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American Idol Worship

Moralistic Therapeutic Deism: the universal solvent of Christianity
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A reader sends in this first-rate satire from the ThinkTheology blog, making a case for why Evangelical Christians can become idol worshipers and still be faithful Christians in good standing. Excerpts:

I start with my own story, and the stories of many others like me. I am an evangelical, and I have a very high view of the Bible – I am currently studying for a PhD in biblical studies at King’s College London, which will be my third theology degree – as well as knowing both the ancient languages and the state of scholarly research. Yet, after much prayerful study, I have discovered the liberating truth that it is possible to be an idolatrous Christian. That, at least, is evidence that you can be an evangelical and an idolater.

Not only that, but a number of evangelical writers have been challenging the monolatrous narrative in a series of scholarly books. A number of these provide a powerful case for listening to the diversity of the ancient witnesses in their original contexts, and call for a Christlike approach of humility, openness and inclusion towards our idolatrous brothers and sisters.

Some, on hearing this, will of course want to rush straight to the “clobber passages” in Paul’s letters (which we will consider in a moment), in a bid to secure the fundamentalist ramparts and shut down future dialogue. But as we consider the scriptural material, two things stand out. Firstly, the vast majority of references to idols and idolatry in the Bible come in the Old Testament – the same Old Testament that tells us we can’t eat shellfish or gather sticks on Saturdays. When advocates of monolatry eat bacon sandwiches and drive cars at the weekend, they indicate that we should move beyond Old Testament commandments in the new covenant, and rightly so.

More:

Not only that, but none of his references apply to idolatry as we know it today: putting something above God in our affections. Paul, as a Hellenistic Roman citizen, simply would not have had a category for that kind of thing. In his world, idolatry meant physically bowing down to tribal or household deities – statues and images made of bronze or wood or stone – and as such, the worship of power or money or sex or popularity had nothing to do with his prohibitions. (Some see an exception in the way he talks about coveting as idolatry in Ephesians 5:5 and Colossians 3:5, but these obviously reflect his desire, as a first century Jew, to honour the Ten Commandments.)

In other words, when Paul talks about idolatry, he is not talking about the worship of idols as we know it today.

Read the whole thing. It’s terrific, absolutely spot-on. And remember, ladies and gentlemen, it’s satire.

But how many younger American Christians would understand that? The US Conference of Catholic Bishops yesterday released results of a survey showing that doctrine means diddly-squat to a huge number of young Catholic adults. From the Catholic News Agency report:

While a failure to understand doctrine is present in many segments of the Catholic population, young adults are exhibiting an alarmingly casual attitude towards accepting Church teaching, a study commissioned by the U.S. bishops has found.

“They feel completely Catholic even while disagreeing with the Church. We often heard ‘the Pope is entitled to his opinion’,” Archbishop Thomas Wenski of Miami stated, summarizing responses given by young people to a survey conducted on behalf of the U.S. bishops.

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For instance, while other groups said that they had trouble understanding the Church’s “goofy” rules, the young adults surveyed “simply identified the rules as ‘to be nice to everyone, the Golden Rule’,” stated Archbishop Wenski.

If any Church teachings conflict with their own perceptions, young people simply “tune out” the teachings.

“They agree to disagree with the Church,” the archbishop said.

Archbishop Wenski said in a press conference that the Catholic Church is trying to figure out how to reach these people. But it is not doing such a great job of inspiring the people who are its most loyal followers. From that same report:

Fervent Catholics – frequent Mass attendees who are committed to evangelization, faithful to Church teaching, and see the real presence of the Eucharist as central – tend to view Catholic doctrine as beautiful and freeing rather than as restrictive rules. This group, however, struggles with its own frustrations, including a belief that there is sometimes a lack of support within the parish, priests who are failing to teach and inspire, and an emphasis on activities over faith.

I’m reminded of what Mr. Bergstrom (Dustin Hoffman), Lisa Simpson’s beloved substitute teacher, tells Lisa when he announces that he’s moving on to another assignment: “That’s the problem with being middle class. Anybody who really cares will abandon you for those who need it more.”

Seriously, though, I wonder how the Catholic Church and other churches can hope to “reach” people who don’t believe that the church teaches truth, or that doctrinal truth matters at all. This, of course, is Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, which is the true American religion. As the ThinkTheology satire shows, you can use the same basic script to justify believing in anything normative Christianity condemns, but you would prefer it did not. What, I wonder, does it mean to “reach” an MTD person who professes your faith, but whose commitment to its beliefs is vaporous?

Do we have any evidence that MTD Christians move toward a more robust and orthodox understanding of their faith? Or do they colonize the ministries and bureaucracies of the churches, and reproduce another generation of MTD believers?

I’m asking in a serious way. What do studies, if there are any studies, show us?

If not studies, then let’s hear some anecdotes. This is not, by the way, merely a problem among liberals. One of you readers, a Methodist, wrote me not long ago with a story about how you tried in your generally conservative parish to strengthen the Sunday school program to teach more doctrine, but were shot down by parents who thought that kind of thing really wasn’t necessary.

If the church were a political party or a consumer brand, it would have to pay attention to the possibility that going after voters or markets it will not likely get will cause it inadvertently to weaken loyalty and support from its core.

If MTD followers take over Christian churches, what will those churches be teaching in 100 years? Or will they be there at all?

Has Christianity ever faced this kind of challenge before? Having a large number of people who claim to be Christian, or a particular kind of Christian (e.g., Catholic, Presbyterian), but who hold that it doesn’t matter whether or not they agree with the religion or particular church’s teaching? What is heresy to people like that? How do you combat heresy when many of your people don’t believe it exists?

UPDATE: Fantastic comment by reader MMcCann:

I can speak of my conversion from a TMD to an orthodox Catholic, mindful of doctrine and church teaching.

I think, first of all, there has been a massive failure to teach Catholic Doctrine in a workable manner.

I have been raised in a Catholic upbringing,received hundreds of sermons, joined the Cardinal Newman Center in college, and joined the Knights of Columbus. I had to find Catholic Doctrine on my own.

The irony is, that while the church produces insightful, nuanced statements of faith, when it comes to promulgating this, they universally feel the need to “dumb down” the doctrine.

This takes primarily two forms. One I received in the KoC. This amounts to taking Catholic Doctrine, several a few emotive “end goal” topics, and treating them as isolated topics in a void. Overwhelmingly, these issues were abortion, followed by cohabitation.

The second one felt particularly bizarre, because it was divorced from larger Catholic teaching. It’s appeals had to meet the standard of ordinary society.

As a consequence, it was a load of nonsense and hysteria. Not because Church doctrine was wrong, but because these materials were divorced from Church teaching. They were trying to bring us to Catholic Doctrine by means of MTD.

The second, in Catholic education, essentially boiled down to MTD. We were children, or adolescent, we didn’t want to spend our Tuesday nights there, and they cut corners.

Now, of the two, I think the Knights are more seriously at fault, because everyone there is there as a volunteer. And besides getting you to engage in the culture war, they have no plan to combat MTD. I respect your articles and thoughts on this matter very much Ron, but I think you underestimate or under-emphasize the centrality of MTD to a lot of right-wing culture, and how compatible it is there.

Opposition to abortion was not couched in terms of Theology, but in personal and group identity. To be a practicing Catholic was to be opposed to abortion. Therefor, expansion of abortion was an attack on ourselves, our personal identities. MTD is perfectly happy to take up non-progressive causes, if that’s your bag.

I want to emphasize, I am NOT disagreeing with the theological positions of the Church or the KoC. I am disagreeing with how they are presented. They are presented as amputated, dead, inert products that do not challenge us to be Christians.

There is a general tendency, especially bad among the identifying “catholic traditional” core to throw up their hands any time a Catholic challenges doctrine. “That’s against Church teaching!” They say, as if that closes the book.

And obviously, for a faithful Catholic, you will eventually have to accept that against your own desires. But you can’t accept that against your own intellectual inquiry, not if you ever want to be freed by Church Doctrine. Because until you understand it, you’re not trusting in God, you’re trusting in the group identity (which has produced horrifying results in the church).

This tendency is produced not just at a personal but Institutional level. There is very little effort by Catholic Intellectuals to enter into the world of ideas. They have their own, sometimes vibrant, intellectual landscape, and have very little interest in conveying how serious Catholic teaching is. They would rather bemoan the fact that it isn’t appreciated, or wearily accept there is no interest. Whenever they get the opportunity, their pessimistic perceptions cause them to, of course, dumb down the material.

Intellectually, the Benedictine Option was activated decades ago.

If we have a lost generation, this is why. Most young people don’t disagree with Church Teaching because they’re barely aware of it.

And it’s not just because MTD followers entering into the Church Bureaucracy. It’s because of a culture of pessimism about the ability of Catholic Thought to enter into the world of mainstream thought, even among Catholics. The church accepts MTD practitioners into it’s bureaucracy, because it believes teaching MTD is the best it can hope for.

UPDATE.2: Terry Mattingly says this is a huge story, and journalists are missing it. Excerpt:

In other words, might there be a growing tension between cultural, MTD Catholics and the pro-Catechism Catholics, with the people in the latter group beginning to wonder if their own priests have the courage to help them defend the faith, perhaps even to their own children?

That sounds like a news story to me.

UPDATE.3: Good comment by reader Tommy:

MTD has pretty much caused people to move away from institutional religion. The churches in which it takes over will die within a generation.

Anecdotally, if you look at the religious groups that are growing it’s the groups that actually ask something of its adherents:
LDS-regular church attendance, high moral standards
Islam-daily prayers, strict moral code, strict religious adherence

The groups that are stagnant seem to be the groups where MTD is gaining a foothold:
Certain evangelical denominations/non-denom churches

The groups in decline like all mainline churches are in full blown MTD mode and they’re literally and figuratively dying off.

Orthodoxy in America is an interesting phenomenon. Certain jurisdictions and regions are growing (the South and the West) while others are in decline (Midwest and Northeast). The highly ethnic churches have, through the 20th century, become mired in ethno-centrism, regional politics, and even an underhanded secularism. And they’re fading quickly — when the Omas and Babushkas die off, the churches, sadly, may well die with them. Contrast that to where Orthodox growth is largely fueled by converts — the South and West. In my church, for instance, you often have a hard time hearing the homily due to the large number of babies and toddlers. It’s a beautiful chaos that’s being experienced in a number of parishes. Why? My opinion is because Orthodoxy is hard. Really hard. Orthodoxy asks for real sacrifice. For instance, when my wife first heard about the fasts, she cried because it was so overwhelming. Combine that with a prayer rule, regular attendance, sacrificial giving, and confession and you’ve got a huge chunk of your leisure/personal time and resources occupied. It’s the antithesis of MTD and liberal Christianity which says there’s one real rule and that’s niceness…and tolerance…and authenticity: God is this really cool guy just wants us to be ourselves.

A God who asks nothing is a God who is unnecessary. And churches who teach that God doesn’t ask for much of anything soon become obsolete and unnecessary, themselves.

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