In the book she talks about a version of faith that our teenagers have adopted. She calls it Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. Here's the breakdown of this kind of faith:
Moralistic: God wants us to be good, to be nice. Good people go to heaven when they die.
Therapeutic: The central goal of life is to be happy and feel good about oneself. God’s wants me to be happy.
Deism: A god exists who created and orders the world and watches over things. God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.
Compare that to Orthodox Christian Faith and it's pretty empty. Compare that to the what the Apostle's Creed proclaims and there's some major differences. Here's some of my personal observations:
MTD Gospel
No Jesus Jesus is the only way
No Holy Spirit Holy Spirit is absolutely essential
Impersonal God Personal God
No Suffering Suffering has purpose
Personal Happines is the Goal Obedience/Faithfulness/Holiness is the Goal
It's about me It's about being Others-Centered
Good people go to heaven Forgiven people go to heaven
(If you are interested, I preached about MTD in the second half of the sermon this morning. You can listen or download it from the bottom of this blog.)
What's sad is that teenagers are getting this faith (MTD) from the church and from their parents. I have a funny suspicion that teenagers aren't the only one's subscribing to the MTD version of faith.
No more MTD for me. I'm killing it and I hope you do to!
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