In a recent post Marty identified the “domains of effectual faith” found in a couple of my books (The Craft of Christian Teaching and in How to Be The Best Christian Small Group Leader). Marty’s treatment was accurate, and the schema is very helpful for addressing educational issues from curriculum design to lesson planning. These domains are more subtle and dynamic than we usually get into when introducing the concept of Effectual Faitih in workshops. The risk there is in leaving people with simplistic or one-dimensional misunderstandings about this schema on the nature of faith.
The four domains of Effectual Faith are distinct but interrelated. The framing concept is “to the extent that each domain is operative is the extent to which someone can be said to have effectual faith.” Matters of faith are not quantitative—the issue of “how much” faith one has is moot and is a “wrong question.” Jesus said as much when he corrected his disciples by saying that if it were a matter of “how much” faith, a mustard seed’s worth would move mountains. The domains are qualitative in nature. Here are examples of the range of qualities for each domain. The qualities on the chart are merely for illustration. A variety of qualitative stages for each category can be found in various writings on faith and psycho-social development.
Faith is never static; it is a verb, not a noun, as Kenneth Stokes pointed out. And while there are four distinct domains they do not exist in a vacuum and are subject to the dynamics of growth and maturation. One goal of Christian education is to help guide the learner from a naive and immature faith to a critical and mature faith. The identification of the progressive stages within each stage can be helpful in assessing the growth needs of the learner and in formulating learning and programmatic objectives to help learners grow in faith maturity.
Flesh out your own schema for each domain of Effectual Faith. Consider what source(s) you’ll use to create your taxonomies. In what ways can you apply this framework in assessing your congregational Christian education program. Can the schema help inform how you go about planning and designing educational opportunities for your learners?
What the schema illustrates so clearly, Israel, is the shallow and limited understanding of how faith is formed that exists in the educational practices of most churches. Most of our educational practices and processes address the lower ends of each of the four domains. For example, in the cognitive domain, many churches de-value critical thinking by using methodologies that place value on rigid beliefs as the key to cognitive maturity. I see this all the time as a church practice on Sunday and Wednesday evening seminars, where one person (the pastor, resident educator, or a lay person with specific expertise) addresses a topic as an “expert” with little participation on the part of the participants. That’s why I am an advocate for a “thinking” church, small groups, and dialogical learning, and why I ask our ministry teams to always ask, “What is the theology (or value) that informs this decision or practice?”
I would also suggest that there needs to be some visual connection between the four domains in the orange chart (It is shown by your Effectual Faith image). I do not believe the domains are independent of one another. I say that because many persons think that just teaching rigid beliefs, without giving any attention to the behavioral or other domains, will lead to appropriate behavioral responses. That’s not necessarily true. We can believe something, but that doesn’t necessarily mean we will practice those beliefs. And that’s the problem with just teaching for rigid belief. Again, another example of why this chart helps us view the broader issues of faith formation, and thus, educational planning.
I’m not suggesting that this movement always moves from left to right (Cognitive Domain to Volitional Domain) although that may be the more natural tendency. I suspect the relationship between these domains is more fluid. Regardless, the issue for the resident educator is to understand the stages of these educational domains and translate what they “look like” in terms of educational structures and processes that are congruent with how faith is formed. That’s the hard part–the real work!
Since the volitional domain is the domain of the Spirit, I would reword the final stage of this domain as “Mature mutual relationship with others and with God” which addresses the issue of at-one-ment (union) with God and Fowler’s deeper stages of faith.
Marty, I found your comments striking—I was merely being descriptive and not addressing what ACTUALLY tends to happen at church—and yet, your apt description threw me into a jolt! Indeed, some congregational educational enterprises are geared toward inculcating an “uncritical obedience to external authority” stance.
As to finding a way to indicate the dynamic interplay of the components of Effectual Faith, I’m still working on it. Apart from orally explaining it I haven’t yet been able to depict it visually as effectively as I desire. Perhaps I’ll try a Flash animation. On the graphic above I tried to hint at the interplay by making the components distinct but “transparent.”
And you are correct—-the starting point for movement can happen via any one (or more) of the domains; they are all interrelated that tightly. In fact, one can say that only when a personal-psychological-emotional disorder is at play are the domains “disconnected” from one another (or one from the others). Spirituality, and faith, are not divorced from the personal-individual factors (like experience, maturation, etc.). Educationally speaking, then, any one of the domains can become an “entry point” for engaging ALL of the components of faith.
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