The MTD virus
**Back in July i went to the TSCF conference, which was a special one because it celebrated 70 years of TSCF..and it was quite cool because there was even 3 generations of one family there on the day i went, when TSCF grads could go along. Anyway they had several different speakers, and the one day that i went to the conference this guy Paul Windsor, who's the principal of Carey Baptist College did a talk on this thing called the MTD virus...and i found it quite interesting what he had to say. I'm typing out this article btw so hope you find it interesting too :P**Having completed the largest and most detailed survey of teenagers and religion ever undertaken, Christian Smith and Melinda Denton conclude that American teenagers are unknowingly infected by the virus of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.
What does this phrase mean?
In being moralistic these young people affirm that the prupose of religion is to provide guidance on how to be a good person. This, they say, is all that God wants of us: to be good people others will like by giving our energy to self-improvement and fulfilling our potential. There are just Two Commandments: 'Thou Shalt not Hurt Others' and 'Thou Shalt not Be Hurt by Others'. Any focus on God is eliminated. Any external standard is unnecessary. What is good is "something everybody know" - like an instinct. And good people go to heaven.
This MTD virus is described as a five point creed with the therapeutic characteristic entering at number three: "the central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about yourself." Religion helps people get what they want. Faith is about making a person happy and helping them get through life - much like a therapist does. Indeed God is the Cosmic Therapist who can transform us into what we feel like being, rather than what we are supposed to be. Things like repentance, humility, the cost of discipleship, glorifying God by enduring suffering, and hungering and thirsting after righteousness are deleted.
This leads on to a deistic caricature of God in which he creates the world and then stands back from it. However this distant God "is selectively available for taking care of our needs." He becomes the Divine Butler controllable by our remote. He is the helper "who responds in times of trouble but who does not ask for devotion or obedience." Acutally he is not that interested in us, particularly at those times when we'd rather he not be interested in us. He is like the Producer of the Play: the one who "makes all the play possible but stands back and watches" while the actors (you and I) take centre stage.
Summed up in a single sentence, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD) asserts that:
'God is out there somewhere and if you just do what makes you happy and avoid
being realy bad, you'll go to heaven when you die.'
How do we respond to this virus?
We can respond culturally by asking if this virus is really experienced in New Zealand. It may be "the de facto dominant religion among contemporary US teenagers" - but is it Kiwi? Who knows? We don't prioritise comparable indigenous research enough to know. However in asking this contextual question let's not miss the glboal tide that sweeps into our shallow Kiwi bays. For example, The Simpsons rides that tide and exerts influence in NZ. In the rush to avoid being caricatured like Ned Flanders, haven't Christians even in New Zealand fallen into the arms of MTD - by default? Such examples easily proliferate.
Then there is the generational response. There is a sub-text throughout Smith and Denton's book [Soul Searching: the religious and spiritual lives of American teenagers]: 'don't give teenagers a hard time as they've picked this stuff up from their parents.' The virus may now be endemic but those early, unnoticed, and critical outbreaks occurred in the preceding generation.
It is not the Christian teenager, but the parents and the church leader and the TSCF graduate who need to ask the hard questions. The authors note that most teenagers they interviewed reported that the interview was the first time an adult had ever asked them 'what they believed and how it mattered in their life.' How sad is that? What is the impact of this inarticulacy in our spiritual conversations with young people? How often have our life choices had Moralistic Therapeutic Deism stamped all over them? Young people are listening and watching...and following.
An ecclesial response also comes to mind. The authors conlude that "Christianity in the US is only tenuously Christian ... it is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, it is actively being colonised and displaced by a quite different faith." The primary challenge we face is not secularism but syncretism. The enemy is in here, not out there. The worship of the living God mixes with the worship of other things until the living God is lost in the clutter and we slowly cease to be Christian in any sense at all. Following Jesus accomodates itself within a Microsoft Windows template. We open hmi up, maximising him on the screen of our lives - but then just as easily minimise him as our friends, our families, our careers, our OEs, and our consumption takes centre stage. Within the church we too are "incredibly inarticulate" about our faith as the MTD virus works to keep "religion operating in the background of (our) lives."
A final response is the biblical one. There is today an inability to start with God as the first principle of life and mission, allowing his self-revelation in Christ and in the Bible to be our starting point. Again and again we hear it exclaimed: 'I don't like a God like that.' What is goin on here? Me, myself, I are being that first principle! God is being placed within the framework of our understanding, rather than me being placed in the framework of his understanding. It is a sad and simple error. And so the question to ask is this one: when we make God's self-revelation to be the lens through which we look at MTD, what do we see?
At its very core MTD makes a mockery of the cross of Christ. It is not Christian. It is not even close to being Christian. Let's demonstrate this by comparing each word of the virus with two witnesses: a passage of scripture and a hymn of the church.
What is this about a God who is uninvolved (deism)? Have you not heard about reconciliation? It is a relational word. God did not drop out of sight after creating the world. The entire story of the Bible is about this 'hound of heaven' involving himself in this world and pursuing us across sin and conflict and rebellion until he finds us, offering forgiveness through the substitutionary death of Jesus which brings reconciliation. After all of this, an uninvolved God seems ridiculous. Consider again the depths of 2 Cor 5:15-21 and the heights of that hymn 'It is a Thing Most Wonderful'.
What is this about a life lived solely for the purpose of feeling happy (therapeutic)? Have you not heard about redemption? It is a marketplace word. It is about buying slaves so as to liberate them. We are slaves to sin and unable to grapple with our situation because of that sin. We are hopeless and helpless. God purchases our redemption with a substitute. His own Son dies our death so that we can live his life - a new life with Jesus as Lord. After all of this, living just to feel happy looks pathetic. Consider again the depths of 1 Peter 1:18-21 and the heights of that hymn 'Make me a Captive Lord'.
What is this about just being a good person (moralistic)? Have you not heard about justification? It is a legal word. We stand in the dock. We face a righteous and holy judge. He has a standard we cannot attain. There is no goodness in who we are or what we do that can make a difference. We are guilty and so the outcome is clear. And then God brings in Jesus. He takes our place in the dock as a substitute and receives the sentence of death. It is called grace, opening the way for God's acceptance of us. After all of this, placing confidence in our own goodness looks silly. Consider again the depths of Romans 3:21-26 and the heights of that hymn 'Not What These Hands Have Done'.
A recent article in Christianity Today asks whether we can become too atonement-centred. In making a response to the MTD virus, the answer is 'no'.
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