Several days ago some friends of mine were stuck in a car on the way home from a meeting. As usually happens when we get together, our conversation turned toward church life, dwindling volunteers and the problems we all face as pastors to communicate spiritual things in a hectic, overworked and sometimes deaf world.  We had just come from a meeting in which one of our colleagues reviewed a book on youth ministry entitled, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church by Kenda Creasy Dean (Jul 15, 2010).

The focus of our discussion drifted into what’s happening in our techno-centric culture and the rise of a competitive lifestyle in America currently labeled, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD).

The author found that many young people believed in several moral values commonly agreed to by all major world religions. It is this combination of beliefs that they label Moralistic Therapeutic Deism:

1. A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over it.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God is not particularly involved in one’s life except when needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

These points of belief were compiled from interviews with approximately 3,000 teenagers. [R. Albert Mohler, Jr., Moralistic Therapeutic Deism--the New American Religion, Christian Post, 18 April 2005.]

As pastors and practitioners of the spiritual life, we’ve committed our lives to invite others to experience the wonders of a Spirit-filled existence. Unfortunately we’re faced with competitive lifestyles that are deceptively simply in their approach and deadly in their effect. In fact I would probably argue that Christianity is at a distinct disadvantage in the western consumer oriented culture.

CS Lewis wrote about this problem in Mere Christianity when he said,

“Christianity tells people to repent and promises them forgiveness. It therefore has nothing (as far as I know) to say to people who do not know they have done anything to repent of and who do not feel that they need any forgiveness. It is after you have realized that there is a real Moral Law, and a Power behind the law, and that you have broken that law and put yourself wrong with that Power-it is after all this, and not a moment sooner, that Christianity begins to talk.”

Lewis suggests that until we acknowledge there is something wrong with us and seek help, Christianity is simply speaking a foreign language. In our consumer culture with an abundance of everything while rushing from one activity to another, there is little time to consider if anything is wrong.

Whereas Christianity requires we acknowledge the destructive nature of sin, MTD provides easy answers to difficult questions without all the messiness of repentance. So if the culture is looking for quick fixes to serious soul-searching questions (which I think it is) Christianity is at a serious disadvantage.

This is also why I believe Christianity is exploding in the places where MTD is at a serious disadvantage. Places like third world countries in Africa and Asia, places where religious affiliation puts you at risk and places where life is fragile from disease and starvation.

So here’s the big question, “how can the Church in America engage and encourage people to seek change in a MTD world?”

My answer: we can’t – and here’s why.

Several years ago I had a friend that smoked about a pack of cigarettes a day. It was simply an addiction, but an addiction that satisfied a need or a craving. Regardless of how destructive I felt the addiction was to my friend, it was almost impossible for the smoker to see it at the time because of the satisfying pleasure, however temporary, it gave. Addictions blind us to the reality of their existence. Every alcoholic feels they have their drinking under control, every drug addict feels they can quite any time and every sinner see the speck in everyone else’s eye.

In trying to help my friend, I appealed to the obvious health issues. Even though there are mountains of research studies highlighting the effects of smoking, the fact remained that my friend felt fine and so was not motivated to endure the necessary change to realize an uncertain (at least in their mind) future.

I appealed to the obvious drain on their financial resources. Even though the cost of cigarettes continues to skyrocket, people will always cut in other areas to feed their addiction. Addictions grow in their intensity beyond which we can control them and they begin to control us. Money will always be made available and was not a motivating fact leading to change. There was not a bigger NEED in their life to overcome the need for a cigarette fix.

I appealed to the reality of cancer that often comes from cigarettes, but since some people have lived to old age even though smoking for years, cancer is a possibility not a certainty. They would much rather play the odds than change.

Not until there was a dramatic crisis in their life with the diagnosis of breast cancer that a serious attempt was made to quit smoking. Of course when the breast cancer went into remission, so did their attempt to change. Time to light up!

MTD provides a convenient, comfortable and painless way to deal with the realities of life. It simply whispers in your ear “I’m OK, you’re OK!” Because it is so easy, no amount of logical arguments can alter a lifestyle in hot pursuit of pleasure, power and possessions. Unless there is a crisis and this house of cards collapses, little can be done from additional logical arguments.

So what can we do? I believe churches must remain vigilant as God sentinels and light in the world to wait and watch for God’s hand in the lives of those around us. I think that in times of crisis, God speaks most clearly.

Again, CS Lewis writes, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” – The Problem of Pain