Evangelical Leprosy

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD). It’s a blight on evangelicalism. It really is a disease inside the Christian Church.

Let’s take the idea one word at a time.

Morals. Lists of rights and wrongs made up by every individual person to live a good life. No drugs, no pre-marital sex, no cursing, no alcohol, yes church, yes trying to be kind, yes being a ‘good’ person. The church, meeting place, is teaching how to have a better life, and be a better you, and managing debt well, and have a better marriage/parenting/spouse/fill-in-the-blank-here.

Therapy. We all know this one. There’s no guessing what it’s about. Making us feel good about who we are and what we’ve been/are. No pushing to change only the desire to see just a few more 'how to’s' added to the list of morals from above because hey, God loves you.

Deism. Deism is the belief in a Supreme Being who created the universe. But deism is nowhere near Christian. Deism holds that this Creator created then left us to play everything out. The clock-winder-god. He wound the clock and now it sits on his mantel only to be glimpsed when wanted. This is not Christianity. Not. At. All.

Morals won’t save you.

Therapy won’t make you well.

Deism doesn’t do anything.

Morals won’t save you because you can’t be good enough (Romans 3).

Therapy won’t make you well because pride kills (Psalm 31; 59:12; Prov. 8:13…).

Deism won’t save you because it is absolutely void of the Gospel.

Let this be crystal clear. The cross is central to the Christian faith. Jesus is what separates Christians from all other religions. To call deism ‘Christian’ is like calling a mouse an elephant and the moon the sun. 1) It is a lie. 2) It is a blatant disregard for the way God has made things. 3) It is pure ignorance.

It’s why we preach the Gospel. It’s why we talk about the brutality of the cross and the glory of the resurrection. It’s why Christianity is Jesus and not morals or therapy or deism.

Quite frankly - I'll go Puritanical in my speech here - this way of teaching (MTD) needs to die. Pastors who preach this will be welcomed into hell by the screams of their congregants, I don't doubt this. "Whoa, that's a little harsh Sam." I'd agree with you, if it wasn't the glory of God and the saving of souls at stake. Wishy-washy belief makes for non-commital people which causes heresy that is not Christian.

And this heresy staralizes people to the Gospel, because why would a 'good person' need saving?

Deism

Deism is not Christian. This is something I’m rather forceful about. Deism is not Christian. The happy-clappy huffy-fluffy religion associated with Christianity is not Christian. Let me explain the main major difference between what most would call “Christian” and what actually is Christian.

Deism has nothing to do with Jesus. That is the difference. Deism is the idea of a god creating all things and then actively (or passively) having no part of it. But somehow this idea of deism has been married with Christianity and there are many who don't realize that deism has absolutely no power to save.

Christians stake their hope on Jesus, not a list of good morals or the therapeutic idea of one’s own worth (moralistic deism).

Christians understand this life will be a continually war against their own natural depravity, not thinking themselves as naturally good people (thereapuetic deism).

Christians know God who is present in failure as well as victory, not some god who is disinterested in the lives of his creation (deism).

Christianity is nothing like deism. In Christianity God is vastly more beautiful and powerful than the apathetic god of the deist.

So what am I saying? I’m saying this heresy of moralistic therapeutic deism should be done away with. I’ll agree with Martin Luther, “I feel indignation against the matter also, that such unworthy stuff should be borne about in ornaments of eloquence so rare; which is as if rubbish, or dung, should be carried in vessels of gold or silver." So do away with speaking of a god who has no strength, grace or mercy and come to know the God who is devestatingly exqusite.

The Victim Vindicated

“Somewhere in this wretched tale there must be line where the victim gets his way just one time.” (NEEDTOBREATHE)

The villain seems to be treacherously strong. Knowing that he’s beaten but seeing him destroy and attempt to usurp the throne he’s wanted for so long. Evil is everywhere. The days are evil, the times they are fallen. People seem to be falling at the edge of his sword with every glance in every direction.

Friends are consumed with substances and bottles; roommates strive to be made whole by a pitiful boy; students are herded through massive rooms and taught anti-truths that seemingly look like truth but won’t stand the test of reality outside the classroom. Deism is the new Christian. And Jesus is not the point of faith in many spheres.

So who’s the victim? Are we the victims in the sense of being the ones surrounded by the vast broken of the world? Is God the victim because his name is the one defamed? Are the people in these pitiable plights the one’s victimized?

I’d offer we are the victims, but nothing is technically happening to us. I’d say the people in the situations are the victims, but often times the reason they’re there is their own volition or their own provocation. I’ll submit that God is the victim and that is what is true.

“But if God is the victim then how can he be God? A weak God is no God. Christians are sorely inconsistent.” might be some thoughts (and quite frankly I wrestled with this as I wrote up there). Here is my reasoning: God is the one being directly ‘sinned’ against. While I see my friends suffer and while my friends suffer he is the one against whom the sinning is done, “Against you, you only, have I sinned
 and done what is evil in your sight.” (Psalm 51:4)

He will vindicate his name (Rom12:19). He will judge the quick and the dead (2 Thess 1:5-12). He will save the redeemed (John 17). He will put death to death and right all wrongs; he will catch the tear and uplift the broken. He will comfort the mourner and give his kingdom to the righteous (Matt 5:2-12).

The victim will get his way, the line in the tale reads, “For from him and through him and to him are all things. To him be glory forever. Amen. (Rom 11:36)”