The following article was originally published in French at SOLA, the Quebec chapter of TGC Canada. We are pleased to publish a translated version of it for our English readers.
Modern society seems to have put God on the back burner. In Canada, according to the 2021 census, the proportion of people identifying as Christians has declined from 67.3% in 2011 to 53.3% in 2021. Meanwhile, the percentage of Canadians claiming no religious affiliation has risen to 34.6%, reflecting a growing trend toward secularization. Although many experts view this as a temporary phenomenon, pointing to global projections that anticipate a future resurgence of religious belief alongside the decline of atheism and agnosticism, these figures nevertheless reveal a widening disconnect between our society and the vision of God presented in the Bible.
This phenomenon does not leave Christians untouched. The surrounding environment inevitably shapes both our worldview and our understanding of God. Yet there is encouraging news. According to the Still Christian? report, evangelicals are relatively well positioned to keep their eyes fixed on the God of the Bible. In fact, younger evangelicals demonstrate stronger engagement with both Christian belief and religious practice than previous generations.1
That is certainly cause for celebration, and it is true that we can observe signs of renewal among many young people. Nevertheless, we should not be naïve. While the younger generation in our churches appears more committed to Scripture than before—and young people generally display a certain openness toward the Bible—only 5% can truly be described as deeply engaged with the Scriptures.2
These findings reveal a troubling trend: a gradual disconnect between believers and the Word of God. Yet the understanding of Scripture inevitably shapes our vision of God, our calling as Christians, and our ability to navigate the primary, secondary, and tertiary doctrines of our faith. Against this backdrop, two competing visions of God emerge. On one side stands the God of the Bible: sovereign and transformative. On the other stands the “Marvel god”: individualistic and moralistic, fashioned by our contemporary culture. This contrast, which can sometimes find its way into our preaching, presents one of the greatest challenges facing the transmission of the faith, the cultivation of an authentically Christian vision, and a way of life firmly rooted in the gospel.
Who Is This “Marvel God”?
Researchers refer to this phenomenon as Moralistic Therapeutic Deism. To make the concept more accessible, we’ll call it the “Marvel god”. Although this vision of God may at times appear biblical, it is anything but. It rests on three key ideas: deism, therapeutic religion, and moralism. Let us take a closer look at each one.
Deism is a belief in a God who exists but remains distant and is rarely involved in human affairs. He created the world but acts as a spectator. Benjamin Franklin, one of the leading figures of the Enlightenment, illustrates this perspective well: he viewed God as the Creator, but not as an active agent in human affairs, and regarded religion primarily through a moral and social lens.3
Therapeutic Religion is a view in which God is centered on the individual, whose primary role is to secure our well-being, happiness, and personal fulfillment. This perspective echoes the ideas of the humanistic psychologist Carl Rogers, who saw self-actualization as humanity’s ultimate goal. In a religious context, when this paradigm is fused with faith, it produces a kind of pseudo-religion: a by-product of the idolatry of self, in which God is reduced to a domesticated deity whose sole purpose is to facilitate individual happiness.
By Moralism we mean a code of good behaviour: be nice, do good, and avoid doing wrong. In this view, there is no real inner transformation or genuine relationship with God. This vision is reminiscent of the ideas of Immanuel Kant, who regarded religion as a means of promoting universal morality. For Kant, God functioned more as the guarantor of a moral order than as a relational and redeeming Lord.
These Three Ideas Together Form the Marvel God
Taken together, these three concepts give rise to the Marvel god.
This “Marvel god”, much like a comic-book superhero, appears accessible and appealing, but is in reality nothing more than a caricature of the God of the Bible. He is both distant and near: we can invite him into our lives whenever we please, simply by sending him a signal, as though calling for a superhero. He is powerful, but not powerful enough to be Lord of our lives; he is our hero, but never our King. He becomes optional, a bonus that improves our lives, especially when things go wrong. He is the one who puts out fires, whether they are societal crises or the turmoil within our own hearts.
This “Marvel god” is our best friend, the one who helps us feel better. He understands us, listens to us, and seems concerned above all with our individuality and personal fulfillment. As a moral guide, he asks only that we love: be good people, pay kindness forward, and cultivate love through our actions. To develop these virtues, all we have to do is spend time with him.
This simplistic and utilitarian view of the divine may appear compelling, but it reduces God to a mirror of our own needs and aspirations instead of revealing the greatness of the One who truly is the Lord of the universe.
The Effect on Our Youth—and Us
The Effect on Our Youth
Our young people are growing up in a culture of expectation, where a superpower or a defining moment is supposed to unlock their destiny. Influenced by this worldview, they shape their understanding of God according to these cultural models. As a result, God loses his capital G and becomes the “Marvel god”.
When these young people reach adulthood, many run headlong into the harsh reality of real life and this “Marvel god” proves inadequate. They struggle to articulate their faith and find themselves confronting a society in crisis, with institutions that are indifferent—or even hostile—to the Christian faith.
Faced with this emptiness, some abandon the faith altogether or construct a worldview without God, turning back to him only as an occasional hero when they need him. Their outlook is not deeply Christian, leaving them without a solid framework for a life of discipleship.
Another major challenge facing today’s youth is the question of time. Whereas Jesus spent hours each day teaching his disciples, today’s young people are exposed to hundreds of hours each month of secular cultural influences transmitted through the media, educational institutions, and digital platforms. By comparison, religious activities—including church attendance and youth group participation—often amount to only a few hours each week at most. This imbalance makes it difficult for a coherent, deeply rooted biblical worldview to take shape in their everyday lives.
Furthermore, many of our parents and grandparents experienced the damage caused by a culture of Christian moralism and legalism. In response to this, they chose to pass on the faith by relying more on lived example than on verbally communicating a clearly articulated spiritual inheritance. The problem is that, in the absence of robust teaching, subtle messages from the world supplied the missing words.
The Effect on Us
We are hardly any different from our young people,4 and this “Marvel god” quietly slips into our sermons, our prayers, and our decisions. This threatens to turn the Christian faith into little more than a tool for personal development. It is true that the gospel can produce personal growth, but that growth is a consequence of the good news, not its primary goal. The danger lies not in personal development itself, but in pursuing personal development at the expense of the gospel, much like those who worship the creation rather than the Creator.
We have exchanged legalism and moralism for Moralistic Therapeutic Deism, which feels less oppressive, even appealing. But we must not be deceived: this movement is no less harmful. We are still living with the consequences of the previous movement among the previous generation: the Millennials.
Consider this sobering statistic: only about one in ten Canadian Millennials who grew up in church can be considered a disciple. Such a painfully low figure should compel us to exercise greater vigilance in the way we make disciples. Let us not respond to one extreme by embracing another. Instead, let us return to the Bible.
So Who Is the God of the Bible?
The God of the Bible is radically different from the “Marvel god”. He is not fashioned by our cultural aspirations, nor is he confined to our individual needs. He is almighty (omnipotent), the Creator of heaven and earth, the Alpha and the Omega, the One who holds the entire universe together in his hands (Col. 1:16–17). He is also omniscient: he already knows our needs before we express them. Unlike a god whom we summon only when we need him to fill the emptiness created by a post-secular society, God is always present (omnipresent), actively at work throughout human history and in our own lives. His purposes are always accomplished.
In contrast to the “Marvel god,” the God of the Bible reveals himself through his character, not his usefulness. Consider the following aspects of God’s character.
- Omnipotent and omnipresent: Jeremiah 32:17 declares, “Ah, Lord GOD! It is you who have made the heavens and the earth by your great power and by your outstretched arm! Nothing is too hard for you.”
- Omniscient and immutable: “Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure” (Ps. 147:5). Malachi 3:6 likewise declares, “For I the LORD do not change.”
- Holy and just: “Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!” (Isa. 6:3). Deuteronomy 32:4 describes him as “a God of faithfulness and without iniquity.”
- Loving, merciful, and gracious: God is love (1 John 4:8), rich in steadfast love and mercy (Psalm 103:8), offering salvation freely by grace (Eph. 2:8).
- Eternal, sovereign, and faithful: “From everlasting to everlasting you are God” (Ps. 90:2). His faithfulness never fails, as 2 Timothy 2:13 reminds us: “if we are faithless, he remains faithful—for he cannot deny himself.”
The God of the Bible does not act merely to meet our immediate needs. Rather, like the master Artist that he is, he attends to every detail and works toward profound transformation. He calls us to a life of justice, peace, and love, rooted in his character and his Kingdom (Micah 6:8). Unlike the narrow, utilitarian vision of the “Marvel god”, he is not here simply to satisfy our desires, but to bring harmony out of chaos through the relationship he freely offers us under the banner of his grace.
Ultimately, the God of the Bible is not a hero whom we summon on demand. He is the King of kings, worthy of our worship, our obedience, and our trust. His power extends far beyond resolving our personal crises; he is at work establishing an everlasting Kingdom where righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit reign (Rom. 14:17). He does not call us to relegate him to the background of our lives, but to offer him our whole lives (Luke 9:23).
So how do we recover a clear vision of the God of the Bible? The good news is we don’t need to reinvent the wheel. We close with three exhortations.
1. Repentance
The church must first acknowledge its shortcomings in passing on the faith and call for repentance, both corporate and personal. Renewal begins by returning to God in humility and prayer: “God, show us your face, and strip away the false images we have made of you and of the gospel.”
2. Put the Bible Back at the Centre
In its entirety, from Genesis to Revelation. Every passage contains immeasurable riches, telling the story of God and humanity.
Let us rediscover inductive Bible study, which begins by asking, “What does the text actually say?” Let us also prioritize expository preaching, where the message arises naturally from the text itself rather than from predetermined themes imposed upon it.
Likewise, let us recover a life of prayer rooted in Scripture and nourished by two thousand years of Christian spiritual heritage.
Let us also revisit our creeds and confessions of faith.The God of the Bible vs. the “Marvel god”. A creed forms believers by answering the question:
“What should a Christian in our church be, know, and do in order to be considered a mature follower of Christ?”
Confessions of faith, meanwhile, clarify what we believe in the face of cultural challenges.
3. Relationships
Disciple-making is fundamentally relational, whether one-on-one or in community. We grow through our conversations and through the mutual encouragement we give one another.
It is through the story of my brother and my sister in Christ that I rediscover the greatness of God.
In the face of the “Marvel god”, let us return to what matters most: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” (Col. 3:16).
May we teach and admonish one another, and may we grow together in wisdom and grace so that we might increasingly reflect the character of God and faithfully pass on a living, authentic faith to the next generation.
1 Young evangelicals (aged 18–34) are more likely to be “religiously committed” than their elders (39% compared to 20% for those 55 and older). Cardus, “Still Christian(?),” 2024, 14–15.
2 Barna Group, The Open Generation, Vol. 2: How Teens Around the World View the Bible (Barna Group, 2022), 38.
3 Pascal Bajou, “Franklin croyait à un monde meilleur,” La chaîne d’union 44, no. 2 (2008): 15–16, DOI: 10.3917/cdu.044.0015
4 According to the Cardus report, “The Bible and Us”, nearly two-thirds of Christians who have a Bible in the home claim to rarely or never read it. The average time individuals spend reading the Bible sits at just 17 minutes, even though evangelicals have an overall better understanding of the Scriptures. Cardus, “The Bible and Us: Canadians and Their Relationship with Scripture” (Cardus, 2023), 30.
