Moral Therapeutic Deism

What in the world is Moral Therapeutic Deism (MTD)? Is it a disease? A social disorder? A new counseling technique? Needless to say, it sounds like one of those phrases that is more complicated than it needs to be. Strangely, it fits. MTD was key concept I learned at the Washington Island Forum.
Kenda Creasy Dean is the associate professor of youth, church, and culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, where she works closely with the Institute for Youth Ministry. Before this year, I was unaware of any professor of youth ministry in any seminary. Dr. Dean was the keynote speaker at the Washington Island Forum, an annual event for church leaders held every June on this beautiful land mass off the tip of Wisconsin’s thumb. The forum is sponsored by the Wisconsin Council of Churches. As I shared earlier, it was not easy to make the journey to Wisconsin so soon after my mother’s memorial service. When I heard what Professor Dean had to say the first morning, I knew that I was where I needed to be.
Dr. Dean shared with us results of a seven-year-study on the faith of teenagers. The first somewhat shocking conclusion she shared was that there is a new way to think about the timeline for becoming an adult. Whereas in the past, we assumed that a person reached adulthood in his or her 20s (Some would even say age 18), we now can think that one reaches adulthood around the end of one's first third of life. That would put the age one reaches adulthood anywhere from 25 to 35 years of age. The study revealed that the consumer culture allows young people to prolong adolescence and to operate perfectly fine within society without taking on the full responsibility of adulthood.
So what does that say about their faith. Dr. Dean says that young people, including young adults, have a "whatever" attitude about their faith. While they can clearly articulate their favorite musician's life, style of music and exactly why they like the music the musician makes, they are far from articulate about their faith. They often refer to their faith in terms of “faith stuff” or “that Bible stuff.” This is what Christian Smith calls Moral Therapeutic Deism. The tenets of this faith are:
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."
Many of us may look at this list and say, “So, sounds all right. I can affirm those things.” The problem is that there is no Jesus in this faith and no sense of discipleship. There is no grace and no salvation. Scripture is basically ignored. And if this is what the predominant belief, and studies show it is, then what will our children’s children believe and what is the future of the Christian faith?
Dr. Dean maintains that MTD is not just predominant among teenagers and young adults, but it is affirmed and modeled by parents. We fail to share with our children our own faith beliefs and neglect to tell them that we give and share and act based on our belief in Jesus Christ as Savior.

So MTD may be a disease, a disease of closed lips and disassociated actions. We now the antidote. Its a matter of sharing more fully, deeply, and honestly why we do what we do.