Almost Christian

I saw the following article on several blogs that I follow.  This summary from White Horse Inn briefly tells the story.  Click on their link at the end if you want to read the entire article by Kenda Creasy Dean as featured on CNN.  I have not read her book, but I found her ideas interesting.  I looked up Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, the phrase coined by Christian Smith of University of Notre Dame, and I agree with Wikipedia, which in addition to the definition, states that this term can apply to many religions, not just Christianity.

“CNN online recently featured an article on Kenda Creasy Dean’s new book Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the American Church (Oxford University Press, 2010).  

 

Dean is a professor at Princeton Seminary who participated with Christian Smith and others in the National Study of Youth and Religion. The CNN article discusses the theme of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, a phrase used liberally by White Horse Inn hosts for the past few years and coined by Christian Smith to describe the religious and spiritual lives of today’s teenagers.

Dean discusses this problem at length in her new book, and argues that teens have received this “fake” view of Christianity from their parents. She writes, “The problem does not seem to be that churches are teaching young people badly, but that we are doing an exceedingly good job of teaching youth what we really believe, namely, that Christianity is not a big deal, that God requires little, and the church is a helpful social institution filled with nice people…”

She goes on to say that “if churches practice Moralist Therapeutic Deism (MTD) in the name of Christianity, then getting teenagers to church more often is not the solution (conceivably it could make things worse). A more faithful church is the solution….Maybe the issue is simply that the emperor has no clothes.”

Michael Horton recently interviewed Kenda Creasy Dean for the White Horse Inn, and that interview will air in early October.”

Click here to read the entire CNN article titled, “More Teens Becoming Fake Christians.”

To read three responses from Kenda Dean about her CNN article, click on the following links:

CNN Response

Almost Christian

Called into Disconnect