Americans today are synchronistic in their beliefs about reality. That means they pick and choose what they believe. They decide what the moral truths are and what is reality. One common combination is “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism”. It was popular 30 years ago and still is fairly common in America though what I call Critical Expressive Individualism seems to be the popular belief mashup today. We are going to look at the moralistic and therapeutic belief systems through the lens of some diagnostic questions. I am using Mark Sayer’s “Sin Chart” taken from a blog post by Jake Meador at Mere Orthodoxy. I am adding answers I would give as Christian to these 5 diagnostic questions.
| Questions | Moralistic Answers | Therapeutic Answers | My Christian Answers |
| What is the purpose of life? | To do good. | To feel peace. | To know God and trust Him, and to live life by loving Him and loving others. This is only possible because of God’s grace. |
| What is sin? | Oppression that comes from ignorance. | The causing of mental or emotional discomfort or pain. | Self-centered attempts to be God by doing things our way. This makes us broken. |
| What is the world? | A good place ruined. The world is good but ignorant people create ignorant structures and that creates oppression. | A dangerous place filled with pain, trauma, and discomfort. You’re seeking a smaller world where you don’t feel those things. | A broken place that is full of broken people in need of God’s grace. |
| What is its attitude toward faith? | The church is immoral. | It can be acceptable when used as a tool for personal peace. It’s utilitarian. | Faith in Jesus Christ brings a full life and it begins the restoration process. |
| What is the solution to the moral ills of the world? | Virtuous education. Inform everyone through education of what is the new moral code and how we live that. If we do that, the world will slide toward a virtuous future. | Harm minimalization. Create a place that’s safe where harm will not be done. | We cannot solve the ills of this world, but God can. Jesus Christ came and paid the price for our sin. He rose from the dead so that we might have life. God is at work in us. |
Most Americans will pick and choose what they believe and how they see reality, so you will find people with combinations of several beliefs. Mark Sayer’s “Sin Chart” gives a good insight into moralistic, therapeutic, hedonistic, and nihilistic beliefs. But Americans will take what they like from each of these beliefs and from other beliefs too. While they tend to create their own belief systems, many times their beliefs will mostly match one belief system or another. This is because the culture influences Americans and helps guide them into their belief system. So the culture tends to make the personal beliefs of others more consistent with the general population. Over 60 years ago, the culture was supportive of the Christian worldview. The culture has transitioned away from the Christian worldview to beliefs like Moralistic Therapeutic Deism and then today to beliefs like Critical Expressive Individualism. Both of these belief systems have elements of moralistic and therapeutic beliefs in them. Can you see elements of the Moralistic and Therapeutic belief systems in your own beliefs or in the beliefs of others?
As I have studied different worldviews and the modern mashup of different belief systems, it is obvious to me that the Christian Faith has the best view of reality among all the different worldviews. It is what is true.
My next blog post will cover the hedonistic, and nihilistic beliefs from Mark Sayer’s “Sin Chart”.
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