Christianity or Moralistic Therapeutic Theism?

In this series of cartoons you can read what a large number of Americans who call themselves Christians actually believe. What are the implicit ideas behind Moralistic Therapeutic Theism? ("Theism" is a better term in this context, because "Deism" is a somewhat different, earlier religious philosophy that many of America's Founding Fathers held.) In his article On "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" as U.S. Teenagers' Actual, Tacit, De Facto Religious Faith, Christian Smith summarizes it thusly:

1. A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. This 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 feel good about oneself.
4. This god is not particularly involved in one's life except when he is needed to resolve a problem.
5. All good people go to heaven when they die.

A recent article entitled "Losing our Religion: On "Retaining' Young People in the Orthodox Church" in the Orthodoxy and Heterodoxy blog explored the various reasons why young people are leaving all churches, not only the Orthodox Church. Second- and third-generation Americans using an archaic version of a foreign language in worship that they don't really comprehend and clinging onto ethnic customs of the old country explains just a small portion of this falling away. To be sure, when the young generation becomes fully "Americanized", they often see little point in holding onto incomprehensible language or customs, but there is more to cultural assimilation than merely the process of osmosis.

That article makes some very important points: first, "Jesus did not tell the apostles to extend Christianity's outreach to all the nations, but to make disciples of all nations. The distinction is critical. The Church attracts and retains people only when she disciples them." Also, "Sociological studies of the ancient world... are very clear why the early Church grew: Christians took care of widows, orphans, and the sick and impoverished." This is precisely what we have been preaching and teaching for decades: the Gospel isn't just "pie in the sky by and by" or a free ticket to heaven, it is the Good News of salvation and healing to "the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, to widows and orphans." The article goes on to quote Kenda Dean's book, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church -

One of the major findings of the National Study of Youth and Religion, a point which Kenda Dean brings out very clearly and in entertaining fashion, is that American teenagers are actually very good at practicing the faith that their parents teach them: not what parents say they believe, but what they actually believe as evidenced by actions. 

The result is that most American teenagers and emerging adults, including Christians of all traditions, believe in and practice "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" [or "Theism"], not Christianity. Considering this reality, it is hardly surprising that, over time, many emerging adults drift away from their family's Christian roots, choosing to marry outside their church or even Christian faith itself. Yet their doing so is not actually a departure from or a change in their religious convictions: it is merely an alignment of certain external practices (e.g., what they do on Sundays or Easter) with the actual religious beliefs they have held since their teenage years.

So this is what teenagers have learned from their parents: god is a nice old guy up in the sky who wants us to be nice, happy and feel good; he doesn't get involved in other people's lives, so neither should we. And "all dogs go to heaven" ...people too. Where does this come from? From the mistaken notion that "tolerance" means that all religious beliefs are pretty much the same, after all, "everything is relative, don't you know?" (Except for the rule "everything is relative" - that's absolute!) This watered-down, vague religiosity is only pseudo-Christian.

From early childhood onward, children learn from what their parents do, not merely what they say. If the parents show little interest in other people who are hurting, the children learn to do the same. If the parents neglect church services except for special occasions like Christmas and Easter, the children will imitate this. In James 1:22-27 we read:

But be doers of the word, and not only hearers, deluding your own selves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man beholding his natural face in a mirror; for he sees himself, and goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law, the law of freedom, and continues, not being a hearer who forgets but a doer of the word, this man will be blessed in what he does. If anyone among you thinks himself to be religious while he doesn't bridle his tongue, but deceives his heart, this man's religion is worthless. Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this: to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.

The Psalmist David wrote, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?" (Psalm 11:3). David wasn't just wringing his hands and saying, "Chicken Little, the sky is falling! Goodness gracious! Whatever shall we do?" No, he was a military commander and king, so he knew precisely what to do: rebuild the foundations! We need to practice what we preach and teach our children: by far the best way to ensure that the next generation will be faithful Christians and stay in the Church is to minister to "the poor, the maimed, the lame and the blind, to widows and orphans."

(Linked to www.Hosken-News.info of 27 Apr. 2014.)