In her book, Almost Christian: What the Faith of Our Teenagers is Telling the Church, Kenda C. Dean presented a window to view the current position of American teenagers in regards to religious devotion. The National Study of Youth and Religion (NSYR) greatly inspired writings of Dean in this book. After nine chapters, through conveying how American teenagers a practice a substitute religious outlook rather than the true religion, through presenting specific teenagers who seriously practice their religion according to the peculiar God-story they possessed and the community they abide, and through teaching methods on how to cultivate consequential faith, Dean made a personal impact in my life. Subsequently, I have a new perspective …show more content…
In addition, she taught different methods to how the church can aid teenagers in Moralistic Therapeutic Deism to translate to “the trust walk of Christian faith.” She covered her points throughout her book in a threefold manner. First, she discussed “Worshipping at the Church of Benign Whatever-ism” in two chapters. In this part, she covered how plenty of teenagers found themselves as Moralistic Therapeutic Deists: they view religion as a virtuous system; however, they do not view the articulated creeds of that faith. For instance, they believe religion can make one nice, but they fail to see the necessity of Jesus Christ as the religion preaches. One reason that plenty of adolescents practice this substitution of Christianity, Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, is not that “they have misunderstood what we have [Christian teacher] taught them in church.” Rather, according to chapter 2, “they practice it because this is what we have taught them in church.” In the same chapter, she argued that there must be a change for the Moralistic Therapeutic Deist to be Christian: he or she must go from niceness to holiness. Not all young people,