Keep asking baby girl… keep asking!

Whew…I hope you had your coffee, my friend…..

Your question made me think about James Fowler’s theory on the stages of faith development. A school age child is in stage 2 - where they make sense of their faith through story. Faith is not an abstract thing on its own.

But, stage 2 breaks down, when, according to Fowler, the stories start to clash. Stories of God’s goodness suddenly dont sit well next to stories of pain and suffering. This discomfort will only grow over the next couple of years until the child moves into stage 3 - propelled by the new cognitive abilities adolescence brings.

So, in a sense, her faith development is right on track - she is probably expressing it at a much higher level than a lot of kids, but she is going through the same process everyone goes through. Fowler would probably say that you can try and help her hold paradox as best you can, but dont be too hard on yourself because until heightened abstract thinking arrives in the “puberty package” there is only so much her brain will be wired to understand. But, pointing out experiences of “safe” paradox now might give the harder conversaitons in stage 3 a little more to rest upon.

Just my 2 cents….or, rather, James Fowler’s 2 cents :-)