What is US Christianity; a Therapeutic Faith?

What is American Christianity? What is it about this type of faith that lacks a serious sense of the spiritual? Even the theology is off; it does not appear to be the New Covenant. What it does look like is Judaism with Jesus thrown in for good measure.

The Apostle Paul understood it well. He weighs in with theology to get to grips with what we can only describe as a spiritual mystery.

Remember the mission of Jesus was to the Jews; then came Pentecost.

Jesus said; he who would come after me, must first take up his cross, and follow me. This means come with me and die. First there has to be that desire to go after Him.

Paul expounds further. If we are crucified with Christ are we not also resurrected with Him by the same Spirit that raised Him from the dead?

Now contrast it with what can be called a therapeutic faith. Imagine a pharma type faith if you will. The US sure loves therapy in a big way, yes.

Have you heard the term moralistic therapeutic deism?

It was used to describe the religious and spiritual lives of US teenagers.

Here is how it’s defined.

1) A God who exists, who created the world and watches over human life on earth.

2) God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other as it is 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 very involved in one’s life, except when God is needed to solve a problem.

5) Good people go to heaven when they die.

Oh and they hold to the Jewish Moral Law, this being the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses.

These beliefs were picked up and noted in an interview with 3000 teenagers.

The authors describe this system as one that provides therapeutic benefits to those who buy into it; when weighed against a Christian life that is so much more spiritual by nature as it is supernatural. Demanding too.

The detachment at work with this ‘therapy faith’ helps explain the choice of a word like deism. With this God as some kind of cosmic therapist.

A divine butler too who asks how may I serve YOU.

The authors say that a significant part of Christianity in the US is only Christian in some vague way. It is not the faith handed down by the Apostles. So many just don’t ‘get’ it.

Though this is what being Christian has morphed into it would seem.

This faith is an infantile one with no flesh or bones. The dead are not raised with this one. This Emperor has no clothes, he is naked. He is blind, wretched and poor too. Probably stupid as well.

One teenager summed it up when he said; if you’re Christian, well good for you. It is just whatever makes you feel good about you.