Growing Up Stages at a Glance
Summarizing the Development of an Integral Christian Worldview
Growing Up in the Jesus Path Series - Part Eight
If you have been following this series, you probably have a general sense of what the above levels of development describe. All models of developmental lines are idealized, and no one person solely expresses characteristics of just one stage. A good rule of thumb may be the 25-50-25 model: about half of our behavior is determined by our dominant stage. The others are in the previous and following stages in approximately equal measure.
Growing Up
In this series on Growing Up in the Jesus path, I do not claim to define integral Christianity for everyone but am only giving my perspective. All perspectives and systems are partial and limited, as is mine. However, I hope this will give those not familiar with an integral philosophy of Growing Up a general understanding of the stages of faith they have come from and how we all are still on the journey.
Integral’s Growing Up is reflected in what Jesus pointed to in his day when he said, “I have much more to teach you, but you are not ready for it yet” (John 16:12). Here is some of the “more.”
Brief Summary
The following summary may help you get a sense of where you may find yourself operating at various stages.
Tribal Magic — Superstition, magical thinking. Clan social relationships and maintenance of customs for survival.
Warrior — Aggression, anger, might is right. Challenge tribal authority figures or belief systems to conquer the world.
Traditional Mythic — Conform to chosen group while obeying higher authority and rules of good and evil to avoid eternal damnation.
Modern Mental — Science and rationality. Awakened independence and achieving stunning technological results.
Postmodern — Sensitivity, relativism, ecology. Seek inclusive love and peace within through sharing and becoming useful in the community.
Integral Integrating — Integrating all previous levels and things while understanding that chaos and change are natural. See the big picture.
Integral Holistic — Experience the wholeness of existence by becoming one with all things and restoring natural harmony and balance. Open to unknowing (not knowing).
A half-full glass of water
Tribalists are fearful powerful spirits will take the water and relies on the clan’s magical power to protect it.
Warriors are ready to fight their neighbors to protect their water and fill their glass. They pray for courage to conquer the enemy of their water.
Traditionalists may be either optimists who see this as the best of all possible glasses of water or pessimists who are afraid that this is the only remaining glass. They pray with thanksgiving or dread.
Modernists are sure that the glass is twice as big as it needs to be. They don’t pray.
Postmodernists are concerned about the elegance of the glass, the quality of the water, how it feels drinking it, and if everyone has enough. They meditate on all of that.
Integralists ponder the strengths and weaknesses of all these viewpoints while being grateful to the Great Creative Process that transpired to evolve the water, water systems, the glass, and their nourishing presence here. After that particular glass of water, they look for what comes next.
GROWING UP — from Spiral Dynamics by David Goebal
Handle Stages with Care
Do you recognize the above version of Spiral Dynamics stages and structures from David Goebal? Is it making sense now?
It is easy to oversimplify reality as in this primer series and forget that things are more complicated. We should use these general levels of development carefully. They are not to label, diminish, or exalt yourself and others.
Four Values of a Shadow-Free Understanding of Developmental Stages
1. They help us not condemn ourselves for not being further along. Every stage is valuable in itself.
2. Seeing levels of development or structures of consciousness can create feelings of superiority if we do not go deeper. Without that shadow, we can understand where someone may be operating from developmentally, not to see ourselves as better, but rather to inform us so that we can find the best way to interact.
3. Instead of judging others for being where they are, we value where they are
4. The more inclusive our worldview, the fuller our picture of reality. Like the blind who think they know what object they are touching. But they only know a small part which can only be fully known when one knows the big picture.
Why we need religion — Yes, all kinds and levels!
While not advocating any particular religion, Gebser and Wilber are unabashedly spiritual. Spirituality for most of us comes in the form of a particular religious tradition that, no matter how limited, has served to comfort, strengthen, and encourage countless followers down through the centuries. In addition, Wilber points out that the world’s religions can serve as a conveyor belt, or what I call an escalator function. He says that only the world’s great religious traditions can offer the unique stability, history, and legitimacy required for the developmental function.
One can attempt to start a new religion or spiritual path, but that might be like reinventing the wheel. In addition, the stability and legitimacy of the new religion would need to be tested over a long time. It would have to go through the same learning curve rather than simply building on the historic values of an existing tradition.
Most of the world’s people are already connected to a historic religious tradition and will not change their religion in their lifetime, although they may not actively pursue that religion. But if that religious tradition offers an evolved version that has kept up with Divine-Human Spirit-Breath-Consciousness, then that spirit would be more readily available to those people than an entirely new religion!
The brilliance of the escalator understanding is that spiritual seekers do not need to change their religion to move up from floor to floor.
If you are a deconstructed or disenchanted Christian at the postmodern level longing for more a profound spiritual experience, you don’t need another religion. You just need the next version of Christianity—the integral one!
It is now entirely possible to stay with the tradition which brought you to the dance and continue to deepen in far-reaching ways.
From my many decades of teaching, research, and writing seeking the more that Jesus offered us, here is my understanding of the integral path of growing up to the most evolved Christian worldview available today.
The Bible
The tribal lens sees the Bible as powerful magic. The warrior lens considers the Bible as the story of the battle between good and evil. The traditional lens sees the Bible as the totally true Word of God, containing all we need to know about our relationship to God. The modern lens sees the Bible as a blend of fact, myth, legend, fantasy, and wisdom. The postmodern lens considers the Bible as one of many Scriptures from around the world that teach spiritual wisdom.
At the integral Christian level, most accept the place of modern rational inquiry in the writing and preservation of biblical documents while also discerning the limitations of this approach. The Bible is studied, referred to, and valued as history, meaningful myth, metaphor, and an indispensable element in the Jesus path.
God
There is no “God” at the archaic level, only a diffuse connection with the material realm and its information field. Looking through the tribal church lens, God is the heavenly super-being in charge of the world.
At the warrior altitude, there are spiritual presences all around us, and the earth is alive. The need for power is projected into the forces of nature, such as the sun. These forces are personified, such as Poseidon as the god of the waves.
As the traditional “law and order” stage emerged five thousand years ago, Hinduism and other ancient religions emerged in polytheistic form. Judaism and Islam emerged by finding power in one god, and law and order in the spiritual realm. This God is not only all-powerful but often in a bad mood, using divine power to coerce and punish people. The traditional Christian view is that God is both a compassionate father and a vengeful super being “up” in heaven. This God insists people come to “him” only through the historical person named Jesus.
Looking through the physical-reality-only lens, the modern stage sees a distant Higher Power or does not need a God of any kind since science alone holds the potential for power.
The postmodern worldview sees God everywhere, promoting harmony, inclusiveness, and love. All religions are equally valid. However, God within is the preferred view, and nonduality is often considered the highest realm of experience.
The big leap to integral awareness can now see God in a more differentiated yet integrated way through Wilber’s Three Faces of Spirit. I articulate and experience them as the Three Faces of God — the Infinite Face of God-Beyond-Us, the Intimate Face of God-Beside-Us, and the Inner Face of God-Being-Us. These radiate creative intelligence, evolutional impulse, all-encompassing love, healing energy, and transforming compassion.
Jesus
The tribal lens sees Jesus as a magical wonder-worker. The warrior lens perceives a vengeful Jesus. The traditional lens sees a suffering Jesus who took our place on the cross to save us from God’s wrath. The modern lens finds a human Jesus who is a wise teacher. The postmodern sees an inclusive Jesus who embraces everyone, along with all their various spiritual paths or none.
The integral lens sees a mystical reformer, a prophetic Jesus who fully realized and manifested his divine identity. He includes the best of his Jewish path and transcends the no-longer-adequate elements. Jesus is the personification of the Christ consciousness. He defines God for Christians but does not confine God to Christianity. Jesus is the prototype for the new humanity, modeling what it looks like for a person to embrace and express their own inherent humanity and divinity.
Prayer
The tribal worldview sees prayer as begging an all-powerful heavenly being to protect, heal, and guide them. The warrior lens sees prayer as doing battle with evil. The traditional station sees prayer as a conversation with God or Jesus that includes petitioning God up in heaven to intervene down here on Earth. The modern level understands prayer, at the most, as something like uplifting thoughts. The postmodern view understands prayer as many things.
The integral Christian worldview sees prayer as inspired states of higher consciousness where we experience God in both intimate relationship and inner identification. In Integral Prayer, we transmit powerful, loving energy to specific people and situations. We can also give voice on behalf of others to this energy in words, images, and sensations that arise within us, which comfort, encourage, and strengthen not only others but also for our own guidance and healing.
Sin and Salvation
The tribal, warrior, and traditional church worldviews see sin as disobeying God, and salvation as being saved from the penalty of that disobedience. This is understood as available only through faith in Jesus Christ. The modern church sees sin as anything that harms us or others. Salvation is the release of healing and justice into the world. The postmodern church sees sin, without using the word, as alienation and salvation as that which connects us to all others in the spiritual realm.
Without using the word, Integral Christianity views sin as not being true to our Divine identity. Salvation is coming home to the spiritual reality of the universe and that we are all beloved children of God. Integral salvation is being liberated into who we already are, and using that personal and collective liberation to heal the world.
Heaven and hell
At the tribal-warrior-traditional level, hell is a place of eternal torment where those who are not Christians are sent after death. Heaven is eternal bliss where all Christians go at death. Modern churches tend to dismiss a literal hell and instead see it as here and now alienation and suffering. Life after death is a mystery. Postmodern Christians may see hell as alienation and heaven as eternal bliss. Death, for some, may mean reincarnation, coming back for another lifetime.
My understanding of integral Christianity views hell as Jesus described it — “garbage dump existence” in this life for those who mistreat the vulnerable. Heaven is to move beyond the veil at death to intimate, eternal communion with God, Jesus, the saints, and everyone as we continue our endless evolution.
The Kingdom of Heaven
Tribal, warrior, and traditional Christians commonly see the Kingdom of Heaven (or Kingdom of God) as the place Christians go after death. The modern church considers the Kingdom of Heaven as healing and justice in the here and now. The postmodern Christian worldview may see it as living in the reality that we are all spiritual beings on a human journey.
At the integral stage, the realm of God is seen as the great nondual vision of Jesus. There is no separation between us and God and us and one another. Traditional church believes the goal is to get us into heaven. The integral church believes the goal is to get heaven into us.
The Mystical
Tribal mysticism may be a mixture of both authentic union with nature and fear-based superstition. Warrior mysticism is filled with passionate fantasies of winners and losers. Traditional mysticism is what we study about in the Bible but ceased with the Bible’s completion. To the modern eye, mysticism doesn’t exist. Postmodern mysticism includes everything that isn’t rational, from prerational fantasy to authentic mystical experience.
Integral Christianity distinguishes between the fantasy and superstitions of magical thinking and the reality of mystical spirituality. The goal of magical thinking is to get something for ourselves. The goal of mystical spirituality is to give something to the world. It embraces both the scientist’s exploration of the universe as well as the mystic’s exploration of that same universe. Mystics know there is a deeper state of existence beyond the ordinary world.
The Integral perspective allows us, for the first time, to recognize the previous structures of consciousness that came before, and include their contributions to the further evolution of Christianity and the world.
For reflection . . .
1. What has growing up spiritually looked like in your life?
2. Where do you see yourself still operating out of previous stages, and where do you find yourself on a growing edge?
3. Have fun tracking the symbols in the following map to lead you on a journey through archaic brown, tribal purple, warrior red, traditional blue, modern orange, postmodern green, integral integrative circles, and integral holistic spiral.
Levels of Complexity (unable to identify artist and artist’s signature)