Page 68 - EMCAPP-Journal No. 7

Foundational Discussions in Christian Psychology

Kevin Eames (USA)

Comment to

“The Mosaic of Maturing

Spirituality. An Alternative

Model for Spiritual

Development“

Professor Thiessen offers an intriguing model of Kevin J. Eames, PhD is professor
developing spiritual maturity in his use of the of psychology, department chair,
mosaic metaphor. The model appears to be a and director of institutional effec-
creative encapsulation of what he has witnessed tiveness at Covenant College in
in his clinical and academic experience. The Lookout Mountain, Georgia, in the
model does a fair job of addressing some of the United States. Also adjunct profes-
challenges and complexities inherent in the de- sor at Richmont Graduate Univer-
velopment of faith-based maturity. As creative sity. PhD in Counseling Psycholo-
and interesting as the model appears, however, gy. Primary research interests in-
I respectfully offer reservations on two grounds. clude the cognitive science of reli-
The first involves the worldview from which the gion and the articulation of models
article was written, and the second involves a of Christian psychology.
explanatory incompatibility between Thiessen’s
critique of Fowler’s model and his presentation
of his own mosaic model.

My first overall reservation about Professor critique of Fowler’s well-known faith develop-
Thiessen’s article is the worldview that provides ment model (1980). He identifies two specific
the context for his model. It is unclear from the concerns. The first involves the model’s limita-
narrative if the mosaic is a singularly Christian tions for explaining real-life complexities. This
model for understanding spiritual maturity. It critique is offered within an empirical explana-
appears, like Fowler’s model, to allow for a va- tory framework. The issue of the invariant and
riety of belief commitments, even those that are hierarchical nature of Fowler’s model is proble-
non-theistic. The language appears to be more matic and Thiessen appropriately supports this
appropriately associated with transpersonal limitation with citations from Streib (2001) and
psychology than Christian psychology. Some Kaplan, Crockett and Tivlan (2014). So far so
of the terms and phrases used would have very good. We are operating together within a con-
different meanings when viewed from each of ventional explanatory framework that marshals
these perspectives. A transpersonal perspective both theoretical and empirical evidence to sup-
becomes more evident when the author asks the port an argument.
reader to accept his mosaic model on the ba-
sis of his own intuition, affected in part by his The reader begins to note a shift in the expla-
transcendent experiences. natory approach when Thiessen introduces his
second concern, namely the “tendency of the
The reliance on intuition highlights my second theory to appear elitist or even condescending
reservation, which involves a shift in the expla- when taught” (Thiessen, this volume). This con-
natory framework used in the presentation of cern appears to reside more with the teaching of
the separate faith development models. Pro- the theory or the teachers of the theory rather
fessor Thiessen begins his article with a brief than the theory itself. He contends that “we face
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