Developing Enduring Faith (The Six Pathways)
Developing Enduring Faith (The Six Pathways)
Significant research on the faith and religious lives of youth in the United States has been conducted by Christian Smith. While not focused on any single faith tradition, his findings on faith formation are highly informative. In 2009, Smith published Souls in Transition (with Patricia Snell), identifying six pathways that lead a majority of adolescents toward what the study defined as highly religious adulthood. This post introduces those pathways and begins to connect them to ż Christian education, with future posts exploring those connections more deeply.
What Are the Six Pathways?
To understand what the six pathways are, it is first important to clarify what they are not. These pathways are neither guaranteed routes to faith nor the only ways that faith is formed. In fact, Smith’s research shows that most adolescents who retain their faith follow a different pathway. The six pathways are significant because they represent the only combinations of four elements in which a majority – more than 50 percent – of participants became highly religious adults. Put another way – while many highly religious adults followed other routes, these six combinations uniquely demonstrated a consistent majority outcome.
The Seven Elements
The pathways are formed from varied combinations of four elements drawn from a larger list of elements:
- Element A: High parental religious service attendance and importance of faith
- Element B: High teen importance of religious faith
- Element C: Teen has many personal religious experiences
- Element D: Teen frequently prays and reads scripture
- Element E: Teen has no doubts about religious beliefs
- Element F: Teen has many adults in religious congregation to turn to for help and support
- Element G: Low parental religious service attendance and importance of faith
The Six Pathways
When these elements are combined into combinations of four, six pathways emerge in which more than 50 percent of participants became highly religious adults:
- Pathway 1: A + B + C + D = 68%
- Pathway 2: A + B + E + D = 70%
- Pathway 3: A + B + E + C = 68%
- Pathway 4: A + F + E + C = 67%
- Pathway 5: G + F + E + D = 64%
- Pathway 6: B + C + E + D = 77%
Early Comments and Connections
A few early observations stand out:
- It is striking to see the Lord at work in Pathway 5, which includes adolescents raised in homes with low parental religious service attendance and emphasis on faith!
- The research allows for logical substitutes:
- Parents (Element A) may be replaced by any adult with a similarly significant influence.
- A religious congregation (Element F) may be replaced by a broader religious community, such as a faith-based K-12 school.
While subsequent posts will explore these pathways more fully, astute readers will already begin to see some connections:
- Parents who purposefully enroll their children in a ż Christian school likely demonstrate a high parental importance of faith (Element A).
- A ż Christian school is likely to provide many personal religious experiences for their students (Element C) and encourage prayer and Scripture reading (Element D).
- Staff at a ż Christian school become trusted adults who support adolescents (Element F) and often come alongside students to help them walk through doubts, such that at the end the student has greater commitment and understanding of their faith (Element E).
Continue on the journey of exploring this series by continuing to read below or check out Souls in Transition to engage in the research firsthand!
- Introduction
- Why K-12 (particularly grades 6-12) matters more than college
- (you are here!) Six Pathways
- Nine Factors
- “In Their Own Words” – Classical Christian Alumni
- Faith is Not Always Easy
- It Requires More than School
- Relationships at School Matter
- Voluntary Conversations About Faith
- Classical Christian Education is Impactful
- Weaving them all together
- Recommendations and Conclusions
