“Do I exist for God or does God exist for me?”

That’s the question that animates Dean Inserra’s new book, Getting Over Yourself: Trading Believe-in-Yourself Religion for Christ-Centered Christianity (Moody). He identifies a new kind of prosperity gospel that promises earthly success along with spiritual abundance. But he can find no such Christianity in the Bible. Dean writes:

In a therapeutic society, the achievement of self-fulfillment with God’s apparent stamp of approval is the perfect recipe for Christians to desire the things of this world while still feeling as if they are close to Jesus and he is very pleased. It appeases our need to know God isn’t mad at us while giving us license to continue on making much of ourselves.

So what’s his alternative? Dean joined me on Gospelbound to discuss the divide between seminary classrooms and popular Christianity, Instagram as instigator in crisis counseling, and why he doesn’t think God wants us to be happy—or at least to settle for the Juicy Fruit gum of this world and 30 seconds of pleasure.

“What you think makes you happy is really the world with a big billboard saying, ‘Run to me instead of running to the Lord,'” Dean told me. “And that’s not a happiness that God by any means would define as right for his people.”