Tag: spirituality

Faith

Fowler defines faith as an activity of trusting, committing, and relating to the world based on a set of assumptions of how one is related to others and the world.

Faith, derived from Latin fides and Old French feid, is confidence or trust in a person, thing, or concept. In the context of religion, one can define faith as confidence or trust in a particular system of religious belief. Religious people often think of faith as confidence based on a perceived degree of warrant* ( *The theory of justification is a part of epistemology that attempts to understand the justification of propositions and beliefs. Epistemologists are concerned with various epistemic features of belief, which include the ideas of justification, warrant, rationality, and probability. Loosely speaking, justification is the reason that someone (properly) holds a belief.)

James W. Fowler (1940–2015) proposes a series of stages of faith-development (or spiritual development) across the human life-span. His stages relate closely to the work of Piaget, Erikson, and Kohlberg regarding aspects of psychological development in children and adults. Fowler defines faith as an activity of trusting, committing, and relating to the world based on a set of assumptions of how one is related to others and the world.

Stages of faith

  1. Intuitive-Projective: a stage of confusion and of high impressionability through stories and rituals (pre-school period).
  2. Mythic-Literal: a stage where provided information is accepted in order to conform with social norms (school-going period).
  3. Synthetic-Conventional: in this stage the faith acquired is concreted in the belief system with the forgoing of personification and replacement with authority in individuals or groups that represent one’s beliefs (early-late adolescence).
  4. Individuative-Reflective: in this stage the individual critically analyzes adopted and accepted faith with existing systems of faith. Disillusion or strengthening of faith happens in this stage. Based on needs, experiences and paradoxes (early adulthood).
  5. Conjunctive faith: in this stage people realize the limits of logic and, facing the paradoxes or transcendence of life, accept the “mystery of life” and often return to the sacred stories and symbols of the pre-acquired or re-adopted faith system. This stage is called negotiated settling in life (mid-life).
  6. Universalizing faith: this is the “enlightenment” stage where the individual comes out of all the existing systems of faith and lives life with universal principles of compassion and love and in service to others for upliftment, without worries and doubt (middle-late adulthood (45–65 years old and plus).

No hard-and-fast rule requires individuals pursuing faith to go through all six stages. There is a high probability for individuals to be content and fixed in a particular stage for a lifetime; stages from 2-5 are such stages. Stage 6 is the summit of faith development. This state is often considered as “not fully” attainable.

“Faith is believing in things when common sense tells you not to.”
― Valentine Davies, Miracle on 34th Street

In the theological ladder, the explanation of which forms a part of the instruction of Masonry, faith is said to typify the lowest round. Faith, here, is synonymous with confidence or trust, and hence we find the essential qualification of a candidate is that he should trust in God.

Jesus Wasn’t a Socialist.

Jesus routinely refused any kind of forced redistribution of wealth under the guise of charity.
For instance, when Judas lobbied to take Mary’s gift and
redistribute it to the poor, Jesus rebuked him: “Let her alone, so
that she may keep it for the day of My burial. For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.” (John 12:5-8 NASB).

Throughout the Bible physical realities are used to teach spiritual lessons and vice versa. In fact, Jesus Himself often reveals the way the heavenly world works through analogies to earthly things. Believers can therefore draw practical and political guidance from the lessons of Christ’s ministry but must always recall that these things are correctly interpreted only if they bring truth that sets people free (John 8:32), which was Jesus’ ultimate objective.

Sadly, some today are trying to improperly politicize Christ’s life to justify their own political talking points through blatantly false misrepresentations. For example, at the Democratic National Committee’s summer meeting, Reverend William Barber claimed the Bible advocates socialism:

“When we embrace moral language, we must ask, Does our policy care for ‘the least of these’?—Does it lift up those who are most marginalized and dejected in our society? —Does it establish justice? That is the moral question…If someone calls it socialism, then we must compel them to acknowledge that the Bible must then promote socialism, because Jesus offered free health care to everyone, and he never charged a leper a co-pay.”

First of all, we would endlessly rejoice if God miraculously healed anyone—or everyone—who might be hurt, sick, or dying. However, it seems ridiculously naïve for a pastor to suggest that we legislatively demand “Jesus-care” in accordance with a human sense of justice. It also reveals a stunning ignorance of both history and Scripture to compare a failed economic system responsible for the death of millions throughout history to the loving acts of restoration performed by our Savior.

Jesus didn’t come to institute a free healthcare policy for the Roman empire but rather to use His miracles to reveal the more important purpose of healing the spiritual man. As He affirmed:

“Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven’; or to say, ‘Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, ‘I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home’” (Mark 2:9-11 NASB).

There were even times when, in order to demonstrate a higher purpose, Jesus refused to heal someone. Just ask Lazarus. He wasn’t healed from his sickness; He died from it—only to be raised from the dead specifically to reveal “the glory of God” (John 11:40).

There were also times when, even though there were people in need of physical help, Christ placed the emphasis of His ministry on other things, saying:

“Let us go somewhere else to the towns nearby, so that I may preach there also; for that is what I came for” (Mark 1:38 NASB, emphasis added).

Jesus’s “socialistic” heath care plan didn’t even carry coverage for His own physical crucifixion—nor was the apostle Paul spared from his thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7-19). Jesus clearly did not come to provide free healthcare without a co-pay for all.

Expanding further, Jesus routinely refused any kind of forced redistribution of wealth under the guise of charity. For instance, when Judas lobbied to take Mary’s gift and redistribute it to the poor, Jesus rebuked him:

“Let her alone, so that she may keep it for the day of My burial. For you always have the poor with you, but you do not always have Me.” (John 12:5-8 NASB).

Jesus wasn’t a socialist. (See especially His teachings in Matthew 25 on the talents, and in Luke 19 about the minas.) And we must never forget that the spiritual healing He provided for us was not free: He paid for it with His own life, and then made it available to us through our own individual repentance, not through equal redistribution.

As believers, we are certainly called to help the “least of these” (Matthew 25:40). But that’s not socialism. That’s Christian ministry by individuals.