Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

Twice in the past week I've heard Christians that I respect discuss their concern of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD).  Let’s break it down. 

Moralistic—concerned with morality

Therapeutic—assisting in a cure

Deism--a movement or system of thought advocating natural religion, emphasizing morality, and in the 18th century denying the interference of the Creator with the laws of the universe

This term was coined by Christian Smith of the University of Notre Dame.  According to the National Study of Youth and Religion, people who are MTD believe the following:

1. God exists. He created and watches over the world.

2. God wants us to be good, nice and fair to each other.

3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.

4. God is not involved except when I need God to solve a problem.

5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

In my observances, I would stretch this a little further.  It is not just a youth problem, it’s a world-wide, every age problem.   In fact, I would guess that many of you reading this don’t even see anything wrong with the 5 beliefs listed above.  Let’s look at each one of these and see exactly what IS the problem?

God exists.  He created and watches over the world.

Yes.  Yes.  And, well…yes.  I hesitate a little on the last one because “watching over” seems to indicate that God makes sure that everything is A-Okay.  And, to be quite frank, everything here is not. 

Don’t think for one minute that God is not aware of everything going on in the world, but he does allow us to use our free will—which means that we often hurt others and ourselves.  Could he intercede?  Yes.  Does he intercede?  I’m quite sure that he does.  But God is sovereign and he makes those calls without needing (or heeding) the advice of us.

God wants us to be good, nice, and fair to each other.

Yes.  Yes.  Yes.  But there is more to this one.  Being “nice” to one another seems to indicate that we never should disagree.  But there are often times that we need to contradict or even confront (privately and with respect and love) when another person (particularly a fellow Christian) is out of line—in their faith, in their actions, in their beliefs, or in their words.  (Matthew 18:15-17)  When on the receiving end of this, it doesn’t feel very nice. 

Being “fair” is even more complicated.  It’s easy to see the importance of “fairness” when talking about paying your entire tax bill, awarding appropriate penalties to crimes, or honestly correcting mistakes even when they resulted in something favorable for you.  However, being “fair” gets fuzzy when we, or someone we love, is treated in a manner that we see as being unfair.  What is fair in this circumstance?  Is it to treat them unfairly back?

Being “fair” gets even more fuzzy when we become aware that someone has committed an act that we see as being not good, or not nice, or not fair.  We do NOT have the right to condemn others.  (Matthew 7:1-5)  As mentioned earlier, we do have a responsibility to contradict or confront (as described above) but this does not include the right to gossip about them to others or publicly criticize them.  God is our judge.  God will make sure that everyone is one day treated fairly.  Our best course of action is to simply pray for them. 

The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. 

No.  The central goal of life is to glorify God.  (1 Peter 4:11, 1 Corinthians 10:31, 1 Chronicles 16:29, 1 Corinthians 6:20)  Often when we make ourselves happy or feel good about ourselves, it is because we are glorifying ourselves. 

I was watching Andrew Witt sing live a while back.  (http://www.andrewwittmusic.com) Wow.  The thought that kept coming to me as I watched this talented and good-looking group of young men glorify God with their words, actions, music, and prayers was that fact that they could be using their talents to glorify themselves.  It amazes me that at their young ages they already know that their purpose in life is to glorify God. 

Now I’ll bet that if you asked Andrew, he would tell you that he IS happy and feels good about himself because he glorifies God.  You see, I think that he understands that these things are the effects of striving toward our goal…but are not goals themselves.

God is not involved except when I need God to solve a problem.
No.  This belief seems to refer to the concept of answered prayers so that is how I will address it. 

As a creation of God, man does not have all of the facts.  Yes, science has taught us much about our world but we don’t even begin to understand the complexity of God’s designs.  In fact, we use the rules of the laws of nature to explain our universe yet refuse to acknowledge that He made those laws!  It is truly laughable that we think we have things so figured out!

God has all the facts.  God sees the big picture.  He is not restricted by the laws of nature that he created for us.  He is involved when He sees fit.  In fact, I believe that he is involved with us personally and on a daily basis when we except Him into our lives and invite the Holy Spirit to live within us. (Romans 8:9-11)  We, on the other hand, are limited in our knowledge of God’s creation.  There are simply some things that we are not able (or meant) to understand.  We want Him to get involved when WE see fit.  Instead, we must trust him and not rely on the limited information that we have when it comes to the decisions that God makes in our lives.  (Proverbs 3:5)

Good people go to heaven when they die.
Yes and no.  People who go to heaven are good, but this is not why they got there.  The fact of the matter is that there are people that most humans would consider “good” that will not make it.

You see, one cannot earn his way into heaven.  It is simply impossible.  We are all sinners.  No matter how “good” you are, you are still a sinner.  Sorry.

We, however, can be saved by God’s grace.  It is a gift.  It is a gift to those who believe in Him; accept His son, Jesus Christ, as their Savior through baptism; (Mark 16:16) and repent of their sins (genuinely feel remorseful and try hard to discontinue sinning) (Acts 2:38).  God in his sovereignty chooses who He will save. (Romans 8:29-30)

We can fool people into believing that we are Christians.  In fact, we can live our public lives in a way that we even fool other Christians.  Even more scary, I think we can wrongfully convince ourselves that we are Christians when we really haven’t even taken the time to understand what that means.  I’m afraid that many people who call themselves Christian simply don’t get it.

One good test for yourself is to consider the fruits that you have received from the Holy Spirit.  (Galations 5:22-23)  The blessings that God bestows on his followers are amazing.

The bottom line is that if we want people to understand what Christianity means, we need to be honest in our teaching of it.  Sometimes that means that we have to tell people things that they don’t want to hear.