Moralistic Therapeutic Deism         By Robert Lundy Communications Officer American Anglican Council The other day I posted on the American Anglican Council's Facebook page the definition of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and was surprised by the number of people who reused that information and shared it on their own Facebook profile. Now the AAC's social media pull is not the same as a Lady Gaga or a Justin Bieber (even if their stock is inflated). However, 20 "shares" and multiple comments, some negative, were enough to make me think the topic struck a nerve and would be good for further discussion. So...what in the world is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD)? When I first heard the term I thought it was something I was supposed to have read years ago in Philosophy 1000 at the University of Georgia. The term comes from the book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (2005) by sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton and describes the sort of working theology that many young Americans have: 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 to resolve a problem. 5. Good people go to heaven when they die. Before I attempt to dive in to this, please take a look at what someone with more experience has to say about it. Canon David Charney is the youth minister at Christ Church, Atlanta, GA, and he addressed this topic during one of our Sure Foundation seminars: After I realized that Moralistic Therapeutic Deism wasn't something I missed in philosophy class, my next thought was that it did describe the theology of some Christians I knew and, given the increasing difficulty of distinguishing those who claim to be Christian from those who don't, it seemed that MTD might have hit the nail on the head in pointing out a major challenge for Christianity in the West... Read the entire article here. Source: American Anglican Council