The unsaved Christian

The title for this post comes from a book by the same name, The Unsaved Christian: Reaching Cultural Christianity with the Gospel by Dean Inserra. It's a book I read last year that looks at the state of many in our churches today. They practice what is sometimes called "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." They believe that there is a God and He wants us to be nice and kind to one another. Our primary goal should be that we are happy and maintain a good self-image. God never enters our thinking unless we find ourselves in trouble. Then we can call out to Him and expect He will solve our problems. And, of course, all good people will go to heaven when they die. Inserra writes that another book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, by Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton describe this religious perspective in more detail. I've not read that book so I cannot comment on it.

However, I think the summary of this worldview does describe many in our churches today. People holding to this view would mostly describe themselves as Christians. Inserra would insist they are not. He writes, "Self-proclaimed Christians who worship a god that requires no self-sacrifice, no obedience, no submission, and no surrender are not worshiping the God of the Bible, no matter how much they claim they love Jesus."

Where does Moralistic Therapeutic Deism come from? Watch many of the popular television preachers and you'll hear this viewpoint proclaimed nearly every week. There's seldom a call to repentance or any discussion about sin. Instead, they promise their listeners that they are highly favored of God who wants nothing more than to bless them beyond measure. But, we cannot place all the blame on the TV preachers.

Many local churches share in the blame for this false view of what it means to be a Christian. Too often we fail at properly discipling people. We ask them to pray a prayer to be saved, and at that point they are on their own. We don't require anything of them after that. We probably offer some Bible study or Sunday school classes, but these are all optional, and evidently not very important since they are so poorly attended in recent years. We do not teach people the importance of reading their Bibles, how to pray, or even what it means to be a Christian. In many churches, the gospel has been so diluted that when people do come they receive little instruction in the Christian life. The teaching of doctrine and theology has been replaced by feel-good sermonettes that can do nothing but make Christianettes out of those who hear them.

Challenging Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is difficult. Immediately, people will accuse you of judging them. They will insist that you have no right to judge their relationship with God. Perhaps the best way to address the problem of cultural Christianity is to faithfully proclaim and model what real Christianity looks like. When the minister stands before the congregation he or she should ensure that the sermon that day is doctrinally and theologically sound. Our goal as church leaders should always be to lead a person to faith in Christ and then help him or her grow in that relationship. We should not shrink from the biblical mandate to make disciples. If we remain solidly grounded in the Word of God in all we say and do, we can trust God to begin to work in the hearts of those who hold to something less than Christianity in their belief system.