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Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

Albert Mohler has written an article discussing a recent study, which found that the predominant ‘religion’ of American teenagers is ‘Moralistic Therapeutic Deism’. This view ‘consists of beliefs like these: 1. “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” 2. “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.” 3. “The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.” 4. “God does not need to be particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” 5. “Good people go to heaven when they die.”‘

While this study focused on the views of teeneagers, the researchers behind it suggested that Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is the most common ‘religious’ view of all Americans, and has infact been very influential in the Christian church. Consider this quote:

“Other more accomplished scholars in these areas will have to examine and evaluate these possibilities in greater depth. But we can say here that we have come with some confidence to believe that a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually [only] tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but is rather substantially morphed into Christianity’s misbegotten step-cousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”

They argue that this distortion of Christianity has taken root not only in the minds of individuals, but also “within the structures of at least some Christian organizations and institutions.”

How can you tell? “The language, and therefore experience, of Trinity, holiness, sin, grace, justification, sanctification, church, . . . and heaven and hell appear, among most Christian teenagers in the United States at the very least, to be supplanted by the language of happiness, niceness, and an earned heavenly reward.”

Does this mean that America is becoming more secularized? Not necessarily. These researchers assert that Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith.

Thanks to laura for the link.

This entry was posted by Bryce on Thursday, April 14th, 2005 at 5:25 pm. This entry was tagged with , . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

2 Responses to “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”

  1. Sherry Says:
    April 15th, 2005 at 8:44 pm

    I asked our worldview class made up homeschooled, Christian teenagerswhat thye would do if they found out that the resurrection was a hoax and Christianity was not true. How would your life change?
    One girl said she would keep on going to church anyway because her friends were there. Church as Social Club.

  2. Ashley Says:
    April 18th, 2005 at 11:14 pm

    Yikes! And yet, I guess it makes sense — when we market “youth group” as essentially a “social club” with a small “God slot” it seems a lot of the next generation has grown up to see the Church as a social club (rather than a place where Truth is proclaimed — thus the truth of the resurrection didn’t seem to make much connection regarding this girl’s response about church); they either don’t see the point of church (“it’s not relevant”) or the point is purely relational (and not w/ Christ but with other teens).