July 12, 2005

America's Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

Gene Edward Veith pretty much nails it in his, "A nation of deists."

Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton have coined a phrase that describes perfectly the dominant American religion: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

Those authors are researchers with the National Study of Youth and Religion at the University of North Carolina (Chapel Hill) and have written up their findings in a new book: Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford University Press).

And here's the scary part:

After interviewing over 3,000 teenagers, the social scientists summed up their beliefs:

(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."

Yep, there's no other name for it: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. (Hmmm. Maybe Barna is on to something. And here. And here. This might be part of the reason why.)

Veith again:

MTD has become the "dominant civil religion." And it is "colonizing" American Christianity. To the point, these secular scholars conclude, "a significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually 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."

See Barna above.

[M]uch that passes for Christian teaching says nothing about Christ. Instead, it consists of pop psychology, self-help platitudes, and the power of positive thinking.

Joel Osteen, anyone?

Posted by Clifton at July 12, 2005 01:06 PM | TrackBack
Comments

That's certainly the religion I was taught when I was growing up - at home, in school and at "church".

Posted by: Huw Raphael at July 12, 2005 02:39 PM

It was the only alternative to Fundamentalism. I am with Huw. It was all I knew until college church history classes.

Posted by: Tripp at July 12, 2005 03:23 PM

Have you seen the listing for the 50 most influential churches? It's good fodder.
http://www.thechurchreport.com/content/view/484/32/

Posted by: tidbit at July 12, 2005 10:49 PM

Be happy. Feel good about yourself. How do you really begin to do these things without Christ? It makes me wonder what they mean when they say these things are their goals. What does it mean to the average American teen to "be happy" or to "feel good about yourself"? My guess is that, in their minds, happiness = ease of life and self esteem = everyone likes me.

Posted by: aduff at July 13, 2005 08:14 AM

It's pretty much right on, isn't it. Reminded me of Harold Bloom's take on the "American Religion" on the one hand, and of -bingo- Joel Osteen on the other. Ugh... In my undergraduate years, I was friends with one of the book's authors, Melinda Lundquist Denton, as it happens.

Posted by: Doug at July 13, 2005 11:41 AM