Kerby Anderson

Yesterday I talked about the American Worldview Inventory done by George Barna. He found that very few American adults have a biblical worldview. The most dominant worldview would be the worldview that could best be described as syncretism.

The other major worldview could be described as “moralistic therapeutic deism.” This is a term developed by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton in their book, Soul Searching first published in 2005. It was used to describe the worldview they were finding among teenagers and young adults.

When I last wrote about this worldview, I used five characteristics to describe it. (1) “A god exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.” (2) “God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as 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 particularly involved in one’s life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.” (5) “Good people go to heaven when they die.”

As you can see, it could best be described as a “watered-down, feel-good, fake Christianity.” What is so interesting is that this belief system, that was first identified in the Christian teen culture, now permeates American culture and even the Christian church.

The survey found numerous places where this worldview conflicted with basic Bible teaching. For example, those who hold to this view do not believe people are sinful (91%) and contend that good people get to heaven through good behavior (76%).

This is a distorted version of Christianity that places an emphasis on self rather than on God, and on emotion rather than truth. Once again, these findings are a reminder that we need to teach good theology in our churches and in the home.