Does America have an official religion?
Not “officially” of course. But, at least according to one expert, we definitely have an American religion. And it is very widely practiced.
Sociologist Christian Smith, some 20 years ago, conducted a study on the religious beliefs and habits of 3,000 American teenagers titled “Spiritual Life of American Adolescents.”
Smith found that these teens, regardless of where they lived or what denomination they belonged to, nearly all held to the same five basic religious tenets. These tenets together, according to Smith, make up the American religion he calls Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. (Note: the titles are mine)
1) The Clockmaker: God exists, and he created and ordered the world. But he isn’t particularly involved in it on an ongoing basis.
2) The Old Man in the Sky: God’s basic expectation of us is that we are good, nice and fair, and that’s about it.
3) The Divine Dr. Feelgood: Our central goal in life is to be happy and to feel good about ourselves.
4) Dial-A-God: There is really no need for God to be involved in our lives unless we need him to solve a problem.
5) Everybody Gets a Trophy: Everybody goes to heaven, except for really bad people. Like Hitler.
Smith also found that these young people didn’t arrive at these beliefs on their own. Rather, they are the beliefs they were raised with by their Boomer parents.
So, this has been the American religion for quite some time.
But the question remains: What is this religion? It may bear a passing resemblance to Christianity, and there may even be a few points of overlap with what Christianity teaches.
But is this Christianity?
Even a cursory understanding of Scripture makes it clear that, no, these tenets are not even close to what Scripture tells us. What God revealed to us is so much deeper, so much richer, so much more profound.
And so much more challenging.
Let’s take it point by point.
1) The Clockmaker: Has God left us to our own devices?
“Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.” Mt 10:28
2) The Old Man in the Sky: Are we just supposed to “be nice?”
“You therefore must be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Mt 5:48
3) The Divine Dr. Feelgood: Is our goal just to be happy?
“If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” Lk 9:23-24
4) Dial-A-God: Do we only need him when we have a problem?
“Seek the LORD and his strength; seek his presence continually.” 1 Chr 16:11
5) Everybody Gets a Trophy: Does everyone go to heaven?
“Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” Mt 7:13-14
There are obviously far more examples. The entirety of our faith runs in contradiction to these simplistic “tenets.”
In the beginning, God made man in his image. But it seems to me that, in the modern age, man has re-made God into his own image. We have fashioned a milder, tamer God, one who doesn’t ask too much of us, who lets us go along our merry way and then rewards us in the end anyway.
As the great C.S. Lewis put it: “We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven — a senile benevolence who, as they say, ‘liked to see young people enjoying themselves,’ and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, ‘a good time was had by all.’ “
As “good Catholics,” we like to tell ourselves we are above all of this. But are we? We grew up here. We came of age in the soup of this American “religion.” And it clings to us in unexpected ways. How often have I neglected my relationship with him until I was in trouble and needed a divine favor? How often have I chosen the easy and the happy over the challenging and the holy?
Here’s the thing: God is who God is. We don’t get to have our own individual “god” we make up in our heads.
Fortunately, he gave us a very good way to get to know him: 73 books and a church. He has revealed himself to us. This is why Scripture study is so important. Our job, day after day, is to dive into that revelation and let him speak to us through it. It is to constantly rediscover him as he is, not as we expect him to be.
And we need to constantly examine ourselves — to make sure we are growing in relationship with him, and not with some imaginary deity that modern America made up for us.
Because when we get to the other side, that American “god” is not the one we will meet.
Bonacci is a syndicated columnist based in Denver.
