Talking Tuesday: Ken Myers and Mars Hill Audio

My husband and I have become great fans of Ken Myers and his Mars Hill Audio.  Everything I've read from Myers is articulate and thoughtful.  I confess I'm not a great aural learner, so I've not given his podcasts the time they deserve, but my husband has really enjoyed them.  Myers' most recent letter to subscribers was excellent and I decided it was worth excerpting here.
 

"Sociologist Christian Smith should have secured a trademark on his phrase "Moralistic Therapeutic Deism." First appearing in 2005 in Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers, the phrase was originally coined to summarize the ways American teens described their own religious beliefs....In the last decade, pundits have frequently enlisted "MTD" to describe--and lament--the vague form of piety that is shared by a vast number of Americans, and not just teens.  God exists, he wants us to be good, he's not involved in our lives unless we want him to be, the aim of life is to be happy, and good people go to Heaven.  These are the basic affirmations of the MTD creed.

'The "T" in MTD should probably be interpreted in light of Philip Rieff's 1966 book, The Triumph of the Therapeutic.  Early in the book, Rieff asked what might become of societies that are so deeply opposed to maintaining moral restraint on behavior "that all communications of ideals come under permanent and easy suspicion."  In Rieff's analysis, modern societies are distinguished by their definition of the good in terms of personal freedom and happiness ("a manipulatable sense of well-being") rather than divine commands or natural law.  This ethos in modern culture is one of the factors that makes the MTD creed so plausible and intuitive.

...

'Unfortunately, it is possible (and in the opinion of some people, downright desirable) to understand one's personal life as a devout and theologically articulate Christian while thinking about public matters--politics, economics, education, technology--in terms that fulfill the creed of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.  When Christians speak about encouraging "human flourishing," for example, do they have in mind social ends that reflect the centrality of Christ in all of reality (cf. Col. 1:15-20)? Or do they tacitly assume that the highest goods in this life are capable of definition and achievement apart from any distinctively Christian affirmation?  Is Christian belief a source of content for defining the common good, or is it simply a motivational tool that encourages some of us to work for what all of us want?

'The moralism of MTD affirms that people should be good, but it leaves defining "the good" up to individuals.  Christian theology makes it clear that what it means to be good is part of a larger account of the kinds of beings we are and the kind of reality we inhabit.  When Paul was in Athens at Mars Hill, one of his first public claims in that pluralistic setting was an assertion that God was the maker of the world and everything in it.  That is not just a "religious" claim; it is a claim about human nature that has consequences for all social and cultural life.  It's not just about morality but about metaphysics, about the nature of things.  Modern culture's moral confusion is a function of its metaphysical mistakes, so Christian championing of the common good thus requires more than moralism.

...

'Paul's Mars Hill address includes Christian eschatology as well as Christian metaphysics.  He informs his audience that something has happened in history (the Resurrection) and something will happen in history (final judgement) that should order all of life.  Contemporary Christians are often tempted to present the Gospel in a more therapeutic manner as a story about personal healing and happiness.  The telos described in the Gospel is a renewed, healed, and united humanity, anticipating a grand and joyous wedding feast and a glorious kingship fulfilled.  By contrast, the telos of therapeutic modernity is more individualistic; it is finally about the triumph of the will, not the triumph of the King."

~Ken Myers, Mars Hill Audio Listener Newsletter, Spring 2016

*I'm still working through my notes on Crawford, and am fast coming to the conclusion that I'm not going to be able to cover it in one post, so Talking Tuesdays in July may be all Crawford, all the time.

**On a different note, I'd like to offer up a new blog I just started following, by an American man married to a Russian woman who just moved to rural Russia with his wife and family.  His writing is articulate, thoughtful, and is fast becoming one of my favorite blogs to read.  He reminds me of my past life there, and of all the things I miss about living in Russia; I especially appreciate his everyday observations.  He's only been blogging for a few weeks, so I recommend to read back to the beginning of the blog to get the background on why they moved back to Russia, as well as the journey there and getting settled.  His most recent posts on politics and Orthodoxy are fascinating stuff.