America's Newest Religion: MTD Church

Have you heard about this new religion which is now followed by most Americans?

Most Americans now belong to a religious faith called Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

The dogma of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism includes:

God exists, and desires that people are good, nice, and fair to one another.

God can be called upon to assure happiness and to resolve crises.

Being good, nice, and fair assures eternal salvation in heaven. (My church?  I belong to the Church of Nice.)

Attendance at churches is not required. (I’m spiritual but not religious.)

Faith in the redeeming power of Jesus Christ is not required in this religion.  (Jesus was a nice man with some good things to say.) 

Charity to others is not essential as that is the government’s responsibility.

Moral relativism is central to the dogma.  (Whom am I to judge or criticize another’s actions?)

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is the “grand reduction” of religious thought and practice to a set of sentimental and affirming principles.

It does not have the presence of a transcendent, personal, and transformative God.

It is a religious faith of mediocrity, of insularity, and of loneliness.

It requires no greatness of soul.

And it engenders no virtue, no charity, and no heroism.

Christianity is not Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

Christianity is the faith of unmerited greatness—the faith of heroic virtue, unsurpassed hope, and unbounded charity.

The Christian life elevates humanity in the great sanctifying process of theosis.

By our very baptism, in fact, we are given the capacity to love precisely as God loves.

And at the core of the Christian life is a transformative religious relationship with a living person—Jesus Christ.

Christian Smith is a sociologist at the University of Notre Dame. He’s conducted extensive research on the religious beliefs of young Americans from every major faith group. And he’s concluded that regardless of their religious affiliation, young Americans tend to subscribe to a faith he calls Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.