“Mark Tindall” <> wrote in message . > What is Independent Thinking?

>

> by Sharon Presley, Ph.D., Executive Director, RIT

> Developmental psychologist William Perry. He suggests that, as we mature

to > adulthood, we go through different stages in our thinking about

> beliefs. As young teens, many of us see the world from an

> authoritarian perspective. There’s only one right answer and it’s

> the teacher or authority figure’s job to give us “the” answer.

> [Sadly, many adults never get out of this stage!]

Brilliant article – and I agree with your comment here…

An extra note: my work with ‘revolting’ students in the sixties led me to believe that the Vietnam War was the ‘presenting issue’. As I got to know many radicals personally I discovered they’d been seriously hurt/abused/let down by an authority figure or two in their past. (‘We weren’t breast-fed or something’ one told me)…

Ditto with my encounters with those who are fascinated by alternatives to Christian theological orthodoxy: they immerse themselves in the Jesus Seminar or The Gospel of Thomas or A. N. Wilson or – back a bit – Harnack, Allegro – whatever is the latest fad / best-seller that debunks the way mainstream Christians think about this and that…

Now I’m not saying we shouldn’t be critical thinkers about Christianity: but there’s a world of difference between loving critics and unloving critics, between critical lovers and uncritical lovers of whatever system we’re critiquing…

—

Shalom! Rowland Croucher