Author Kenda Creasy Dean has written a book called “Almost Christian” in which she covers a growing trend of diluted Christianity that teenagers across the western world are succumbing to. She calls adherents to these strains of Christianity, “fake Christians’ and warns parents to get more involved with their children to understand what they believe and to help steer them in the right direction.
‘Feel good’ Christianity misses the mark because it omits the weightier issues of God’s plan for humanity, sin and the confession of sin, and the duty of service to God and the world. We all like an occasional pep talk, and while God wants you to love yourself, he wants you to grow spiritually and help make an impact in this world for Christ. Feeling good about yourself is fake unless you are walking with the Lord of all. Genuine Christianity acknowledges our fallen state, accepts our free redemption by confessing Jesus is Lord, and helps us become the spiritual men and women who are ready, willing and capable to share God’s Word and love with others. That’s my take anyway!
Anne Havard of Atlanta, Georgia, may be a rarity. She’s an American teenager who is passionate about her Christian faith.
(CNN) – If you’re the parent of a Christian teenager, Kenda Creasy Dean has this warning:
Your child is following a “mutant” form of Christianity, and you may be responsible.
Dean says more American teenagers are embracing what she calls “moralistic therapeutic deism.” Translation: It’s a watered-down faith that portrays God as a “divine therapist” whose chief goal is to boost people’s self-esteem.
Dean is a minister, a professor at Princeton Theological Seminary and the author of “Almost Christian,” a new book that argues that many parents and pastors are unwittingly passing on this self-serving strain of Christianity.
She says this “imposter” faith is one reason teenagers abandon churches.
“If this is the God they’re seeing in church, they are right to leave us in the dust,” Dean says. “Churches don’t give them enough to be passionate about.”
What traits passionate teens share
Dean drew her conclusions from what she calls one of the most depressing summers of her life. She interviewed teens about their faith after helping conduct research for a controversial study called the National Study of Youth and Religion.
The study, which included in-depth interviews with at least 3,300 American teenagers between 13 and 17, found that most American teens who called themselves Christian were indifferent and inarticulate about their faith.
The study included Christians of all stripes — from Catholics to Protestants of both conservative and liberal denominations. Though three out of four American teenagers claim to be Christian, fewer than half practice their faith, only half deem it important, and most can’t talk coherently about their beliefs, the study found.
Many teenagers thought that God simply wanted them to feel good and do good — what the study’s researchers called “moralistic therapeutic deism.”
Finish this article here: http://www.cnn.com/2010/LIVING/08/27/almost.christian/
There’s nothing emptier than a ‘fake Christian.’ Fake Christians just don’t realize what God’s calling is all about. If you are in a lukewarm, feel-good-about-yourself congregation, I encourage you to go deeper. Get into studying the Word on a daily basis and learn what God really has to say. He wants to bless you more than you imagine, so don’t hold him back. Learn what his will is for your life and walk that path. Life isn’t all peaches and cream — God is looking for people who have the courage to face reality and stand for him in this very precarious day and time. You are invited!