Moralistic Therapeutic Deism - Resources

This Sunday, I referred to "Moralistic, Therapeutic Deism" and would like to make a number of resources easily available.  As I said at that time, I am increasingly convinced that MTD is the "Spirit of the Age."  I encourage people to prayerfully and thoughtfully cultivate the discernment to identify MTD's impact in their own life and in their circle of relationships.  No church advertises themselves as an "MTD Church," but all of us face it, many are unaware of its influence on them and some have - whether knowingly or not - let MTD replace the Gospel of Grace in their ministry.

Click Here for a previous blog entry of my own Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

Click Here for the WikiPedia article on Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  I found it to be a good summary.

In their research, Smith and Lundquist identified five characteristics of the "working belief system" of American teens:

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."

The Books

Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives ofAmerican Teenagers (2005) by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist.  The book is the result of a research project, the "National Study of Youth and Religion," privately funded by the Lilly Endowment and involved interviews of some 3,000 American teens.

• God becomes "something like a combination Divine Butler and Cosmic Therapist: he's always on call, takes care of any problems that arise, professionally helps his people to feel better about themselves, and does not become too personally involved in the process." p. 165
• "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 has rather substantially morphed into Christianity's misbegotten stepcousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." – p,171

 Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church.  

by Kenda Creasy Dean (Oxford University Press, 2010)

• "The problem does not seem to be that churches are teaching young people badly, but that we are doing an exceedingly good job of teaching youth what we really believe, namely, that Christianity is not a big deal, that God requires little, and the church is a helpful social institution filled with nice people…"

Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church
by Michael Horton (Baker Books, 2008)

Horton writes with real passion and conviction.  As a seminary professor, he brings a broad base of church history and theology to his writing, so be prepared to look up some terms and learn more than you expected.  Still, we need this deep and thoughtful analysis to strengthen our discernment regarding MTD.  

He reviews Soul Searching specifically from pp. 38-42

Blog Posts

Google will lead you to many, but here are a few to get started:

• Click Here for a previous blog entry of my own Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.
• Albert Mohler is president of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Kentucky and an insightful and prolific cultural commentator.  In this April 18, 2005 article on Christian Post, he gives good background on the idea and implications of moralistic, therapeutic deism.  Click Here for that.
• And from The Gospel Coalition: MTD: No Just A Problem With Youth Ministry - Click Here

 Graphic Novel?  Sort of!

Here's a link to a clever graphic sort of explanation that begins like this: