(WorldNetDaily) American Christianity has fallen. Thanks to cultural corrosion and a lack of biblical literacy, a new “fake Christianity” has raked the dry ground of the American church.
This counterfeit religion is moralistic therapeutic deism, a worldview that has quickly gained prominence and given many Americans a theology that looks nothing like historical Christianity, despite what they may claim.
George Barna, director of research at Arizona Christian University, said MTD — or “watered-down, feel-good, fake Christianity” — is “the most popular worldview in the United States today,” according to Christianity Daily. A recent poll conducted by ACU found that 38 percent of adults hold this view.
What’s more, three out of four people who hold to MTD still consider themselves Christians.
The poll was conducted in February among 2,000 adults with a margin of error of +/- 2 percentage points.
“The fact that a greater percentage of people who call themselves Christian draw from [MTD] than from the Bible says a lot about the state of the Christian church in America, in all of its manifestations,” Barna said.
“Simply and objectively stated, Christianity in this nation is rotting from the inside out.”
What Is MTD?
Barna explained to The Western Journal what MTD is and how it affects the way Christians engage in culture.
“MTD is essentially what I would call fake Christianity. Because it has some Christian elements in it, but it’s not really biblical, it’s not really Christian,” Barna said.
He then went on to explain each element of this worldview.
“The moralistic perspective is we’re here to be good people and to try to do good,” Barna said. “That’s really what life is about. I’ll be good to you, you be good to me, it’ll all work out.
“The therapeutic aspect is everything is supposed to be geared to making me feel good about myself, ultimately to make me happy.”
Deism is the idea that God created the world but has no direct involvement in it. Basically, according to MTD, there is a distant God who just wants everyone to be nice, and the purpose of life is to be happy.
American “Christians” who have adopted this philosophy have borrowed heavily from the modern secular world, which elevates personal definitions of right and wrong above any objective standard of truth — like the Bible.
According to a study conducted by Lifeway Research, a little more than half of Americans would describe the Bible as a “good source of morals.” Only 38 percent said it was an historical account and 37 percent said it was helpful today.
The study was conducted from Sept. 27 to Oct. 1, 2016, among 1,000 Americans with a margin of error of +/- 3.1 percentage points.
MTD is a cake-and-ice cream theology for those who want to feel good about themselves without sacrificing cultural relevance.
