A Watered Down Faith
Billy is a good kid who lives just outside the Burlington city limits. His parents are really proud of him. He gets good grades in high school and he attends his church youth group. His parents, both leaders in church, are committed to their faith and are glad that Billy appears to be following their footsteps. Billy claims to be a Christian, as do the vast majority of the kids in our local high schools. The problem is what they believe to be Christian has little to do with real Christianity. Dr. Kenda Creasy Dean, professor of youth, church, and culture at Princeton Theological Seminary, recently wrote ³Almost Christian² which reveals from a large national survey of American teens that while most are positive about Christianity and most call themselves Christian, they actually do not understand or believe in the basic tenets of the Christian faith. In other words the vast majority of our ³Christian² youth are not Christian at all. They are fake Christians and they don¹t even know it. For parents, pastors, and youth pastors, this research ought to be a frightening wake up call. When Billy is asked about his Christian faith, he has a hard time putting into words what he believes. He has more of a general feeling than a clear faith he can articulate. Dean says that the majority of our teens do not ascribe to Christianity, but to what she calls ³moralistic therapeutic deism.² Here is what the majority of churched teens believe. First, ³a god exists who created and orders the world and watches over life on earth.² This is the backbone of basic deism. Second, this god ³wants people to be good, nice and fair to each other.² Teens believe this is what the Bible and most other major religions teach, which is why they think most all religions are just different paths to the same god. I believe they did not come up with this on their own; this is what they picked up from the adults in their churches. Third, they believe that ³the central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.² I hear parents say all the time, ³I just want my child to be happy,² so no wonder they think this is the main goal in life. Unfortunately, teens also said that ³God is not involved in my life except when I need God to resolve a problem.² Most teens said that their faith had no real effect or impact on how they live from day to day. They are mostly positive about religion, they just don¹t give it much thought. The final belief of moralistic therapeutic deism is that ³good people go to heaven when they die.² While some of these beliefs sound Christian, such as God is the creator God, this deism is a false, anti-Christian faith. We have offered our teens an easy out, comfortable, socially acceptable pseudo Christianity, which is a far cry from an authentic, life transforming personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It appears that some of us have been so afraid of offending teens and their parents with the claims of the cross that many churches have watered down the faith to a self-serving, feel-good deism. Jesus said, ³If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me² (Luke 9:23). True faith requires repentance and a following of Christ that impacts everything in our lives. Let¹s reject this false deism and again live and preach Christ so Billy can understand what real faith is. Bob will be leading a three week message series titled ³Legacy Parenting Passing the Faith Along² starting October 9. This is open to the public or you can listen to a podcast of these messages at www.brookwoodchurch.com .>
