Interesting. I took “critical” to mean “subjected to criticism and critique.” In the pre-critical stage, we don’t really question the reasons for or substance of our faith; in the hyper-critical stage, we subject it to intense critical scrutiny; and in the post-critial stage, we have passed through the fires of critical scrutiny and our faith has been transformed in a positive way by that scrutiny.
Another way of thinking of this is that we come to faith based on certain foundations — often the testimony of a credible witness, such as a parent or friend. Faith at this point often is somewhat credulous — we accept various views about things because an authority figure suggests we should. This kind of faith is subject to challenge by other authority figures and by the force of experience and reason. This sort of challenge can strip faith to its foundations. The hope is to come through such challenges with a faith built on stronger foundations, a faith that has adapted and grown and been sharpened as a result of both fair and unfair criticism.

Elizabeth,
I appreciate and affirm your observations of the strengths and short-comings of *Chrysalis.* Jamieson seems cross-grained with himself to write, “…we are all called to walk our own pathway: a pathway that is unique and personal into a deeper understanding and living out of our Christian faith? and then offer a standardized metaphor to illustrate the spiritual journey. A metaphor that seems fixed. Thanks for your reflections.

dopderbeck,
I appreciate your description of pre-critical, critical and post-critical. I think if Jamieson had offered some framing definitions it would have made the book more accessible.

John, thanks for the affirmation – we all need a little of that every day!

good stuff.
Perhaps I assumed too much. Especially towards the beginning of the book, I assumed he was intending to leave the definitions open-ended in order to create various levels of meaning. I had the impression at points that he wanted the metaphors of liquid and goo to apply to his actual theology at hand, not just as images of the people whom he described.
Towards the end, I had the distinct impression that he was linking pre-critical, critical, and post-critical stages pretty closely to the before, during, and after stages of the dark night of the soul, as well as before and during eating the meat of the Word rather than just milk.
I realize that at first I thought he was too open-ended, then later I didn’t like what I felt he was converging towards! In either case, I grew frustrated trying to verbalize my unrest with how these terms were defined because I imagined he would answer the objections by pointing back to the disclaimer that this was only a rough scaffold.

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MatthewS, I like how you say, “Perhaps I assumed too much.” It’s true, we often bring to whatever texts we are reading a set of assumptions – some are helpful, some are not. Those who have experienced a “dark night of the soul” bring a different set of assumptions to this text than those who have experienced multiple “dark nights” or none yet at all. Thanks for bringing this up.