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Do you feel there’s a God out there who created and ordered the world, and now watches over humanity? Do you believe the Bible and most world religions teach that God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to one another? Do you believe the primary purpose of life is to be happy and feel good about yourself? Would you prefer for God to not be particularly involved in your life except to intervene and solve a problem? Do you think good people go to heaven when they die? Last but not least, have these questions been a lovely little encapsulation of your spiritual beliefs?
If the answer to those question was a resounding Yes, cue the NASA-version Tom Hanks because “Houston, we have a problem.” That watered-down spiritual belief system is not Christianity in any historically meaningful way. I’m trying to be charitable, but the composite worldview created by those questions is quite simply not perceived as The Way of Jesus by any known stream of Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant faith. Instead those are the sociological hallmarks identified by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.1
To my mind, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is the dominant sub-type of nominal Christianity in the U.S. today. The key to understanding it is to realize it’s completely pragmatic. It’s not about following The Way of Jesus. Often times they don’t even really believe in Jesus per se. It ain’t about finding your ultimate Identity in the Kingdom of God or experiencing faith that’s grounded in transcendent truth, beauty, and goodness. Instead they’re going through the motions because it works sufficiently well enough as a cultural framework for a good life that gets you to heaven.
This worldview makes a lot of sense coming from spiritually passive parents. They don’t want to get too deep into the weeds of all that theology stuff, but they do want their kids to make good life decisions, so appeal to God for some basic moral standards. They don’t want the self-sacrifice of following Jesus, but they do want their kids to enjoy life, so turn to their Pharrell Williams “Happy” dancing God. They don’t want to curtail their personal freedom, but do know kids need help when life gets hard, so this God usually just watches but is available to help out in a pinch.
The original beatniks yearned for spiritual authenticity. They were annoyed by the superficial expression of bland religion yet were fascinated by spirituality that inwardly and outwardly transformed lives. Ya know, that seems like a pretty good mindset for beatnik Christianity, too. Generally speaking, I don’t care if Jesus followers wind up with the same beliefs and practices as me, but I do care that it’s an internalized faith that’s outwardly lived, centers around Jesus, and is more than a cultural template for morality, happiness, and occasional divine assistance.2
Author
This term was first coined in their 2005 book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers. There the authors state, “[A] significant part of Christianity in the United States is actually only tenuously Christian in any sense that is seriously connected to the actual historical Christian tradition, but has rather substantially morphed into Christianity’s misbegotten stepcousin, Christian Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.”↩
There’s no meat to Moral Therapeutic Deism. It’s fluffy, surfacey, and empty. It’s like ordering cotton candy off the menu at a steak house. You had all these great options available and you came away with THAT carnival crap food? Seriously??↩
