2 of 2

Since even Linker admits that MTD is not good for traditional Christianity, the question at stake is whether traditional Christianity is good for America. No observer of American religion, culture, and politics has since surpassed Alexis de Tocqueville, the Frenchman who visited the United States during the early 1800s. Tocqueville makes clear that the diversity Linker describes today is no new phenomenon. Blogging for The American Scene, James Poulos quotes Tocqueville's observation about the link between religion and freedom.

"When there is no authority in religion or in politics, men are soon frightened by the limitless independence with which they are faced," Tocqueville wrote in Democracy in America. "They are worried and worn out by the constant restlessness of everything. With everything on the move in the realm of the mind, they want the material order at least to be firm and stable, and as they cannot accept their ancient beliefs again, they hand themselves over to a master. For my part, I doubt whether man can support complete religious independence and entire political liberty at the same time. I am led to think that if he has no faith he must obey, and if he is free he must believe."

So what, then, is the connection between belief and freedom? Take free markets for example. Our current economic malaise reveals what happens when accountability wanes and selfishness reigns. The federal government has responded with plans to enforce stricter regulations. Of course, not even a large and complex federal government can effectively ensure ethical practice by American corporations. Federal agencies can't even track the billions they have already distributed to these banks. If markets will be truly free, then traders and fund managers must be governed by higher principles that restrain their sinful impulses toward lying and greed. Otherwise the markets will be enslaved to manipulative forces.

For the purposes of restraining sin and promoting the common good, MTD is useless. Those previously disposed to ethical behavior need no vapid creed that tells them to be good, nice, and fair. For those who seek selfish gain by any means, MTD offers no compelling alternative. Smith and Denton write, "What we hardly ever heard from teens was that religion is about significantly transforming people into, not what they feel like being, but what they are supposed to be, what God, or their ethical tradition wants them to be."

If orthodox Christianity gives way to MTD, American public life may further degenerate into a feel-good free-for-all. No merely civil religion, especially one shaped by MTD, can long sustain a free republic by itself. A nation committed only to liberty and the pursuit of happiness will be left wondering why life is so unfulfilling.

Collin Hansen is a CT editor at large and author of Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist's Journey with the New Calvinists.

Copyright © 2009 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Previous Theology in the News columns are available on our site.

Christianity Today and Books & Culture earlier looked at Soul Searching and Moralistic Therapeutic Deism.

first page |  2 of 2

share this page

April (Web-only) 2009, Vol. 53