Many people who think they are following
the gospel of Jesus Christ are instead following Moral Therapeutic Deism, a watered-down creed that
requires little by way of commitment or conversion. This counterfeit gospel
makes personal happiness and "nice-ness" the only virtues that matter and imagines a God
whose only job is to love and serve us and then to let us all into heaven
without asking anything of us. Moral Therapeutic Deism is a danger to the true church because it
can lead to stunted faith and spiritual starvation. This vacuous way of thinking is also causing young people to leave organized religion in droves all
across America. What can you and I do to prevent this popular
"self-made" religion of complacency and convenience from taking root
in our own hearts and homes?
Recent
national studies have suggested that more young adults are leaving the Church
of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints now than ever before.[i] This worrying development follows a larger
trend across the country, in which particular groups or demographic cohorts
(such as Millennials and Generation Z, or young men without a college degree,
etc.) have been observed to be increasingly rejecting traditional religion, and
moreover appear to be leaving these religions in droves. Seeing this, some have
declared that “Religious commitment is in sharp decline, almost free fall.”[ii] Others have observed that “Almost every organized religion is
experiencing losses in this new climate.”[iii] While the Church of Jesus Christ of
Latter-day Saints has not experienced the dramatic losses which other American
churches have faced, it is clear that we are not immune to this trend. Even the
highest leaders of the Church have acknowledged the growing dissatisfaction
among many people with organized religion.
