In this episode, I discuss the findings from theArizona Christian University's Cultural Research Center under the direction of Dr George Barna concerning "America’s Most Popular Worldview" today. American Worldview Inventory 2021 Release #02 introduces "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism" as the most popular worldview in America today. Which sadly also means that many people seating in the church pews see the world through the lense of MDT. So What is it?
Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD) is a worldview initially identified and named by sociologists Christian Smith and Melinda Lundquist Denton. They introduced their findings and conclusions in their book, Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, published in 2005 and which was based on national research among the teenagers of the turn of the millennium. At that time Smith and Denton identified several core beliefs that characterized the thinking and behavior of the group.
Those components included: • belief in a God who remains distant from people’s lives • people are supposed to be good to each other (i.e., moral) • the universal purpose of life of being happy and feeling good about oneself • there are no absolute moral truths • God allows “good people” into Heaven • God places very limited demands on people.
Consistent with other worldview research, the current Cultural Research Center findings confirm that even though those perspectives developed two decades ago, during the preteen years of that generation (a group we now call Millennials), they have held on to those beliefs as they have aged. That follows the well-established worldview developmental pattern. Research conducted by George Barna, and subsequently others, over the past quarter-century has shown that a person’s worldview develops when they are very young, is refined during their teens and 20s, and then serves as a decision-making foundation for the duration of a person’s life. Without conscious retraining, it is unlikely that worldview will change during a person’s lifetime.-(https://www.arizonachristian.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/CRC_AWVI2021_Release02_Digital_01_20210427.pdf)
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