Religious Development Theory

Fowler’s religious development theory is one of the most known and understood theory. To review this theory I chose to interview a friend of mine who we will call Cindy. Cindy identifies as a cisgender woman, Vietnamese, White and Black (in that order), and grew up in Des Moines, IA with her Vietnamese mother and step-father. She still has a relationship with both her mother and step-father who recently separated. Cindy is currently unemployed, living with her boyfriend of 6+ years, and taking care of her teenage younger brother as of a year now, here in Ames. She graduated from ISU with a BA in Criminal Justice and Sociology. When it comes to Cindy’s religious background, Cindy grew up with both Catholic and Buddhist practices and religious

Cindy said that was short lived for two main reasons. One, her boyfriend of many years is agnostic and Cindy plans on marrying him, and in the catholic faith, you cannot marry outside the church and CIndy didn’t want to have to face the dilemma down the road. The second reason goes back to how Catholic versus Buddhism is viewed in the Vietnamese community. She feels as though she cannot explore Catholicism and buddhism without the catholic part of the community shunning her if she later choses to go with Catholicism. She feels as though which ever she tries to explore, there will be no turning back. Therefore, Cindy defaultly falls back to the Synthetic-conventional stage. There are many things to be drawn from applying Fowler’s Development Theory to Cindy’s life. For starters, you can see how the theory applies to faith and not religion as it’s intended. Even though Cindy grew up and still faces the battle between two religions, she does still have faith. She stated that she believes in a God or higher power, but that faith has not been directed anywhere. This is an interesting area that Fowler I think falls short or doesn’t seem to fit in his theory. The only place it would make sense to fall into is Stage 3. Yet it has qualities of stage 4, in Cindy’s case