The Sean McDowell Show - Is "New Thought" A Cause for Concern? (Melissa Dougherty Speaks Out)

Episode Date: January 21, 2025

There is a rising movement–which few people are familiar with–sweeping across the world known as New Thought. What is it? And how concerned should we be? Former New Ager, Melissa Dougherty, joins me to discuss her soon-to-be released book Happy Lies, and why Christians need to wake up to the New Thought movement. READ: Happy Lies: How a Movement You (Probably) Never Heard Of Shaped Our Self-Obsessed World by Melissa Dougherty (https://amzn.to/3BG93Sz) *Get a MASTERS IN APOLOGETICS or SCIENCE AND RELIGION at BIOLA (https://bit.ly/3LdNqKf) *USE Discount Code [SMDCERTDISC] for 25% off the BIOLA APOLOGETICS CERTIFICATE program (https://bit.ly/3AzfPFM) *See our fully online UNDERGRAD DEGREE in Bible, Theology, and Apologetics: (https://bit.ly/448STKK) FOLLOW ME ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Twitter: https://twitter.com/Sean_McDowell TikTok: @sean_mcdowell Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/seanmcdowell/ Website: https://seanmcdowell.org

You've heard of the New Age movement, but have you heard of New Thought? According to our guest today, Melissa Daugherty, author of the new book, Happy Lies, New Thought has seeped into the church through books, influencers, and some pastors, and has led countless Christians astray. Melissa says we need to wake up because this movement is rooted in subtle, dangerous lies. Great to have you back. I was honored to endorse your book and I'm really eager to dive in. So thanks for joining me.

Yeah, thanks for having me on and thanks for reading and endorsing the book. Happy to do it. It really fits a unique need and angle in the church. I've heard of New Age, but when you sent me the manuscript, it was quite literally the first time I had heard of New Thought. So if I haven't heard of it and I track these things, I'm guessing there's a whole lot of people not as familiar with this as they need to be. Now, we're going to get into what it is, your concerns about it, but let's go back and just remind our audience of your backstory becoming a Christian at 16, because I think it really frames your understanding and motivation to dive into this.

So tell us about becoming a Christian as a teenager. Yeah, so real quick about my upbringing, a single mom, three kids, and we went to church pretty sporadically, but we would grow up, we grew up hearing about scriptures and Jesus. And it's also really important to understand that I grew up in a household where spiritual experiences were looked at as a, almost like a higher spiritual plane. Right. So I grew up hearing kind of crazy stories, you know, things that would happen to my mom, things that I have seen. And it made me kind of look at spirituality, maybe a little different than most Christians, but I wouldn't say I grew up in a Christian household. Fast forward, I'm 16. I'm in a pretty dark place. And I was contemplating suicide. I was not in a good place at all.

And I ended up going to a party, hearing the gospel at a party. And the guy was like pretty buzzed. And it was the love of God in that moment though. I mean, I grew up hearing about God, hearing about Jesus, the power of Jesus, the power within ourselves. Didn't really have anything to stick on that though. I was, I just grew up hearing it, but it was then that, that moment had my attention because I was down in the dumps and it was that I needed to hear about the forgiveness of God. And Sean, it radically changed my life. I went to bed that night. I don't remember driving home, but I remember waking up the next day and I remember sitting up in my bed for the first time sleeping, by the way, and probably over a month or so, like weeks. And I sat up in my bed.

I'm like, oh, oh, this is different. The light was brighter. Smells smelled differently. Colors were different. I had a hunger to eat better, to take care of myself. I didn't want to cuss anymore. I felt new. And I remember thinking that I'm like, whoever this person was yesterday

is dead. That's how I felt. And I had never even heard of new creation, new birth, born again. I didn't really know what that was. I felt it before I read it in scripture. I experienced it before I saw it in the word. But the number one thing I had was an insatiable hunger, insatiable hunger to know, tell me more, give me a Bible, explain this stuff to me. I want to know more and more and more and more. And I remember turning on way he spoke and talked. I even, I remember seeing Joyce Meyer, all the, I had no idea who they were. I was like, oh, but they're talking about God. I'm so excited and radically changed my life. From that point on, I was completely different. I didn't feel the depression, suicidal thoughts. It was just poof. Some people don't have that, but for me, that is my story. And it is what that is. And I love it.

I love that part of my story. But then there is problems that happen. And this is kind of where all of this plays a part. The internet kind of wasn't what it was today. And I never even heard of the word apologetics. And I've always been kind of annoyingly inquisitive. I've always had these questions. And maybe I learn differently than other people, but I didn't understand a lot.

I accepted this gospel and I wanted to know more, but I didn't understand some of it. I didn't understand this Bible. I mean, I don't understand this culture. What is this? What is he talking about with wineskins? What does that even mean? You know, the temple, why do they have to sacrifice uh animals i don't i don't get this what about hell and the old testament all that wrath and dark stuff i don't really know what to do with that and um the problem i had at that

point maybe it was the christians i was around but you're talking about a year of me being a christian asking these questions to different groups of Christians, getting unnecessary pushback about my questions. And Christians just started to sound really cynical to me. I was like, there it, to be thoughtful about these sorts of things. And it was around, it took a long time, you know, but over time, there were teachings that I had grown up with that seemed to fill in those gaps beautifully. It dealt with the wrath of this God of wrath oh well you know they're just writing from a human perspective actually God is all love and so if you can't view scripture through this

lens of love um or what resonates with you then it's actually not true oh oh and and speaking this verse right here talking about you know Jesus uh asking and believing and speaking, this verse right here, talking about, you know, Jesus asking and believing and speaking and having enough faith to have whatever you want. Oh, he's basically saying here that you have this inner power within you that can make those things happen. You're just like Jesus. He's just like you. And he's here to show us how we can use this power within us to do exactly what he did and more. And so, I mean, you're hearing all these things.

And I mean, I'm looking behind me right now at my shelf of these books that talk about Jesus, that quote scripture, and they're old and they're very mysterious. And I ate it up. I didn't read all of them, but I'm, I'm flipping through them. And there's one that I'm looking at right now about prosperity, you know, and it's talking about the law of prosperity. Um, you have the sermon on the Mount. I mean, you're talking about things that look and sound biblical and they're very mystical. They're very mysterious and very spiritual. They just sounded like super, super Christianity. Okay. And so, I mean, this stuff starts to seep in and all of a sudden I start becoming this really open-minded and tolerant Christian. I went to church though,

at this time, this is kind of important. I went to church this whole time, uh, volunteered. I was deeply involved and I still had this really odd theology that I thought was Christianity, but it was just a higher, more spiritually elevated version of it. And so I kind of looked at all these other christians just as peasants you know like the cockroach christians that don't get it you know they're taking that bible way too literally they just they need to open their mind they need to open up their their heart to this and um i probably would have looked at somebody like you as oh he's really nice but he doesn't get it like he's just he's not there yet that's how I would have seen it all

right I mean just to put it simply you know in a minute ago I said that you would that we could use these spiritual forces that Jesus taught to get whatever we wanted it wasn't really that simple it was it was about love that was the way it was framed and postured is that in the spirit realm, whatever it is that you show love for, you're in essence changing the vibrational frequency of the world around you. So it was just whatever you felt love for and whatever you had this positive vibe for, if you will, is what you attracted to yourself. And so you had to show this, you had to basically control your feelings, your thoughts, and your emotions in order to bring that into your life. And there was just Bible scriptures galore to, to back that up. And then to make an even longer story, maybe

longer or shortish, depending on where you're at right now. Um, this all kind all came down and catapulted down in around 2011 when I had a one-year-old. And changing kids really changes things because you start kind of revisiting certain things in your life that are important to you. And I started doing that. At this point, I was really, really into these teachings. I was into things like the law of attraction, manifesting, visualizing, and more. Pretty occultic stuff that I didn't realize was occultic at the time. I wanted to invoke my own spirit guide. I remember actually having experiences, occultic spiritual experiences that just were not enough for me. I wanted more of that. It made me feel powerful. And so, but I still had these questions. Isn't it strange how all this time went by and I still had these questions and lo and behold, two Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door.

And I'm thinking, everybody just basically believes in the same thing. And that's a whole other story. But they challenged what I believed in a very strange way, which caused me to research their religion. And while I'm doing that, I simultaneously had to learn, oh, what they teach is against the Bible. Okay. But if the Bible's true, then what I'm teaching is against the Bible, you know? And it was just all this simultaneous stuff that was happening. And it all came crashing down when I realized that the Bible taught this thing called, or it's a concept called the serpent's lie.

That's the oldest lie in the book, literally, to all of mankind is that you could be divine, that you could be like God. And when I realized that, I was shocked. I was embarrassed. I'm like, how could I have fallen for this? I've been going to church all these years. I have been involved with other Christians and I've never heard of this thing called the serpent's lie about this divine lie. And so that was what did it for me. And I leaned into it. I started learning more. Apologetics was a thing at this point. I realized what that was. And it's funny to see where I'm at now because the apologists that have been around since then, you know, you, Frank, Lee, Lee Strobel,

like all these other people that have been around, I started looking into, and I wasn't completely satisfied at first with maybe some of the answers, but as time been around, I started looking into and I wasn't completely satisfied at first with maybe some of the answers. But as time went on, I learned more. And that was so long ago, gosh, 14 years ago. And I've come a long way up until around four years ago, when I started YouTube. And then up until around a year and a half now, maybe when I realized that what I really was in was not new age. Because when I heard that serpent's lie, they're like, oh, this is the new age lie. And all these beliefs were under this umbrella of new age. I'm like, oh my, I was in the new age. But I wasn't. I wasn't. Because I started realizing

even after I got out, people are like, oh, Melissa, Melissa, how cool you're an ex new ager. Wow. Is this new age? And they would give me some sort of teaching or belief like a Reiki. I remember somebody asked me about Reiki. I'm like, I don't I've never heard of that before. What is that? And then somebody asked me, is yoga a new age? I'm like like isn't that just exercise like i had no idea that yoga would have been considered considered new age um sacred geometry like all these things i'm like i i think i was in i was over here i was in this kind of belief system and so i thought it was all the same thing and then it took me years to realize and i I kind of stumbled upon it, that these two things are fundamentally different. One's made to look Christian. The other would not say that they

are Christian in origin. They have similarities, but they are two different movements. And it was then that I realized, oh, this is going to get Christians before the new age ever will, because it took me a long time to even see that's really what I was even in. And I've been in ministry for over a decade. And so that's a long maybe explanation, but yes, that's the beginning. Yeah. That's the beginning and how I ended up to where I am now. We're going to unpack this distinction that you've drawn out between new age and new thought, but your story really is what motivates me day by day to do what I do. Somebody has a genuine born-again experience, their new creation turns to the church with questions, and rather than encouraged and

given theology and apologetics and worldview books to deepen their faith, is discouraged, so other lies seep in. Now, oftentimes your story ends up in a deconstruction towards deconversion, but you hung in there, ultimately found some of the answers that you were looking for. Of course, now we're an apologist. Now, for those watching, go, and I've got more questions about melissa's story go to her youtube channel i'll link below we did a deep dive on her story maybe year year and a half ago but let's pick up where you left off this distinction between new age and between new thought flush that out a little bit more for us yeah this is probably one of the biggest starting points with this entire topic.

And that's why I start the whole book with this. Like, where did this come from? And let's define some terms. So again, there's a whole chapter on this, but I'm going to make it very simple and brief. Think of two different buckets of beliefs. Let's start with the new age bucket. All right. What goes into that bucket of beliefs?

And what I would say that's uniquely in there is chakras, sacred geometry, third eye, psychic mediums, tarot cards. It's very pantheistic where new thought would be more panentheistic, which in my opinion is just a cop-out. We'll get to that in just a second. But pantheistic, everything is divine. Everything is God. You have this Mother Earth worship. You have reincarnation, karma, past lives.

It's more, and this is really important, when it comes to the roots of New Age, it's more rooted in Hinduism and Buddhism, whereas New Thought is rooted more in Gnosticism. And so these are two separate, even on a map, separate things when it comes to the core roots of those beliefs. And that's just a short list. I could probably go more into that. You have ancient aliens, uh, in, in the sixties, there was a big, when people think of new age, they think of the sixties and they probably should, because that's where a lot of really new agey type of beliefs came from, but also drug use. You would use drugs to have this psychedelic experience to maybe perhaps have

a spiritual experience. Astral projection would be considered more new age. And then this one, there's some overlap with this one, but spirit guides where you say you're a psychic medium, all right, and you're giving a reading or you're doing your tarot cards and somebody's in front of you and they ask a question to you, you would have the spirit relay the information to you. I never experienced that. I went to a psychic once and thought it was biblical. I thought they were just like different types of prophets. And so, I mean, that's what that is. There's a lot more. There's probably a longer list. It's not exhaustive. Now to pivot, when I'm talking about new thought, I just wrote an entire script

about the differences between new age and new thought. So keep a lookout for that and it will go into way more depth. But I'm keeping it simple with the differences here. But new thought, when I'm defining the terms, the short, the list is actually kind of short. And I'll explain why in a second. You have affirmations, manifestation, visualization. You have power of positive thinking, speaking things into existence. Faith is power, right? So faith is like a tangible thing that you can create your reality with. Christ consciousness

is a big, people think that's new age. It's not, it's new thought. And then law of attraction, that's new thought, not necessarily new age. And that's a short list. However, because new thought is made to look Christian, if I were to sum up new thought in a word, it would be metaphysics,ysical metaphysical christianity this is actually the name they have for themselves because it's a higher more evolved more spiritual version of the christianity that you have because you're the peasant you're the cockroach christian that doesn't get it right like? Like you're down here. They're up here. They have a more evolved spiritual understanding of what the Bible says.

And so when I say metaphysical, that's what I mean. It's like Christianity on spiritual steroids. And so when they look at the Bible, they wouldn't discard it. They would redefine it, including who God is, that God is completely love. Even the definition of love is different. Love is a spiritual power. So whenever you're loving, you're using the most powerful vibrational frequency in the universe. And it makes you feel very powerful um and so like Christ Consciousness I mentioned that before uh the best way that I'm going to define what metaphysical Christianity means is by defining Christ Consciousness which is uh when we

hear the word Christ you and I think of that as, oh, it's the anointed one. It's the Messiah. New thought would agree with that. They'd say, yes, amen. There's two different meanings though of what we mean. And when we hear that and we think Messiah, we think the unique son of God, the only Messiah, the anointed one, the one to save mankind, God in the flesh, uniquely God in the flesh. That's not how they see it. When they hear Christ, when New Thought is talking about this metaphysical belief, think of Jesus as a man who's just like us in every way, who obtained the Christ. So Jesus and Christ are not the same thing. They are not used interchangeably.

Christ is the inner dormant divinity that he awakened. And that in that posture was how he could heal, was how he could do miracles, was how he could do any sort of supernatural power because he awakened the Christ within. And only in this awakened space can we understand the Bible. So if you have the Christ within, the inner divinity, the divine spark, then only with those awakened eyes can you read scripture and think wow that resonates with me what does this verse mean to me actually became popular starting with how new thought defined scripture and in a sentence i would explain new thought as the positive thinking movement in america Jesus as its mascot. And the short way, yeah, like that's just in a sentence, the best way to put it. And, and the short way that I could define new thought is because it's not just a list of,

oh, they believe this. It's a redefinition of Christianity in Christian terms. Just take every Christian term that you can think of, atonement, born again, salvation, justification, whatever it is that you could think of, even love, anything in that regard, and redefine it with a metaphysical definition, and you basically have new thought. So when you say the power of positive thinking, there's a difference between being optimistic and believing in yourself. That kind of positive thinking has value, but there's a difference in saying positive thinking that's tapping into some kind of metaphysical power. That's where new thought goes. Now, maybe this distinction will help, although this is different. When you have in

the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, God was once a man. So human beings who follow the Mormon script, men, can become God. So the difference between me and God is not one in kind it's one in degree yeah so here with new thought Jesus is not different in terms of kind he just happened to be a human being who better tapped into the Christ consciousness that all of us have so we should look at him like a guru and a model of what we also can attain rather than someone we uniquely worship, put our faith in, and trust for salvation. Is that fair? Yes. You are just as much the Christ as Jesus is, is what they will tell you.

Which is as egregious as the first lie in New Age that one can become like God. Now, this distinction, New Age going back to like the serpent's lie at the beginning, but it's rooted in Eastern beliefs. Gnosticism at the heart of a lot of new thought is also not new. This is arguably one of the first challenges and maybe the late first, second century that Christians were pushing back as well. So it's also not a new light. Also has ancient roots in a sense,

but is seeping in a little bit differently today. Now maybe walk, since you mentioned Gnosticism and panentheism, at the root of any belief system is the character of God is where it starts. So maybe just unpack that a little bit, what you mean by Panentheism. I know what Gnosticism means. There's a sense of there's a secret knowledge and the material is bad and we have to escape the material world. So my thinking can help me transcend the physical limited world. But talk a little bit more of what you mean by panentheism and how it plays in a new thought. Yeah. So in early new thought writings, they would have said they were pantheists but then as it evolved they're like oh no we're not pantheists because god isn't everything but god is in everything and i i gotta be honest with you sean i did i tried to do a deep dive on panentheism and the best way that i can

describe it okay is you have pantheism which teaches the best way that I can describe it, okay, is you have pantheism, which teaches that God is everything, this microphone, you, me, I mean- Monism, no distinction. There's no distinction, exactly. We have pantheism, which is like a monism, you know, if you want to get real technical. And then you have theism. And I see panentheism as being a unholy marriage of these two things that can't mix so it's like they're trying to take this this idea of god being everything and saying no there's a distinction that god isn't in god isn't everything but god is in everything and i gotta be honest part of me finds that very confusing but they differentiate themselves with

this and this is where like the whole divine spark thing comes in from within and gnosticism i'm really glad that you hashed that out a little bit more because this is it's very important to understand that no that's nothing new and that's actually in the new testament john warned about this um and and i think it's first chapter 4. I think it's in chapter 4. He's talking about testing the spirits. A lot of Christians know that verse. Hey, test the spirits. Make sure that they can say that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. Anything else is anti-Christ. I'm paraphrasing. And what's talking about he's he's writing that letter to a church that had been highly influenced by gnosticism and this is why new thought claims to be christian is

that it does go they claim to be authentically christian the the better version of christianity the correct version of christianity and so yeah the that aspect, I think that it's honestly kind of a cop-out. And that's how they would differentiate themselves from being pantheists because it's, it's more than that. It's that, yeah, we're part of this God. He's within us or it's within us. And that we can tap into that on some level. If we can overcome this thing called the mind.

And that's where the distinction between spirit and body, material and spirit, is very important to understand with new thought, because the definition is in the name. It's a new way of thinking. It's about the power of your mind. Well, then how do you, how do you invoke any sort of spiritual power at all? It's by overcoming the mind. It's by control, not controlling it, maybe even stilling it, but it's pushing it towards this, this positive frequency, this love frequency, this higher frequency that will bring things forth in the spiritual realm that will manifest in this in the physical realm so I mean maybe that's a longer answer for that but it's it's the way that I see panentheism or the way that I describe it in that

level and how it kind of makes sense with new thought and its roots in Gnosticism. Well, if it brings you any solace, I find panentheism confusing as well and hard to fully grasp. And I get the impression there's a lot of people who identify as panentheists who mean different things by it. And some maintain the distinction of creation and creator, some don't. But as we go back to the garden, God speaks creation into existence. He's authoritative over it. He's sovereign over it. It's ontologically dependent and distinct from him. Both panentheism and pantheism start to merge and lose God as a distinct creator.

And so that has implications for things like prayer, right? So what would prayer look like or what would be the purpose of prayer in New Thought when it's merging with this panentheist view of God? Yeah. So this, remember, you're taking all these definitions and you're having a metaphysical definition. This is probably one area where Christians are the most surprised because new thought prayers are called affirmations. They're called affirmative prayers, where whenever you're praying, you are, and now let me put it this way. When I used to pray, I would close my eyes and I would put out what I thought were powerful vibrational frequencies that would go

out and affect the world around me, right? So if I'm, whatever it is that I'm praying for, but you would never ask. You don't ask. You don't sit there and say, I want to be well. I want to be healthy. I want this job. You don't do that. You say, I have this job. I am healthy. I am well. It's affirmative. You're speaking in the now because that's what you're trying to mirror. Your words and your thoughts have creative power because that's what it is. If you can control this up here, you will, in essence, control the outcome of it because, and this goes all the way back to the idea that you are inherently good and divine because the space that that's coming from is the consciousness, the divine consciousness

within that Jesus had. And if he can do it, you can do it. And some they'll quote, I think it's John 15, um, where he's talking about, you know, that what you'll, you'll do what Jesus did and more, I'm paraphrasing again, and they use that same scripture and, uh, it's, it's believing speaking, and then you will receive. And that's the formula for that, for affirmative prayer. And it's hard not to talk about affirmative prayer without talking about the law of attraction, because they go hand in hand. You practice the law of attraction, which is basically the belief that thoughts become things. And this was a this plowed through our culture a few years ago,

and it's still very much alive and well with manifesting, visualizing. Somebody sent me this article yesterday. I'm going to make a whole video about it with Gen Z, how they are just manifesting their lives. And I'm like, man, this stuff is still very, very much alive. This is a new thought. And this was the secret, right? The video, the secret 12, 15 years ago. I used to show it to my students and we would break it down and talk about it and compare and contrast it. So that video's faded, but these ideas are alive and well. Very alive and well. And and well and it's interesting

because in the beginning the documentary came out first and then the book did and the book that so the book that came out yeah the book came out second the documentary was first and she says in the beginning that my i was i was devastated i was going through this horrible thing in my life everything was bad everything was going wrong but little did i know it was the. I was going through this horrible thing in my life. Everything was bad. Everything was going wrong. But little did I know it was the way I was thinking about things. My daughter handed me this 100-year-old book that was by this man named Wallace Waddles was his name. And it's called The Science of Getting Rich.

And it's a new thought book. And she reads it, learns about the power of her thoughts, and regurgitates the information from that book into the secret. It's a new thought teaching. And it's basically your thoughts become things. What you think and what you speak and what you believe will happen. And everything that people talk about in changing the way they think has to do with two basic things poverty uh prosperity and and health and so if you can change the way that you're thinking and change that posture then

by the power of your mind and the power of the vibrational frequencies around you you will manifest that into your life so yeah there's there's that and're going to have to bring me back. Where did we start with this? Because there's so much to say. No, no, no. You're doing great. We're talking about prayer and you qualified the difference. Yes. Okay. Well, so one of the ways you frame this is, I mean, I don't say this a lot, but I think this idea of prayer coming through new thought is demonic. And here's why. You said it's about control. Here's what I want. Send out frequencies and I'm controlling the process and controlling the results. Now, prayer biblically, of course, we are praising God in prayer. We can supplication ask for things. There's nothing wrong with that in principle,

but there's also a sense of thy will be done where we're giving up control. And of course, the huge difference is in new thought, the reason you don't ask for things is there's not a person that you're talking with. So it's not really prayer at all. It's like using the word prayer, but prayer in the Judeo-Christian tradition is we are speaking to a person God, or of course, in the case of Christianity, one God, three persons, but is it a personal interaction? That's completely missing. So we see this in a whole lot of cults and whether or not really quickly, would you use the term cult for new thought or would you not use it? I would more use occult. Okay.

It's I think that anything can really be cultish to a point depending on whether they allow critical thinking. Um, and there are no leaders to kind of, they're not going to tell you, Hey, you can't, um, research this person and find out, you know, negative things against them. I wouldn't say it's a cult in that, a cult in that sense, but I do believe it is a cultic and it does have a tendency to shut down critical thinking. And interestingly christian science is probably the one that most people watching might be familiar with that they've heard of before christian science would actually be a textbook cult that was a branch from new thought from the new thought movement she broke away became very dogmatic, frankly, insufferable.

People just- Mary Baker Eddy, right? Mary Baker Eddy, yes. She became the founder of Christian science. I left that part out, yes. She broke off and started her own denomination and it was Christian science. And it is a textbook cult.

You can actually go back and do that. But that's why they broke off is that new, the new thought movement did not want to be dogmatic. They wanted to break away from fundamentalist Christianity. And she kind of went that way, except with new thought teachings and beliefs. So, but no, I wouldn't necessarily label it a cult. I would label it, um, some wiggity whack spirituality that will deceive you and is a cultic and can really mess with your critical thinking capabilities, but I wouldn't label it that at this point. So when we talk about a cult, there can be certain sociological effects like you

described in terms of resisting critical thinking, but then theologically, cult is often used to say it's something that spins off of Christianity, but claims to be so. Like Jehovah's Witness is a clear example of a cult. So maybe Christian science, and I had not thought about this before, Melissa, as I would have characterized it as new age, is that it's called Christian science. And it's neither Christian nor science. It's claiming to be Christian, hence it's an a cult, but it's more new thought than it is new age. That's a really helpful distinction. By the way, back to the, on the secret, this is important for people to see. And there's a whole nother conversation is

how these laws, these things are so appealing because I find ironic that it's called new thought. And yet in that video, it's like, here's a hundred year old book. It's like, wait a minute, is this something new where you're getting this Gnostic secret insight, or does it have ancient roots that people have missed? It's like it's trying to play both hands, so to speak, both cards. And you also see in that video, like the veneer of science, like they talk about quantum physics and quantum mechanics, which draws people into it. So we will come back to that, but it's important in this conversation for people just to realize this is true for anything that we believe. What makes it attractive? Why is,

in fact, I want to come back to what the gospel is, but let me, since we're here right now, what do you think makes this so attractive? Is it that, I mean, your title is happy lies. Is it a lie that just makes somebody feel good, gives them what they want kind of in this American context? Why is this so appealing? And did I miss any of the things behind it that are used to kind of draw people to new thought way of thinking? Yeah, this is interesting. Yeah. Cause that, that is kind of part of the title is that they are happy lies. And there's so many reasons and so many things that I personally find why people find it appealing. But for me personally, I was intoxicated with these beliefs, not because I thought they were

biblical, thought that they were unbiblical, but it was because I thought they were, I thought that these, these were basically a more powerful way for me to live out my Christianity. Like, what, what are you talking about? What do you mean that there's this, this secret spiritual power that we have, you know? And so there's, there's a lust for power, for control. And that kind of segues me into another topic that I think we're doing better at as a church. But Christians, your channel, my channel, look at all the Christian YouTubers. We are a testament to how many Christians out there who are hungry to want to know deeper things about the Bible. And the churches, pastors, man, pray for your pastors. I mean, they can only do so much, you know, but it is their job to relate to

you scripture in its entirety. You know, even whether they go verse by verse and it takes 10 years, I mean, so be it. But there's a level of responsibility we both have, all of us have. It's my responsibility to have read my Bible and to try to have understood it from the context, but there's also a responsibility of discipleship. And so there was an intellectual appeal. Whenever you talk about quantum physics quantum mechanics I'm like oh this isn't just biblical it's scientific ooh ah you know I'm like man my thoughts have power you're telling me that what I'm thinking right now affects the food that I'm eating can affect this situation over here man that makes me

feel powerful oh and there's science to back it up like it sounds very convincing and it's very appealing. It's because of those reasons is that it's not just, oh, look, this is a really cool thing you can do. No, it's scientific. So there's that. But there's another part of this that I think, at least in my research and when I was writing the book that I think is a big component, and that's what I call the pain point. So doing the interviews, doing the research, and understanding why so many people can be, especially Christians, be attracted to these sort of things is because of the pain that they have felt. And you mentioned before, Sean, control. Yes. In Christianity, there's a God that is outside of you.

And that's good. That's better. Because that means he can bear the burden for you and with you. And these beliefs, you're as good as it gets. It's up to your thoughts, your power, your control. But most people, that's their will be. That's no way am I letting anybody have control over what's going on in my life. This is something that brings me peace. And a lot of times, maybe it's trauma. Maybe it's stuff that they have been through before that makes it so that when they read scripture, they don't want to see it. They don't want to see what it actually says, because that might dredge up some stuff that they have to deal with that maybe emotionally they don't want to go there. Right. And so, and this is, there's so much more to this.

You'll see the interviews in the book that I did, but there was one woman in particular that she, I think of her almost every day now, ever since since i talked with her but she was very honest with me about her beliefs and it was in a new thought center it was in a unity center and she shared with me some very personal things that happened to her and she's maybe in her 50s or 60s at this point and she's like if there is something that contradicts my truth i don't even think about it because I don't want to go there. Like there's, there's a block here, but she did not see that as a bad thing. She saw it as an enlightened thing because that kept her on this positive path.

It kept her on this path of, um, thinking properly. And so that what she said to me though, is that I'm not going to, there's nobody that I'm going to give my control to, you know, like no way it was, it was her trauma speaking. And I could clearly see that even if for her, it was a different perspective. And even people in my own life, I very much see the way that they interpret scripture through a lens of pain, which is why a lot of times they want to be nonjudgmental. They want to be tolerant. They want to be open-minded. They don't want to be like these other people over here who hurt feelings and say negative things.

No, no, I want to be this. I want to be loving. And so when they read scripture or when they, you know, go to church and they hear something, it's either blocked out because you can't take in something negative. That's too much for me to handle. So I'm going to stay over here and stay as positive as I can, even if it's a lie. It's going to make me feel better, but it's a lie. I don't care. And so there's this pattern that I have found in doing this research, but I just want to make it that appeal that I can tell them and show them very clearly, hey,

Christianity is true here. Look, this is what this is. This is what this means. But they can discard that. But here's why it's better. It's true, but it's also better for you because that burden that you're carrying with you, well, he carries that. He'll take that. And that pain, that anger that you feel inside that maybe sin has a lot to do with, well, he died for that. Like the Christian worldview is true, but it's also better. And so that's also the appeal that I make to people is there's a beauty there in that. And it does mean that you kind of do have to count the cost and you have to know what it is that you're looking at. But yeah, those are the three basic things that I have found of why people are appealing, find these beliefs appealing. I'm so glad you're the one who wrote

this book. And here's why. Maybe someone will hate on me for saying this, but, and I'm a man, a lot of men were going to focus on ideas and miss the story and the hurt and the pain behind it. You just tapped into that. A lot of new thought is not just the scientific veneer not just that it's biblical but for people who feel out of control for people who have been broken and hurting i think as a woman bringing and just paying attention to that serves you and your readers well that we don't miss what the heart cry is behind some of this and just go after ideas and tell people they're wrong and miss what is really motivating people to appeal to this. So I think that's really, really helpful. And that comes through in your book.

Now, in a second, I'm going to ask you just to sum up maybe as briefly as you can the new thought gospel. So I would say the gospel is god made us for relationships with him and with other people sin separates us from god jesus as the perfect god man was the sacrifice for our sin paid our debt and by grace through faith in jesus christ we can have our sins forgiven and enter into eternal life that become begins now with god if you are going to as just succinctly as possible what is the new thought gospel the new thought gospel is you an awakening to your Christ consciousness within. Everything that you just said would be redefined. Sin is ignorance. It's ignorance to your divine spark within. The answer to evil and the answer for everything is for you to awaken to that divine spark. And so all of us can be one. All of us can be together in unity.'s returning uh to your true self which is

another buzzword for new thought people who do those things they're just acting in their false self but it's a realization of who you truly authentically are within yeah that's basically the succinct way that i would put the new thought gospel. It's understanding the power within you. Okay. And anyone who's tracked new age sees a lot of overlap with some of those ideas here, obviously, as well. Now, shout out to one of my professors at Biola years ago, Todd Lewis, taught one of my favorite classes I took in all of college was on persuasion. And we just analyzed what persuades people. And one of the points that stood out to me is that the most powerful form of persuasion is really subtle. When you don't know you're being persuaded. That's why sometimes movies can persuade somebody more than like a sermon can or a political speech because you know someone's trying to persuade you.

But when it's subtle and you're not really thinking about it, it can persuade you even more so. So when I look at New Thought, part of my question is how is this seeping into the church? Are there like big thinkers and people who write certain books that you and I would look at them and I think most Christians would go, oh, that's clearly new thought. Or is it more of just kind of a subtle shifting of things that weaves its way into sermons,

weaves its way into books, weaves its way into our language that is more concerning to you? It's both. One of the chapters in the entire book is about the self-help movement. One, a little known fact is the entire movement of self-help is undergirded by new thought authors. Because the idea of you helping yourself and being able to think your way to success is, and again, I'm putting this very simply so that people can kind of understand like how that came into play. I mean, be a good person, do good things. You can do it. The power's within you. These ideas

came from very popular New Thought authors, Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich, Dale Carnegie, How to Win Friends and Influence People. Those are just two that I could think of off the top of my head, which by the way, are still bestsellers today. Like you can go and find those books. Really? Yes. At the self-transformation section, they're everywhere. And again, that's only two. There's, there's a lot more. Those are new thought authors. Um, and so this is why new thought is not a religion. It's a movement. And so that's just self-help. And then you have Norman Vincent Peale. He was a very popular new thought minister who influenced a lot of other ministers in Christianity because of his positive thinking message. And the way that he would preach

and the way that he would reach out to people appealed to them because, oh, these guys, they sound good. They make me feel really good. I like going to this service. I feel empowered. What's wrong with that, right? Like it is subtle in that way. Other times it's very blatant. And then you have, especially this might be a little tough for people to, they might clutch their pearls at this, but hear me out. The business entrepreneurial world, okay, I'm talking like, think of Tony Robbins, think of MLMs. You even have people like John C. Maxwell, who's a Christian, right? And how to expand your business, how to grow and all these things. They wholly rely a lot on new thought concepts and even look up to.

It's demonstrable to show they look up to these new thought authors. They're long gone, but the books that they wrote have been kind of transferred over into their methods. OK, so and that's in the Christian entrepreneurial space, right? Um, how to deal with money, how to invest, how to become a rich Christian. Okay. So there's that the, the more obvious thing, in my opinion on how it's in the church. I mean, you have affirmations, which again, a lot of times are backed up by scriptures that I believe can be misused. Um, but then the other thing going off of that are the health and wealth, the health and wealth gospel.

That's probably one of the more blatant things that I focus on in the book. I have a whole chapter on it of how prosperity and health, those teachings specifically that God always wants you to be healthy. God never wants you to be poor. As I'm saying this, people are like, oh yeah, so-and-so teaches that. Oh yeah, so-and-so, these other Christian pastors. I'm thinking of New Thought authors.

I'm thinking of their quotes that God is good and he only wants good for you, that you are entitled to health and wealth. As I'm speaking this, I'm quoting New Thought authors in my head that I've read. And so I go back to the whole history of how that even got into the church. Um, again, I, there's a book over here. I actually am holding my mic up on it. Um, it's a book about, you know, the power of I am, you know, and that goes back to affirmation prayers, but I want to make a

distinction between affirmations and encouragements where there might be some Christians watching thinking, oh, I've practiced affirmations before. Is that bad? And I would say, we'll check the source, like what are, what's the intention in doing it? But I want to distinct, make a distinction between affirmations and encouragement. I think that every single chapter that I wrote needed a nuance because of this, because a lot of the books even that we've written and read are self-help, right? And so I think that there's a distinction to be made that not all of this is bad or wrong or untrue. And I think that needs to be the lens in which we see these things. So, but yeah, those are more, those

are the subtle ways and direct ways that I see new thought in the church. I don't recall because it's been a little bit, if you specifically address the prayer of Jabez or your thoughts on this. Now I haven't looked at this for years, but my sense kind of was that here's a prayer that there's this Gnostic sense of kind of this secret prayer that was found. And if I just pray it in a certain way, I will get certain results. Now, I don't recall what exactly was in the book, but it was certainly used that way. Have you read that, looked at it through this lens, or is this a little outside of your analysis? I've never read that book, but I have heard of it. And everything

you just said sounds very new thought to me. And the fact that a lot of people, when I'm talking about this, and then equals, they ask about that book. Yeah, probably. Like it probably is. Maybe I should read it. I'm not sure how popular it is nowadays. But yeah. I don't think it is anymore.

And I would have to go back and read it myself. I was asking based on stuff that I've heard, curious if you've done a deep dive so folks can go read it themselves, assess it. But that book and any others, we should have an alert in the back of our minds saying, what is being taught here? Is this biblical? So I think that lens that we're bringing is important for people. Now you write this in the book. You said, if new thought were a virus, chances are you would be infected. New thought has so deeply permeated our culture and churches. You probably thought some of it's teaching without even realizing it. Now, when I first heard that and I'm like, yeah, people need to pay attention to it. I'm like,

you know what? Let me stop and think if this is true for me. If it's as prevalent as you've described and as subtle as you've described, it made me stop and go, okay, I've got to do a little deep dive here myself and see if this has affected me in any way. So what advice would you give for anybody who's been listening to this, hasn't presumably read your book yet, to recognize if they have been infected with this virus first, and second, to rid themselves of it? Yeah. So first, you know how a lot of people talk about knowing the authentic so that they can spot the counterfeit and they use the dollar bill example?

Well, that's true. You need to know what the Bible says, but what do you do with the person that thinks they do know what the Bible says, but it's not from a contextual basis, right? Like they read all these scriptures, thinks they do know what the Bible says, but it's not from a contextual basis, right? Like the, they, they, they read all these scriptures, but they think it means something that it doesn't, right? Here's where I would say, well, maybe there's some value in knowing really well what

the counterfeit looks like. And so I think I I think it was Natasha Crane's book. She's actually about to release a book, When Culture Hates You. And I have to give her credit because she's the one who used this example where, and I'm probably going to butcher it, but the way that I remember it is she uses the example of a doctor who only studies well patients and non-diseases. You know, he's only here focusing on what an authentic, healthy body looks like. That would be silly. It would be really silly if he didn't know what the disease was,

how it came in, what it looks like, how it's going to affect you. And I thought that was such a wisdom, like a very wise way to put it. And that is probably the best way that I could describe new thought. And I thought that was such a wisdom, like a very wise way to put it. And that is probably the best way that I could describe new thought. I mean, I was in these beliefs for so long and then in ministry for a long time without really recognizing the difference and seeing, oh, this is something very different and why it's functioning and looks the way that it looks.

And that's honestly why I wrote this book, is that so people can see it and so they can recognize it. It's not just talking about a teacher or, oh, so-and-so teaches this. It's so much bigger than that. It's recognizing what this is. And then you're going to read your Bible and you're like, oh, oh, I think I've been misinterpreting that. I don't think that's what that means. And then hopefully it drives them to understand a more hermeneutical

approach to scripture, reading it in context, who wrote it, why they wrote it, and properly trying to approach that to understand it. And so they can apply it properly. And so it's a process of unlearning. So I would say that and in hopes that if people can recognize it, that they lean into it. And the other thing that I'll say is that you said the best thing that I was probably the best person to write this. I honestly think of it as a baton that's kind of hands it off because I still can't believe nobody's written a book on this. People that are much smarter than me should have written a book on this.

And I just had a unique experience with it. But my hope is that people will build on this. I'm hoping that people read the boring new thought books and think, oh, Melissa missed this. I'm going to write something about it i'm gonna write an article or a blog or build on to this new thought thing so that the christian can be holy and fully equipped to know what this is so they can recognize it and purge it out of the church and out of their own theology there's certain areas of apologetics people have been studying for a long time like

think about the resurrection and gary habermas just putting these massive volumes out now there's still and always will be research that needs to be done there but then there's some newer things at least being brought on our map like near-death experiences and deathbed experiences where there's a ton of research that could be done. And it feels like that's the case with new thought. So there's a lot of people, there are probably some PhD dissertations that could be done. You said articles are written where people just approach this in a different fashion. Last question for you. So say somebody watches this interview, gets your book,

watches your other stuff, and they're concerned about teaching being in the church in some fashion. I'd love to know how you think they should respond because, and I'll tell you for me, I'm not a fan of the Enneagram. I'm not a fan in terms of just scientifically. I don't think there's any merit from it from what I've seen. And there's some suspicious new age roots to it. I did a video on it, but I'm not on some huge crusade against it. Maybe it's just my focus. And some of the people that I see use it are people that I trust and have discernment and are not going to be taken in by new age thoughts. But I've addressed it and I've talked about it. Other things concern me more, but what I don't know that eager apologists who watch this always do is approach a pastor in the right fashion. What are you doing? And freak out and post up and attack and make a huge deal about it in a way that's not helpful and actually pushes back the apologetics movement and the efforts that you're trying to do, not because of the message, but because of the lack of grace and wisdom in how it's portrayed. So how can people have a sense of appropriate urgency if they see this without freaking out and appropriately being heard to draw attention to these ideas. You and I have done numerous videos on this topic. And yeah, everything you just said, I will second. I will put this very simply in two ways. Number one,

be the type of Christian that would carry that into a conversation with respect. But also, I want to bring everybody back to the beginning of my story of why I even got attracted to these beliefs to begin with. And it makes, I mean, people might get upset about this, but it was other Christians. It was the attitude. And I think it was in the very first introduction that I wrote, but it was just that Christians seemed so cynical. They seemed always with their pitchfork coming at. And I think that maybe that's why I do have the posture and attitude that I have today about these things is that you can say what you need to say in an effective way with firmness and grace but every

hill is not one you need to die on if you know something and you see something and you have these Christians who they're hyper aware of false teachings and I think that there needs to be an element of wisdom and how to kind of go about bringing it up to your pastor. My pastor, what I do, and this is what I did with a lot of people that I personally interviewed who are really, really not just in these beliefs, like they teach them, they go around my city. It's prevalent on any level. They're there just shouting it to the world. And I'm having these conversations with them. And I find that asking a well-placed question, it can be very effective. Amen.

Like, okay, well, yeah. Like, okay, well, if that's your posture and scripture says this, how do you deal with that? You know, and it was actually the beginning of the Jehovah's Witnesses, I mean, learning how to minister to them. It was one of the best things I've ever done because it taught me respect for the person because it's really hard to forget that somebody's made in the image of God when you're staring at them in the eye and there's a respect there and a um a healthy curiosity and I would just say that if if you find something in

your church or maybe a friend or a Christian just kind of think of them not as this poor unfortunate soul that needs to hear what you have to say but maybe think of well why do they believe that where did you hear it from what does this for you? Do you understand that this is that? And what do you think of the origins? What do you think of this? Gather that first, understand, and then seek to be understood and follow that pattern. And I think, I mean, it's not like a formula to make sure that they listen to you, but I think that that is a much more effective way to conduct a disagreement than kind of just going in storming into your pastor's office with you know with you know a chip maybe coming off like they don't even want to hear what you're saying because then the the attitude in which it's given so i would say that read a lot

of proverbs uh read the book of James, maybe, you know, be slow to speak, slow to anger, quick to listen. Like these are scriptural things that I think that we forget. And in our zealously to correct, we forget to kind of look back on ourselves and think, is this the best way to go about this? And I'm not going to say I'm perfect with this by any means. I don't think we are but i think that um going out and having enough conversations with people this is why i love apologetics is that oh there's actually a really effective way to talk to people and disagree with them um and and we'll get people to think and i think that that's really what i would leave people with on how to reach how to reach others is just they're not your enemy um know what hills you want to die on

be the kind of christian that you wished you had when you were an unbeliever be the kind of christian that you wished you had when you were in error so that's what i would leave them with that's a great last word and i think reflective for people of the content that's in your book but the spirit you bring to it it's just a wonderful model of saying, time out, here's some unbiblical ideas, and they matter, and we've got to pay attention to them, but let's talk about it in a humanizing, caring manner with others. I think you nailed that in your interactions, nailed it in the book. The book is called Happy Lies.

It's out the end of January 2025, and I would encourage people to get it for groups, individual study, just for yourself to be equipped. And it'll open your eyes. There are a few moments I was like, how did I miss that? I'm an apologist. So I imagine every reader will have those moments. Imagine how I felt. I can only imagine.

I can only imagine. But it's a great contribution. I hope you've got many more books you're right after that folks make sure you subscribe to melissa's channel has constant content coming out in apologetics also entertaining and fun you engage the youtube platform well and i want to make sure my followers follow and track with your content pick up happy lives before you click away make sure you hit subscribe We've got lots of other content and discussions coming up on all sorts of apologetics, worldview, cultural, theological issues. And if you thought about studying apologetics,

we'd love to have you in our master's program here by all fully online and in person, top rated program. And we have a certificate as well, where we could kind of walk you through formally in apologetics, big discount below. Melissa, as always fun, best of luck with your book. And I will do this again soon. Yeah, thanks for having me on Sean.