Have you ever heard of moralistic therapeutic deism (MTD)?

It's a tenuous version of Christianity that was first given a name in the 2005 book Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers by the sociologist Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton.

MTDs believe:

1. A God exists who created and ordered the world and watches over human life on earth.
2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions.
3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself.
4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem.
5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

Perhaps even worse though is that it's often inclusive of different religions. As one study participant put it:

"Morals play a large part in religion. Morals are good if they're healthy for society. Like Christianity, which is all I know, the values you get from, like, the Ten Commandments. I think every religion is important in its own respect. You know, if you're Muslim, then Islam is the way for you. If you're Jewish, well, that's great too. If you're Christian, well good for you. It's just whatever makes you feel good about you."

I think you can see how the label MTD fits more than many people today.

To be clear, this is what happens when we don't protect the integrity of God's Word. The world and the dark forces that inhabit it mangle and garble it.

This is why boldly proclaiming the truth is so important, more now than ever.