An interviewer of J.I. Packer noted the following from sociologist Christian Smith concerning the youth in evangelicalism today:

[Throughout] a five-year study of religious teens throughout America and some in Canada...he found they all have the same religious outlook on life: God wants me to be good; he wants us to be happy; he's there when we need him. But when you ask them who Jesus is, they can't say. They can't tell you the significance of the cross nor anything about the Trinity. He called it "moralistic, therapeutic deism."