Inside the souls of America's youth

Soul Searching, by Christian Smith...perhaps a ministry-changing book. It reads like the Habits of the Heart of the early 21st Century. Expect many posts on it soon.

Here's a taste:

...we suggest that the de facto dominant religion among contemporary U.S. teenagers is what we might well call "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." The creed of this religion...sounds something like this:

1. A God exists who created and orders 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 in 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.

...we are not suggesting that Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is a religious faith limited to teenage adherents in the United States. To the contrary, it seems that it is also a widespread, popular faith among very many U.S. adults. Our religiously conventional adolescents seem to be merely absorbing and reflecting religiously what the adult world is routinely modeling for and inculcating in its youth...

More to come...