I gave a lot of thought to this blog by John Meunier back in April, but I never have been able to figure out the answer to his question: “I find myself perplexed by what to do about it or how to move forward. Will slow, patient, and steady preaching, teaching, and invitations to true discipleship wean people away from MTD? Or does it require shock therapy?” More and more, it feels like it requires a shock. What do you think about this topic?
Moralistic Therapeutic Deism may very well be the default religion of most mainline Protestants.
I first encountered the term reading Kenda Creasy Dean‘s book Almost Christian. Dean borrowed the term from the work other others, but MTD forms the heart of her analysis about youth in the church. One of her core points is that youth today practice MTD because they learned it from their parents.
Here is an outline of the doctrines of MTD:
(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…
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Hopeful 