Talking with someone about a conviction you do not share
Ask someone who holds a conviction you do not share what it protects for them, repeat their answer back until they say it is right, then say what you still hold.
Por qué funciona
Mallery and Mallery (2022) name the fifth stage, Conjunctive/Dialogical faith, and report that it is associated with feeling close to people whose religious views are very different. They also describe openness to family difference as a key element of higher-stage perspective taking. Repeating the other person’s answer back before responding gives their conviction a fair hearing, and stating your own position afterward keeps your commitment in view.
Cómo hacerlo
- Choose someone whose conviction differs from yours and who is willing to talk.
- Ask what the conviction protects for them, and what they would lose without it.
- Repeat their answer back in your own words, and ask whether you got it right.
- Say what you still hold and what, if anything, their answer changed for you.
- Write one sentence that includes both what they hold and what you hold.
Evidencia
Mallery and Mallery (2022) link the Conjunctive/Dialogical stage to feeling close to people with very different religious views. The conversation is an inference from that association and has not been tested. (mechanistic)
The authors report that for the Locus of Authority aspect (where a person locates authority) and the Symbolic Function aspect (how a person uses images and symbols), stages 4 and 5 could not be separated, and that longitudinal data is needed to confirm the sequence. The boundary of this stage is therefore not sharp. Fowler (1988) is cited from its abstract only, which links the transition to the Conjunctive stage to a broader cultural struggle; it does not test dialogue.
Fuentes
- Mallery, S. T., & Mallery, P. (2022). Centers of value and the quest for meaning in faith development: A measurement approach. Frontiers in Psychology, 13, 975160.
- Fowler, J. W. (1988). The Enlightenment and Faith Development Theory. Journal of Empirical Theology, 1(1), 29–42.
Error común
Using the conversation to find the flaw in their view. The exercise only works if their answer is taken as the reason they hold the conviction, even when you disagree with it.
Practica esto con IX Coach
Más prácticas para James Fowler’s Stages of Faith, Made Practical
- Faith timeline: mapping what you trusted at each age
Draw your life as one line and mark, age by age, what you trusted to make sense of things and where that trust changed hands.
- Centers of value: answering the four questions in writing
Write down what you give your life to, who you are committed to in life and death, what you hope for, and who you share your most sacred hopes with.
- Master stories: naming the story you were handed about how life works
Write the story you live by, and name who or what you picture holding the final say when things go wrong.
- Retelling one disagreement from the other side
Write your position on one unsettled disagreement, then write theirs well enough that they would recognise it as their own.
- Mapping the circle of people you feel close to
List the people you feel most responsible to and close to, and mark which of them hold a belief or value that differs from yours.
- Holding two frames at once without picking a winner
Name the two ways of making sense of one question that both feel partly true right now, and write what each one still gets right.
- Asking whether an old frame still fits this moment
When you notice yourself reaching for a belief you were raised with, ask whether it fits the situation in front of you, and write what the situation actually needs.
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