On the Therapeutic Gospel

Self-help and feeling good is NOT the gospel message:

A phrase that has been around for two decades now and has gained a lot of traction is this: “Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.” That might seem like a bit of a mouthful, but it is not too hard to break down and understand. It comes from a book by sociologist Christian Smith with Melinda Lundquist Denton called Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers (Oxford University Press, 2005).

It is based on the research findings of the National Study of Youth and Religion. The lengthy book examines the views of American young people in detail, and Smith coined the phrase Moralistic Therapeutic Deism (MTD) to encapsulate and summarise where so many young people are at today in terms of their religious beliefs. These are the five core beliefs of this worldview:

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. (pp. 162-163)

If you talk to most folks today in the West, you will likely find some form of these beliefs. Sadly, even many Christians would hold to some or all of them. The biblical gospel is completely lost in such a version of events, and it fits in so very well with a narcissistic, me-first culture wherein looking after Number 1 and simply being happy is the sum and substance of life.

Some of the biggest churches in America routinely offer versions of this, where being happy, successful and having good self-esteem are the end goals of the Christian life. Simply think of Joel Osteen for example. See more on him here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2014/06/08/osteen-once-more/

Others have discussed this well before 2005. Recall the important 1966 book, The Triumph of the Therapeutic: Uses of Faith After Freud by Philip Rieff (Harper & Row). In it he argued that the Christian faith was giving way to an age of therapy. The quest for salvation and reconciliation with God was being replaced by a quest for well-being and inner peace.

As he famously said: “Religious man was born to be saved; psychological man is born to be pleased.” He continued: “The difference was established long ago, when ‘I believe,’ the cry of the ascetic, lost precedence to ‘one feels,’ the caveat of the therapeutic. And if the therapeutic is to win out, then surely the psychotherapist will be his secular spiritual guide.” (p. 22)

So what Smith was describing had been observed by others for quite some time. Numerous Christian thinkers have commented on MTD over the past 20 years. Consider just a few examples. Writing in the same year as the book’s appearance, Albert Mohler said this in part:

Does this mean that America is becoming more secularized? Not necessarily. These researchers assert that Christianity is either degenerating into a pathetic version of itself or, more significantly, Christianity is actively being colonized and displaced by a quite different religious faith.

 

This radical transformation of Christian theology and Christian belief replaces the sovereignty of God with the sovereignty of the self. In this therapeutic age, human problems are reduced to pathologies in need of a treatment plan. Sin is simply excluded from the picture, and doctrines as central as the wrath and justice of God are discarded as out of step with the times and unhelpful to the project of self-actualization.

 

All this means is that teenagers have been listening carefully. They have been observing their parents in the larger culture with diligence and insight. They understand just how little their parents really believe and just how much many of their churches and Christian institutions have accommodated themselves to the dominant culture. They sense the degree to which theological conviction has been sacrificed on the altar of individualism and a relativistic understanding of truth. They have learned from their elders that self-improvement is the one great moral imperative to which all are accountable, and they have observed the fact that the highest aspiration of those who shape this culture is to find happiness, security, and meaning in life. https://albertmohler.com/2005/04/11/moralistic-therapeutic-deism-the-new-american-religion-2/

Chapter 2 of Christless Christianity: The Alternative Gospel of the American Church by Michael Horton (Baker, 2008) is devoted to this matter. He says this:

If our real problem is bad feelings, then the solution is good feelings. The cure can only be as radical as the disease. Like any recreational drug, Christianity Lite can make people feel better for the moment, but it does not reconcile sinners to God. Ironically, secular psychologists like Menninger are writing books about sin, while many Christian leaders are converting sin – a condition from which we cannot liberate ourselves – into dysfunction and salvation into recovery. (p. 36)

Ross Douthart’s Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics (Free Press, 2012) examined this in some detail. He writes:

The theology’s supposed “moralism,” meanwhile, is astonishingly weak. The God of MTD “is not demanding,” the authors note. “He actually can’t be, because his job is to solve our problems and make people feel good.” Therapeutic religion doesn’t call its adherents to prayer or repentance, to works of charity, or even the observance of a Sabbath. Instead, being a moral person “means being the kind of person that other people will like,” which is to say pleasant, respectful, well-behaved, and nondisruptive. Niceness is the highest ethical standard, popularity the most important goal, and high self-esteem the surest sign of sanctity….

 

A spirituality of niceness is not without its selling points. Therapeutic religion is immensely tolerant: since the only true God is the one you find within, there’s no reason to impose your faith on someone else. . . . In a diverse and pluralistic society, this kind of easygoing religion has obvious advantages. “Theologically speaking,” Damon Linker has written of Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, “this watered-down, anemic, insipid form of Judeo-Christianity is pretty repulsive. But politically speaking, it’s perfect: thoroughly anodyne, inoffensive, tolerant … [and) perfectly suited to serve as the civil religion of the highly differentiated twenty-first-century United States.”

 

Therapeutic religion’s intertwining goals of happiness and self-esteem, too, are not so easily dismissed. Even Rieff, whose book has the tone of a jeremiad, could understand the case for such a Faith. “I am aware that these speculations may be thought to contain some parodies of an apocalypse,” he wrote. “But what apocalypse has ever been so kindly? What culture has ever attempted to see to it that no ego is hurt?”

 

But a tolerant society is not necessarily a just one. Men may smile at their neighbors without loving them and decline to judge their fellow citizens beliefs out of a broader indifference to their Fate. An ego that’s never wounded, never trammeled or traduced—and that’s taught to regard its deepest impulses as the promptings of the divine spirit—can easily turn out to be an ego that never learns sympathy, compassion, or real wisdom. And when contentment becomes an end unto itself, the way that human contents express themselves can look an awful lot like vanity and decadence. (pp. 233-234)

In the book God in the Whirlwind (IVP, 2014), David Wells speaks to this in various places, including here:

[Church teenagers] see God as not demanding much from them because he is chiefly engaged in solving their problems and making them feel good. Religion is about experiencing happiness, contentedness, having God solve one’s problems and provide stuff like homes, the Internet, iPods, iPads, and iPhones.

 

This is a widespread view of God within modern culture, not only among adolescents but among many adults as well. It is the view of God most common in Western contexts. These are the contexts of brilliantly spectacular technology, the abundance churned out by capitalism, the enormous range of opportunities that we have, the unending choices in everything from toothpaste to travel, and the fact that we are now knowledgeable of the entire world into which we are wired. All of these factors interconnect in our experience and do strange things to the way we think. Most importantly, they have obviously done strange things to how we think about God. (p. 21)

More recently, Carl Trueman discussed such matters in some detail in The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution (Crossway, 2020). He also refers to Rieff, Smith and others. He writes:

I have noted this point numerous times in this book. Where a sense of psychological well-being is the purpose of life, therapy supplants morality—or, perhaps better, therapy is morality—and anything that achieves that sense of well-being is good, as long as it meets the rather weak condition that it does not inhibit the happiness of others, or that of a greater number of others. (p. 360)

And finally, writing just a week ago, Virgil Walker also latched on to this theme. He begins his article this way:

We’re drowning in podcasts, journaling tips, and feel-good sermons—yet anxiety, addiction, and despair are rising. Maybe the problem isn’t that we haven’t tried therapy. Maybe it’s that we’ve replaced truth with it. Jesus didn’t die to improve your vibe. He died to destroy your sin. He didn’t rise to boost your mood. He rose to crush death underfoot. He came to crucify your sin, not coddle your wounds.

 

But you wouldn’t know that in most churches today. The therapeutic gospel has taken over. It promises relief without repentance, comfort without conviction, and healing without the hard truth of holiness. It rebrands the risen Christ as a cosmic counselor whose main job is to affirm your worth and soothe your anxiety. That’s not the Gospel. That’s soul-numbing poison wrapped in church branding.

 

We’ve traded the narrow road for a spiritual spa. Sin is treated as a scar from your childhood, not rebellion against a holy God. Salvation is marketed as emotional balance, not deliverance from divine wrath. And pastors have become life coaches, more concerned with managing your moods than confronting your soul. The Gospel is not about making you feel seen. It’s about making you new.

 

You don’t need to be affirmed. You need to be reborn. Affirmation won’t save you from hell. Therapy won’t reconcile you to a holy God. Only a crucified Savior can do that. The real Gospel doesn’t whisper sweet nothings. It declares war on the old you. It demands death before offering life. It doesn’t simply want to heal your trauma. It wants to make you holy.

 

Jesus didn’t say, “Come to me all who are stressed and I will give you validation.” He said, “Take up your cross.” The therapeutic gospel has domesticated Christ, turning the Lion of Judah into a life coach with a latte. But the real Christ is a King. He doesn’t ask for your feelings. He demands your allegiance.

He concludes:

Modern sermons sound more like therapy sessions. Soft tones. Safe spaces. Platitudes wrapped in Scripture. The result? Churches full of people who feel better but aren’t born again. Who know how to process pain but not how to repent of sin. You don’t need another message that tells you, “You’re enough.” You need one that tells you, “You’re dead in sin—until Christ makes you alive.”

 

Self-esteem won’t carry you through judgment. Only grace will. But grace is never cheap. It cost the blood of Christ. And it calls you to come and die. The world doesn’t need more gentle affirmations. It needs a Gospel that wounds to heal, that convicts to cleanse, that crushes your pride so it can crown Christ.

 

The Gospel isn’t a mirror to admire yourself. It’s a sword to kill the old you and a key to the Kingdom of God. It doesn’t invite you to feel better. It commands you to bow. If your Jesus never confronts you, never corrects you, never calls you out of sin, then you’re not following the Jesus of Scripture. You’re following a therapeutic clone with no cross and no crown.

 

One gospel says: Follow your heart. The other says: Your heart is the problem. Follow Christ. Only one of them saves. The feel-good gospel can’t carry your pain, erase your guilt, or raise the dead. But the real Gospel can—and does. Not by telling you you’re fine. But by telling you the truth, calling you to die, and raising you to life. Repent. Believe. Follow Him. There is no other way. https://substack.com/home/post/p-164906362

When the world tells you that biblical Christianity is not what we need, but a good dose of therapy, hugs, pep talks and feel-good sessions, we expect that. We should NOT expect it in our churches, in our sermons, in our songs, and in our conferences.

It is simply another false gospel that we need to stay well clear of.

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