Dear Christian parents,
Princeton professor and Minister Kenda Creasy Dean has issued a warning: your child may be following a "mutant" form of Christianity. Oh, and by the way, you're to blame:
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."
CNN's John Blake explains: Link
I can't believe that this book is getting serious news coverage outside of Fox. Makes me worry for the world I'm growing up in.
The interesting thing is that many of the schisms that have formed the new churches have been because those forming the new church believed that their mother church was only interested in serving itself and not its followers.
I see people in this thread preaching tolerance, but not practicing it.
It's usually how it goes.
I'm not seeing the problem.
http://kendadean.com/318/almost-christian/
Fun part:
"A parent's radical act of faith could involve something as simple as spending a summer in Bolivia working on an agricultural renewal project"
As simple as moving to Bolivia? THAT simple?!
I think I'll stick with atheism. Christianity? No thanks - I'm not THAT simple.
Would you be fine with that because, after all, kids need to be allowed to think on their own?
Bite the bullet and grudgingly accept their choice. The key word is "their".