From Nazis to Nuance: Applying Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development to Christianity
by Jared Martin | 16 May 2024 |
Auschwitz.
I’d read about it in books and seen it in documentaries, but nothing could prepare me for the sense of sheer evil that permeated the place. Seeing the scratch marks where people tried to escape the gas chambers made my stomach churn.
Our tour guide didn’t have to say much—the buildings did the talking. However, on our way out, she left us with a question that she didn’t answer: “How do you decide what is right and what is wrong?”
One who attempted to answer it was Dr Lawrence Kohlberg of Harvard University. He developed a theory popularly called Stages of Moral Development.
There’s a lot to be learned from this theory about how religious people express and live their faith.
Stage 1: Avoiding punishment
One of the first things children learn is that if you do something bad, you will be punished. If you are mean or selfish, you’ll have to sit in the naughty corner.
This is how people sometimes understand God and salvation. They’re told that, “If you stop doing these particular bad things, then you’ll be saved,” but “If you keep doing them, then God will put you in the naughty corner”—in hell fire.
If you grew up an Adventist, or if you’ve been exposed to a certain kind of Adventism, you’ll recognize stage one. You can’t go to the beach on Sabbath. You can’t ride your bike on Sabbath. You can’t clap your hands at church. You can’t play drums at church. You can’t serve meat at a potluck lunch. You can’t disagree with the pastor. You can’t disagree with Ellen White. You can’t disagree with the conference. You certainly can’t go to church on Sunday with your friends. And you definitely can’t say anything nice about the Catholics.
You can’t do this, and you can’t do that, because if you do, God will punish you.
Religion at this stage is defined by the negatives: what you can’t do. Even some adult Christians live at this level. They can drive people away from Jesus with their simplistic rigidity.
Stage 2: Self-interest
At some point, an individual learns to decide what’s right and wrong for themselves—on the basis of what they get out of it.
There is greater freedom here, and a sense of personal ownership. But it springs from selfishness: you pursue your own interests at the expense of others. Children at this stage are obsessed with fairness—to themselves. They complain, “She got a bigger cookie than I did,” or “Why do I have to go to bed but he can stay up?”
It’s not hard to find church people who insist on having things their way. They dislike church committees and business meetings where people disagree with them or vote against them. They’ve got it in for the pastor, and they’re always whining about something because “Everyone else is wrong, but I’m right.” Life is about having their own way—about getting what benefits them.
Stage 3: Good boy/good girl attitude
When we’re small, we want to hear our parents say: “You’re a good boy,” or “You’re a good girl. Thank you for behaving like everyone else.” Even though each of us has our own ideas about what benefits us, at a further stage of development we’ll put those ideas aside so we can fit in with family and friends.
So if most people in church say that drums are bad, that coffee is evil, and that women can’t preach, you might nod your head and go along. It’s easier, and you don’t have your friends criticizing you.
You see this in the extreme in Auschwitz and places like it. When people around them said that the Jews were evil and should be sent to concentration camps, some went along because they wanted to conform. They may have had private misgivings, but it was easier and less dangerous just to be quiet.
Stage 4: Law and order
In democracies like Australia, where I live, the majority rules, and laws are—more or less—based on what the majority says. You might personally disagree with speed limits on the motorway, but the government has made a law that if you break these rules, you might lose your driver’s license. A more extreme example: you might think that shooting someone you feel threatened by is justified, but society says that if you do this, you could go to jail.
Law and order is necessary for a well-functioning society—and we work hard to enforce the laws, change them when required, and nuance their enforcement in the courts.
But democratic law and order can also be abused. Certain groups have a big influence: not just politicians, but billionaires, the media, and big tech companies. Everyone seems to be angling for something, and we see this at election time when these groups spend huge amounts of money on advertising and lobbying to bend society in their direction.
We see it in the Adventist Church, too. In 2015 there was a move to allow commissioned female pastors to be ordained. Though a majority of a study commission felt comfortable allowing this in areas of the world where it was socially acceptable, top church leaders lobbied to make sure the vote was “no.” 58% of the delegates went along with the leaders, and opposed the motion. The majority ruled, and as far as the General Conference was concerned, that was the end of it.
But sometimes the majority is wrong. Think of Nazi Germany or communist Russia. Stage four morality only works up to a certain point, where it becomes overridden by dictators, lobbyists, and special interest groups who manipulate politics or (in the church’s case) exploit church processes to get what they want.
So as necessary as law and order is, it doesn’t function perfectly.
Stage 5: The social contract
Right and wrong, some people realize, is not determined by the majority. Right and wrong is determined by what is most beneficial to the most people most of the time. This is where concepts of morality, ethics, free will, and human rights lead the conversation, rather than just settling for a list of rules.
Examples from the Bible include the disciples picking grain on Sabbath, Jesus befriending tax collectors and prostitutes, and the parable of the good Samaritan. In all these situations Jesus taught, and demonstrated in his actions, the opposite of the majority view.
Each stage of moral development is more difficult than the preceding one, but this one requires an especially big leap. In social contract thinking you can’t just project onto others what’s beneficial to you, as in stage two, or what your friends think as in stage three, or what the law says, as in stage four. Instead you have to enter into someone else’s world and consider all the factors that influence their life. Here you “walk a mile in their shoes” so you can understand how others navigate the complexities of life.
People operating at this stage are often at the advance of meeting moral challenges—agitators and activists. This process is challenging, which is why Kohlberg opined that only 20% of adults reach this stage.
Stage 6: Universal moral principles
To truly understand what is right and wrong, you need to consider what’s best for individuals and the whole society: physically, socially, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually. Stage six is a whole person, whole society approach: you think through all the effects of the decisions you make and how they’ll affect the world around you, not just now but in the future, and find universal principles that apply. Jesus’ “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” is an example of this kind of universal moral principle.
Saying it is easy; actually living it is hard. It might mean rejecting beliefs that most people consider obvious, and formulating new ones. And it also could mean being willing to sacrifice your own comfort and happiness to advance universal moral principles, and frankly, most of us, no matter how well-intentioned, don’t function at this level—at least, not very often.
Stage six people don’t bother with statements like, “You have to be vegan” or “You can’t play sports on Sabbath.” Instead, they ask questions that go to the heart of things: the principles that are worth dying for. The answers to these big questions might change as they learn new things, as society changes, as they live in different places and are exposed to people unlike them.
People like this don’t read the Bible simplistically—they wouldn’t be content with proof text answers—but instead seek deep principles that apply to all people. They are unlikely to voice reductive equations like, “God loves these people because they’re part of this group, but those people over there can’t be saved.” They also tend to be self-sacrificing champions of those who are ill-treated by the powerful.
Stage six people aren’t necessarily popular with the establishment. Jesus wasn’t universally liked, nor was Buddha or Gandhi or St. Francis. It takes courage to be a person at the universal moral principles level, and few of us achieve it. Those who do aren’t necessarily appreciated while they’re alive: it takes a look back, sometimes from a considerable distance, to see their greatness.
One person who lived this kind of principled life is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who wrote in The Cost of Discipleship, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” Bonhoeffer was executed in the Flossenbürg concentration camp for courageously speaking out against Nazi doctrine.
Why This Matters
We’re all at different stages of moral development—and it isn’t necessarily about age, maturity, or genetics. The difference between people probably has the most to do with the types of interactions we’ve had with others: those who regularly engage with people at higher stages attain greater levels of moral development, while those who surround themselves with people at the same stage fail to progress.
There is a temptation to suppose that one theory can explain everything. That’s probably not true, even of Kohlberg’s very useful typology. But it seems to me that when we see that people are at different stages of moral development, it helps us to calm down and be more understanding.
Understanding this can’t excuse evil, and it doesn’t excuse sin. But it reminds us that everyone is on a journey. It highlights just how stuck we are in our thinking and interacting with others. Instead of judging others and belittling them, it’s our job as Christians to help them understand the complexities and nuances of life this side of eternity.
As the Apostle Paul writes,
We live in such a way that no one will stumble because of us, and no one will find fault with our ministry. In everything we do, we show that we are true ministers of God…. We prove ourselves by our purity, our understanding, our patience, our kindness, by the Holy Spirit within us, and by our sincere love (2 Corinthians 6:3-6, NLT).
Jared Martin is the senior pastor of Coastlife Seventh-day Adventist Church in Queensland, Australia.
