Social scientists discover that morally exemplary individuals believe in God

Many exemplary people believe in God

In their 1992 study of American exemplars, Colby and Damon (1992) made an unexpected finding that sent ripples throughout the field of moral psychology.  The vast majority of the exemplars in the study reported faith in God.  It turned out that faith proved a major inspiration to care and a general support for moral functioning.  Many exemplars in the Colby and Damon (1992) study were detailed and explicit in accounts of how God's influence was the basis for their moral identity.  Most devout Christians would find this to be an intuitive if blatantly obvious connection.  But for a secular psychological community the Colby and Damon (1992) discovery was something of a surprise.  In one account a woman known as the "Queen of the Dump" spoke revealingly about her remarkable outreach to children living on top of a Mexican landfill:

I used to get away from the house and away from my kids and I used to ask the Lord "Am I in the right place?  Is this where you send me?"  Because if I didn't have that vision I would have gone back because of what I was going through.  But now my faith is stronger.  See, at that time when I started it was weak.  I was just going by that vision. (Colby and Damon, 1992, pp. 44-45)

There is a relationship between faith and moral functioning

With a generous grant from the Fetzer Institute, Kevin Reimer and Lawrence J. Walker (2004) explored the relationship between faith commitment and moral functioning in a unique setting.  L'Arche communities for the developmentally disabled are probably best known through the writings of Henri Nowen.  These Christian communities provide a unique opportunity to explore the relationship between spirituality and moral functioning.  As it turned out, for L'Arche assistants who work with the developmentally disabled, God is directly implicated in moral functioning related to a reciprocal self.

L'Arche cares for persons with developmental disabilities

Jean Vanier (b. 1928) with John Smeltzer, a member of L'Arche Daybreak

L'Arche (French for "the ark") is an international federation of more than one hundred communities in twenty-nine countries that cares for persons with developmental disabilities.  Although officially multidenominational, L'Arche is predominantly Christian in ethos and Roman Catholic in practice.  L'Arche is the genius of Jean Vanier, Canadian philosopher, religious leader, statesman and activist.  In 1962 Vanier established a residential community for the disabled that was marked by relational commitments of altruistic love, not simply from caregiver assistants to the core member, as the disabled are known, but in mutual exchange between assistants and core members.  Vanier's mission with the developmentally disabled led to a philosophy of agape love as the redemptive element in L'Arche communities where

everyone is of unique and sacred value, and everyone has the same dignity and the same rights.  People with a mental handicap often possess qualities of welcome, wonderment, spontaneity, and directness ... able to touch hearts and call others to unity through their simplicity and vulnerability.  In this way they are a reminder of the wider world of the essential values of the heart without which knowledge, power, and action lose their meaning and purpose. (charter of L'Arche Internationale, 1993)

L'Arche assistants are living altruists

In L'Arche communities, assistants and core members live peacefully together, sharing faith and everyday experience.  L'Arche assistants are widely considered to be living altruists, given the scope of their moral commitment (Post, 2002).  In the United States most L'Arche assistants live on a tiny monthly stipend of around $500.  Some leave lucrative careers to serve in L'Arche.  Assistants are invited to participate in community on the basis of theological commitments.  Individuals are asked to carefully weight their commitment in terms of a calling, which is typically ratified in year-long increments that require periods of spiritual discernment prior to renewal.  In his many books outlining the philosophy and spirituality of L'Arche, Vanier describes a downward mobility of care and compassionate commitment.

We live in a world of competition, where importance is given to success, a good salary, efficiency, distractions, and simulations.  Our world, however, needs to rediscover what is essential: Committed relationships, openness and the acceptance of weakness, a life of friendship and solidarity in and through the little things we can do.  It is not a question of doing extraordinary things, but rather of doing ordinary things with love. (Vanier, 1999) 

What motivates individuals to give up so much in order to serve others in this way?

The grant-funded study of moral identity in L'Arche focused on assistants.  What motivates individuals to give up so much in order to serve others in this way?  As before, what sustains these individuals in their moral commitments?  Not surprisingly, these questions were of interest to the leadership of L'Arche.  In the United States, L'Arche had discovered that many assistants burn out in their first year of service, sometimes leaving communities abruptly.  However, some assistants seem to overcome initial costs associated with their moral commitment to become long-term assistants of five, ten or even fifteen years.  To find out what was happening, two study groups of L'Arche assistants were selected.

The novice assistants vs. the experienced assistants

The first group represented those assistants who had served in L'Arche for a year or less.  These were dubbed novice assistants.  In the United States, novice assistants tend to be young, mostly under the age of thirty.  Many novice assistants come to L'Arche through Americorps, a government-funded service program that allows individuals to volunteer while gaining experience and tuition subsidy against college or university costs.  The majority of novice assistants have little religious background.  The second group represented experienced assistants who had served in L'Arche for three years or more.  These individuals tend to be older and more religiously oriented.  Both groups are well-educated, with at least a bachelor's degree in hand.

The longevity of caring in L'Arche is related to the "kind of person God expects me to be." 

Die Krüppel (The Cripples), Pieter Bruegel, 1568

Both groups were interviewed with questions similar to the Camden study of adolescent exemplars.  This time, however, God was included as an "other" along with parents, best friend and romantic partner.  Actual selves of both assistant groups were compared to various others.  For the novice assistants the actual self is fairly isolated, reminiscent of the comparison adolescents in the Reimer and Wade-Stein (2004) study.  But for experienced assistants God is the closest and most significant other relationship relative to the self.  Clearly, experienced assistants understand their moral commitments around a relationship with God.  This suggests that the longevity of caring in L'Arche is related to the "kind of person God expects me to be."  These expectations become a significant motivator in experienced assistants.

Experienced assistants described their work with the disabled in terms of care giving but typically spoke of their relationships with core members in terms of mutuality where they learn from and were nurtured by the disabled

The Sense of Touch by Jusepe de Ribera depicts a blind man holding a marble head in his hands.

How might God's expectations become incorporated into moral identity?  This is a golden question of enormous significance to pastors, parents and educators alike.  Specifics of identity formation in L'Arche assistants were a primary concern for Ursula Moore, a doctoral student in psychology at Fuller Seminary.  Her work on the L'Arche project revealed that experienced and novice assistants spoke differently about their life experiences relative to their moral commitment to care for core members.  Experienced assistants tended to speak of their lives in terms of community and a sense of belonging.  It was rare for them to speak of individual achievement or friendship with specific individuals.  Those unique people described their work with the disabled in terms of care giving but typically spoke of their relationships with core members in terms of mutuality where they learn from and were nurtured by the disabled.  Many experienced assistants spoke of a crisis or transformational even while in L'Arche, where they considered leaving but prevailed in the end.  In a number of instances, these transformational events included spiritual references to God.  This is beautifully illustrated in the following narrative

When I tell my story this is the story I tell.  So this is an easy one to share.  It really was the turning point in terms of my understanding of God and L'Arche.  I was really seeing the gifts of the core members [disabled] and how I was beginning to receive a lot more than I was giving.  I was on retreat with Jean Vanier, and things were coming together.  I thought I'd already had transformative experience; I'd quit my job to live in L'Arche and do things differently.  When I got to Grandview, things were rough and I had to live in the house because we were so short of assistants. It was very difficult.  I was living in one of the houses and this was about six months into it.  Alan, one of the core members, he's blind and he has a mental disorder so he's on psychotropic medication.  He was in an institution all his life, since a year old.  They didn't think that he could ever be de-institutionalized because he was so violent.  Of course, he comes to L'Arche.  And he definitely had some bad moments at times, but every night he slept with his radio on.  My guess would be that in the institution he couldn't.  I had this real compassion for Alan and a real connection with him.  I could calm him down, I enjoyed him.  He was very clever.  I'd play with him for hours and I'd say, what's this?  And he'd feel it, and he has a singsong voice and he'd say, "that's a telephone."  Amazing things, things you wouldn't think he knew.  He was so institutionalized that he put his underwear and his shirt on his bed perfectly.  Just amazing.  One night I was giving him his bath and I was drying off his back.  He says, "you're my friend, right?"  I stopped for a minute.  What occurred to me is how many people had bathed this man, strangers.  How many people didn't see this sacred life in front of them, just wanted to get the job done.  How many times he had to put up with that.  What he was saying to me -- I get upset about it, he's so vulnerable -- what he's really saying is, Can I trust you?  Are you safe?  It occurred to me that this man has probably lived through hell.  Abuse.  People being incredibly insensitive to him.  And yet he still can trust.  I realized that I was in a transformative moment, knowing that I'm more broken than Alan.  I realized he was teaching me something that I hadn't learned.  God was really present in that moment.  That is when I could say that I didn't chose L'Arche, but L'Arche has chosen me.  That's our spirituality.

Source: Balswick, Jack O., Pamela Ebstyne King, and Kevin S. Reimer, The Reciprocating Self: Human Development in Theological Perspective, locations 3140 to 3187.