 February 2020

Abstract and Keywords

This chapter describes the emergence, critiques, and some of the key implications of faith development theory as pioneered by James W. Fowler and informed by W. C. Smith, H. Richard Niebuhr, Erik Erikson, Jean Piaget, Lawrence Kohlberg, Robert Selman, Robert Kegan, Carol Gilligan, and others. Faith (differentiated from belief) is described as meaning-making in its most comprehensive dimensions. Constructive-developmental psychology, the role of imagination (content), and the social field all contribute to a multi-faceted understanding of the development of faith across the lifespan. Critiques and expansions of Fowler’s work are explored including gender perspectives, the linearity of stages, and the positing of an emerging adult stage. It addresses the need for the formation of mature adult faith as integral to the practice of self-critical community and citizenship and points toward a reassessment of the purposes of education and religion in a changing world.

Keywords: faith development, meaning-making, faith and belief, formation of faith, developmental psychology, imagination and faith, stages of faith, mature adult faith, self-critical community and citizenship

Sharon Daloz Parks

Sharon Daloz Parks, senior fellow at the Whidbey Institute and principal, Leadership for the New Commons, is a teacher, theorist, and author. Her undergraduate and master’s degrees are from Whitworth University and Princeton Theological Seminary. Her doctorate from Harvard University focused on theology and human development. Subsequently, for sixteen years she held faculty and research positions at Harvard Divinity School, Harvard Business School, and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has taught also at the Weston Jesuit School of Theology and Seattle University. Her publications include Leadership Can Be Taught: A Bold Approach for a Complex World; Big Questions, Worthy Dreams: Mentoring Emerging Adults in Their Search for Meaning, Purpose and Faith; and co-authored, Common Fire: Leading Lives of Commitment in a Complex World. She speaks and consults nationally. She is a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers).

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