My source for my (w)rant is a reading of Christian Smith's Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford, 2005). I have come to believe that this social scientific description is absolutely necessary reading for anyone interested in the faithful life of the church in this society because it describes so well the parodies that liberal political theory produces in the name of Christianity or Islam or Judaism or Hindu. It makes no difference -- it is its own hegemonic, particularistic aggressively prosyletizing theological convictions that calls for absolute adherence to the polity that it supports -- the modern nation-state and its economic system of unfettered capitalism.

Before I (w)rant, I want to make sure that my (w)rant is directed towards the correct source -- not the churchs, pastors, and theologians that have been colonialized, and even willing cooperated with the colonialization of the church. Obviously it is good that God through Christ, not me, will judge (although I've often volunteered to help God in this task). The enemy is not the church that has been secularized, but the modernist state and its advocates that has with a passive aggressiveness managed to present their ideology as "natural". More accurately, this (w)rant is a means of penance for how deeply I have been formed by this cultural situation from which I need delivered so that I might live a holy life, acceptable to God, my reasonable service.

Thus it is that Smith suggests "that the defacto dominant religion among contemporary US teenagers is what we might well call 'Moralistic Therapeutic Deism' (p. 162). He argues that the teenagers are very conventional in their theological convictions, basically mirroring the convictions of their parents and adults as taught within the society at large. As you will discover, I think that he misuses the term "Deism" but will get to that in a view days. (W)right now we will concentrate on the first word in the phrase: Moralistic.

Smith writes, "First, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism is about inculcating a moralistic approach to life. It teaches that central to living a good and happy life is being a good, moral person. That means being nice, kind, pleasant, respectful, responsible, at work on self-improvement, taking care of one’s health, and doing one’s best to be successful. . . . Being moral in this faith means being the kind of persons that other people will like, fulfilling one’s personal potential, and not being socially disruptive or interpersonally obnoxious. . . . Feeling good about oneself is thus also an essential aspect of living a moral life" (p. 163).

I call this the tyranny of niceness -- and it is strongly moralistic. If you want to receive moral condemnation in this society, try to morally evaluate someone's behavior directly to them in front of others -- that is not nice, pleasant, tolerant. What is True, Good, or Beautiful recedes; what matters is personally affirming everyone.

Of course, finding one's "personal potential" is about finding a certain respectability within the cultural elite -- or at least working to support the social status quo around us. It has nothing to do with having the image of Triune God renewed in us that is already in God through the Son by the Spirit. Rather personal potential is understood in a sense of psychological satisfaction called "authenticity" or "meaning". The problem with these terms does not ever come to light. I keep trying to do inauthentic things, but I end up then being authentic in being inauthentic. And anytime I try to do something meaningless, I discover that it still has meaning!!

What happens is that holiness, love of God and neighbor, gets subtly perverted because love gets separated from God, and thus from truthfulness, goodness, and beauty. Thus what Benedict XVI has called the "tyranny of relativism" reigns -- moralistic condemning anyone who makes moral judgments based within the historical life of the church.

Interestingly -- and I will argue consistently -- this "relativistic moralism" is grounded in what people would call "conservative political and social systems" within American culture -- except for a few exceptions. For a good analysis of this within the conservative culture/politics of the US, see my friends Eric's analysis on epistemological relativism.

As we go on (w)ranting, we will have to discover how this moralism is a distortion, perversion of the ethics of the church, that has become very indistinguishable from the life of the church. It shows the difficulty that we must embrace to regain a language of holiness and sanctity that is much, much more true, beautiful, and good than the moralism described by Smith that dictates so much of my life.

Christ have mercy.
Lord have mercy.