Unashamed with the Robertson Family - Ep 1298 | She Left a Movement She Once Believed Was Christian … Millions Still Belong

Episode Date: March 26, 2026

Jase, Al, and Zach on the growing cultural obsession with self-affirmation, “manifesting,” and the idea that truth comes from within, warning how these popular beliefs subtly replace God with self. They’re joined by author and Christian apologist Melissa Doherty, who shares her journey out of the New Thought movement and explains how feel-good spirituality can distort the Gospel while still sounding Christian. The guys relive their chaotic crawfish business that ended in blood poisoning and helped redirect their lives. They land on a powerful contrast between self-made truth and the light of Jesus, challenging listeners to consider whether they’re drawn to the light—or avoiding it. In this episode: John 3, verses 16–21; John 1, verse 1; 1 John “Unashamed” Episode 1298 is sponsored by: Slow the growth of greys and get 15% off by using code UNASHAMED at http://Arey.com https://ruffgreens.com — Get a FREE Jumpstart Trial Bag for your dog today when you use promo code Unashamed! Text UNASHAMED to 64000 and get a FREE pocket pivot and 10-pattern sprayer with the purchase of ANY size Copper Head hose! http://unashamedforhillsdale.com/ — Sign up now for free, and join the Unashamed hosts every Friday for Unashamed Academy Powered by Hillsdale College Listen to Not Yet Now with Zach Dasher on Apple, Spotify, iHeart, or anywhere you get podcasts. Check out At Home with Phil Robertson, nearly 800 episodes of Phil's unfiltered wisdom, humor, and biblical truth, available for free for the first time! Get it on Apple, Spotify, Amazon, and anywhere you listen to podcasts! https://open.spotify.com/show/3LY8eJ4ZBZHmsImGoDNK2l Chapters 00:00 Family Debate Chaos Before the Show 07:45 Crawfish Facts, AI Debates & Louisiana Logic 12:10 Jase’s Crawfish Business Turns Dangerous 17:40 A Near-Death Breaking Point 22:30 Why the Crawfish Hustle Led to Bible School 26:15 Meet Melissa & the New Thought Movement 31:20 “Manifesting” & the Rise of Self-Made Truth 37:45 Why New Thought Twists Christianity 43:10 Light vs Darkness: What Jesus Actually Said 49:00 Why People Fear the Light More Than the Dark — Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I am unashamed. What about you? Welcome back to Unashame. We had a little dust up here before we got going, but one day that'll be a podcast topic we've decided. I think it's a family dynamic that every few days we must have an argument. And I get tickled at the argumentative style because it's such a throwback to our parents. because I just remember all those years and all those holidays. It was just like what I just witnessed this. And it's funny to me, but it's good. And we had guests here.

We embarrassed ourselves. Are we a guest? Yeah, so JD turned 18 today. We're going to have to get them to sign a, what do you call it? A non-disclosure agreement, yeah. Y'all had signed the NDA before you leave. If I'd have known on that, I wouldn't have been so sarcastic now. So J.D. is turned 18 this week.

weeks. He's a young man officially. And his mom works with Lisa selling real estate. So they're here today witnessing what they just saw. But I wonder, as we were doing it, it just, I wonder if Maddie, she stepped in and said, all right, that's the bell, round one. Round one. We got to record. And then Jay's goes, I think I won that round.

I think I won that round. And then that started a whole other. started around two. Yeah. Then it's who win. So, Al, let me ask you, if nobody intervened, how long do you think me and Chase would sit here? We would still be gone. It would go all morning.

It's because I've seen these. And then at some point, it gets personal, you know, that we never got there. But at some point, it would have gotten into personal attacks. That's the only way you can really end it. The reason those are helpful, though, is because I found those illuminating. Yeah. Because you understand now why Zach is... Yeah, I figured out, you know, the first problem is realizing there is a problem.

And I'm like, ooh, I think I figured something out here. Well, Jay did say, Zach may be working towards getting baptized again, so we'll see how that works out. We'll let you know when we're ready to have that discussion in public. So I feel like, man, yesterday we recorded podcasts. We were ready to go back to back. And you weren't here yesterday. I wasn't even here. So you made the drive last night?

So I got in at 3 a.m. the night before from the event or morning before from an event. Got up, we did yesterday's podcast. Then I drove back home to be here for today. So I'm not sure where I am. I'm somewhere over the fruited plains, but my body is here. You know what I found fascinating? And it was 80 degrees yesterday. And this morning it was 29.

Yeah. How does that happen? This is the last of the cold weather, I guess. Yeah, it was springtime flowers. Like two days, it'll be 80 degrees again. And then you're like, oh, wait. Wow. One last blast.

Fire this morning. Is it hitting you today's at? Is it over there you all? I got a wool sweater on. Yeah. That tells you anything. The last time I wore this wool sweater was in a duck line with Jace when we got an ice apocalypse.

So, yeah, it was. You had that on and I didn't say anything? I had it underneath all my stuff Oh he put it out That's fixed to say Ducks could see that Yeah Now this is my

My base layer is a wool Like a wool long underwear And then I put this on And then I got my jacket We all know the jacket The Abondable Snowman But I did not get cold I did not get cold

You were layered So Jay's Today ends your your bachelor run? Yeah. Yeah, I've been the lone wolf. Last night I celebrated and I went and got some crawfish and some shrimp, which was fantastic. I mean, that's why I like this time of year.

I love LSU baseball, even though we're a work in progress this year. But we give a lot of grace when you're the defending national champion. So I'll throw that in. and we have crawfish. So I've actually eaten more crawfish this season than years past. I saw some. They looked really big this year, the ones I saw. Maybe that's why I was so frisky, because you eat a bunch of crawfish.

I got my painters out this morning. When Zach started spawning heresy, I just couldn't help it, you know. If oysters are an aphrodisiac, a crawfish or a fighter, a fighter. It wasn't for Jay. Sorry. As you'll say, it wasn't heresy. Look, I said that affectionately. Yeah.

We'll, that's the verdict still out on that. But I actually wanted Beth other night and another argument because I threw this fact out that a female crawfish has up to 800 young. And somebody said, that's not true. Because they're thinking, one crawfish. How could one crawfish? which this wasn't exactly a Christian environment. So when they said, are you trying to tell me that one crawfish has 800? That's not even possible.

And so, well, you're talking about a setup. I was like, well, I believe the Bible says with God, all things are possible. Look it up. And somebody found a picture of about 800 little bitty ones on the end of a crawfish. And they're like, well, how many of you think that is? They're like, wow, I never knew that was going on. They thought they were just producing one crawfish at a time. I think so.

And I'm like, no. You know you taught us that, dear old dad, but that was right out of life lesson. So, I mean, I'm sure I could have looked that up and see. I think I will. Yeah, look it up. Let's see. I may be wrong on that. But I know they're not like a horse.

I do remember on the original show, which is one of the reasons why dad was always so funny to me. he was funny in a dad like not trying to be funny sort of way but remember the one episode Jace where he did the Birds and the Bees lesson to Cole I think it was Cole wasn't it

that he was and he used to crawfish as the example and he was pointing out the male crawfish and he said and you see right there Cole man that's what in the business they call that the tallywacker that's what he referred to it on the show the tallywacker

so there's that Do you find it? I'm looking, Al. Yeah, well, this says between 50 and 700 plus. Well, that's quite the range. That's what it says. A female crawfish can typically, now this is AI, so they're just taking a collection.

Yeah. They say the average is 2 to 400, but it can be up to 800. Yeah. Do you believe that, Zach? You know, AI is going to take over the world. I believe it. I used to be in the crawfish business,

and I was a crawfish farmer for a season. Really? What? Two weeks? About three. Three weeks. Was that when we were in the crawfish business? Did you work for us?

Well, what happened was, what had happened was, we were out by this guy I knew, had a, they hunted this rice field out off a, look at how it was a highway 15? What's the one right out there? So they duck hunted out there. We would go out there a few times a year with him. And so I don't know why he went out there, but he said, man, he came back to the house. And it was like, you are to see the crawfish on this rice farm. He said, they're like all over the levees, I mean, everywhere.

So we drove out there. And literally, you drive down the levee of a rice field. And it was just like, like just, I mean, millions of them. Yeah. And so we went down. It's quite a scene when you see it. Oh, it's like, I'd never seen. I'd never seen anything quite like they were huge.

And basically you want to go grab a net and start grabbing them up. But we didn't have a net, so we went down to Phil's house, and we told him what we saw, and then Phil was basically like, here's what you're going to do. He said, I've got 50 traps right out there in the yard. You're going to load those up in your truck, and you're going to take it down there, and you're going to go get you some buffalo heads. Those are fished. Not a buffalo.

We didn't kill actual buffalo, just so you know. He's like, you're going to throw, there's a fish. He said, you throw the head in there. I have to explain that because most people don't call buffalo fish, buffalo. I have a story that I tell about dad, and I say buffalo in it. And afterwards, if I don't clarify it, somebody comes and say, you mean, your dad used to actually kill buffalo? No, it's a fish.

It's a drum. So I don't know about you guys, but as you have more kids, you know what else I've noticed happens is you get more gray hair. Yep. Not a lot, but I'm getting it in my beard. Maybe you just want to slow it down, Zay. Yeah. Slow it down.

One of our new sponsors is a company called Array. I got a thick beard, but I was looking at old pictures. It used to be a lot thicker. You know, you probably think that graying is all genetics, but it's really only about 30% genetic. The rest is influenced by just lifestyle, environment, stress. I mean, that's why you always say, man, you're giving me gray hair here. You tell your kid's that. So it can change.

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It's a fish. And so he said, cut the heads off of them, throw the heads in the trap. And he gave us to all the instructions. And he said, and then you bring me back two sacks and you keep the rest. And that was his instruction. So we went out there and we put out those 40 traps. And I'm not kidding you, probably 30 minutes later. I just picked one up.

I waited out there and out at Ricefield. Because about, you know, up to your thigh deep. I picked that trap up, and I mean slam full of crawfish. And I picked up the next one, slam full. So we ended up. Then we went down to the local shop there called Cormiers, which back then that was, I think that was about the only place in town. You could just like.

Yeah, they were the original. That was the original crawfish place. So then we started running a business. Jep was in on it. And 20, I mean, we did not sleep for about two and a half weeks. And we just, as many as we could get, we would go and sell them. and then we got done. We took all those traps back down to your dads.

As soon as you were flush with cash, so you had you some beer money back in those days, I'm sure. All enough, a little beer money. Then you were good. Yeah, but then. But then Zach and Jeff were still working on their testimony back in those days. Yeah, we were still working on the town. Just so you know.

No, actually, you know what? Were you all cleared up by then? Okay, good. That made us feel better. Yeah, we were probably about the time we got into the farm, which lasted a couple of years, but. That was after that. So Jace was,

Jay spent one whole year. That was your right after you graduated high school, crawfish. You and Curley were the managers of the operation. And it was such a tough experience that Jase was actually ready to go to preaching. Where was the farm at? It was where our property is now.

Ironically. So y'all were farming crawfish. Yeah. I did it for. We're talking hundreds of traps at. Y'all did 40. Jays was doing probably what? We had 500.

Twice a day. We ran them. Did y'all get a bunch of them? Oh, my goodness. Sacks and sacks. We were selling them to Super 1 food. 500 traps, Zach. They literally set up a boat in the store.

And the crawfish that Jason Curley were catching were going in to the super. They were providing the supermarket with crawfish. And they would just pour them in this boat live. They're just crawling around there and people would come and get them and buy. I've shared this before. where you are. I mean, we, I've never heard this. It's like, they went to, how many times do y'all have to go to the hospital for? That, that's what, we, Zach, I could have died. That's what really, that's what really, that's what really shut it all down. They had blood poisoning, because they were

dealing with all these dead things they were putting in. So here's what, here's, let me sum it up in 60 seconds, I guess, you know, feels like, I think we make some money doing these crawfish. So my dad brought all, he bought these pellets. Yeah. That, because it was easy. You put the little brown pellet, look like dog food. Yeah.

Kind of like what they did catfish. Every trap would have seven or eight crawfish. He's like, I know there's more crawfish here. And you got to buy that stuff, so it's cutting into your profit. So somebody told him, well, you got to have fresh bait, feel. Well, he's got all his hoop nets because we were commercial fish in the river. So that's when this thing took a turn. So then we would go run the nets.

Take all the good fish, go sell them at the fish market, take all the coal fish and chop them up, put them in the crawfish traps. We got 500 traps. So we start running these nets, taking the good fish, selling them at the market, taking the bad fish. Not bad as in worthless. We were throwing those back, but now we're using those for bait. But just think about this. If every day you wake up and you're chopping up fish, using it for bait, then you're running 500 traps, well, all of a sudden, we started catching 10 to 20 times what we were catching.

So now we're selling them. But your hands, even though you had gloves on, crawfish will pinch you. Then you have the bait. Well, you have fins. Fans are punching you. And the problem is now everything is in varying degrees of decay. like the bait and then as I recall

you got they all were fishing so much you couldn't catch enough fish to bait so then it was roadkill well people started bringing in stuff that they ran over

dead squirrels there was a freezer full of dead animals it started getting weird and I felt like I had gone into a medieval existence because look out

we're doing this all day every day. And I mean, there were, it was good money. Yeah. And we were eating a lot of crawfish. Oh, yeah. That was fantastic. The downside is, you know, red streaks started going up my arms.

And look, I will say this. Every five traps had a snake in it. Yeah. At first, that's part of it. It was terrifying because you pull up the trap and there's just a snake. You know, you're, ah! Well, after a while. They became bait.

They became bait. And anything that lived outside of the crawfish became bait for the crawfish. There was only two things that stopped production, because every 20 snakes would be a poisonous snake. Right. Now that, we shut the motor off. Because that had to be dealt with.

Well, you can die immediately. And the other thing was when someone got knocked out of the boat, which happened. The most funny story of all is the boat. We're just doing our thing. And all of a sudden, I'm like, what is Phil doing? because he was driving the motor. We're headed to the bank wide open.

I turn around and look, and I see Phil way off in the distance hanging on a tree, literally a tree limb trying to stay out of the water, and we're going wide open. When I said, brazed for impact, because I didn't have time to get to the motor. And we just wham, crashed the boat. I think at that point, because then that day, Curley wound up, going to the hospital again for blood poison, and spent four or five days there to get over.

And we just kind of had a meeting and said, you know what? Well, here's what, so the year prior, Zat, when Jay's graduate high school, some guys came out and tried to recruit us to go to seminary, and we said no. I was still in college, helping out a little bit with dad and the duck call business. And we said no, even though we were starving to death,

and then dad gets into the crawfew. caper. And then when they came back the second year, all of a sudden it was like, you know what? And they said, somebody will support you guys to go to school. And Jay's and I looked at each other and thought, you know, it's just studying the Bible for two years. I mean, what could be wrong with that? I'll tell you what, when I, my little stint in the crawfish business, I was, it was, when I saw what they eat, like you said, the road killed, decaying carcasses. I mean, if you died and fell in the water, they would have eaten you. That's when I was like,

and that's the first time that I felt I really questioned my eschatology, you know, whenever, whenever he says that I don't call anything, he says don't call anything clean, unclean that I've called clean, you know, rise, kill, and eat that, when all that stuff came down,

I actually thought, I understand why God told the Jewish people not to eat crawfish, because they are nasty. I mean, if you look at what they eat, I mean, it is a... Well, you do realize that the bowel track of a crawfish is the only thing between that decaying material

and your bowel track. It does make you wonder. But I have to say, they're delicious. I will close this story out with an important point. I believe that Louisiana is God's chosen people of the USA to figure out what you were supposed to eat because that's the people who came up with eating crawfew. fish, oysters, all this kind of stuff.

That is true. They were willing to take a shot. That's why it's called the Sportsman's Paradise. You cracked open an orchard and said, man, that looks tasty. And they are delicious. Phil famously said that in Louisiana, the two questions that rule are, what is it? Can we eat it? That's it.

Will it make us see? So you're welcome, America. We broke down those walls. And that's why, look, look at crawfish. I mean, you're delicious. They're fantastic. I have to say, I agree. So, Jay, you got a couple of pooches, and one of them was your dog, the other than you inherited,

so you didn't really, you weren't in the raising and the training part of that second poochie. Does that make a difference? That's a nice way of saying my second dog has terrible manners. And yet, I reward both of them equally with their favorite, which is rough chews, which I have in my hand. Yeah, we love rough greens because, let's face it, that our dogs show up for us, even the ones sometimes that have some manner issues. But here's one thing that happens.

They all get older. They get a little slower. They get a little pickier about their food. Their stomachs get off. And then you've got some problems, right? You got some cleanup issues and you got some sick dogs. And it's mostly from traditional dog food. It's missing probiotics.

It's missing enzymes, omega oils, and the key, it's missing the live vitamins and minerals that your dog needs to digest and absorb food. Rough Greens is America's number one dog supplement, and you sprinkle it right on their food. It's packed with all the live nutrients they need. Plus, it's all natural, and it's made in the USA. Rough Greens is helping dogs feel younger, more energetic, and healthier than they have in years,

and your dog could be one of them. I know when my three dogs line up and they're ready, they look forward to Rough Greens being on their food. They enjoy it. Their coats are shining. than ever. And so you can have this for your dog. You get a free jumpstart trial bag for your dog. You just cover the shipping. Go to roughgreens.com. Use the discount code unashamed. Rough greens. We make any dog food better. We have a special guest today, Melissa Doherty. Is that that

pronounced the last name right, Melissa? I'm so impressed. Yes. I've been working on that for a couple a day since I found out you were coming on. But we're super excited. We had a classic unashamed foible because you're in another time zone than us. So you popped right in the middle of our podcast. It's not your fault. It's our fault. We should have known. It's not your fault. We should have. Totally my fault. 100%. So you're from New Mexico. Is that correct? Yeah. That's, you know, it's funny because I've been to New Mexico. I think I spoke there once, but it's one of the least states I've been to, which is weird, because like we speak all around the country, Melissa, just for whatever reason, I don't get invited there much.

Nobody comes here. Don't come here. Oh, Jace, has been there. It's like a mini-California. It's real blue. You know, it's kind of a, I mean, not to brag, but we're number three for crime. So, I mean, who wants to come here? But, I mean, it has some other really good elements to it. Like, my husband, he's a hot-air balloon pilot. It's the mecca for hot-air balloons, and it's beautiful out here.

Yeah. Hot air balloon power. How do you become that? Oh, it's actually out here it's kind of easy because every morning right now they're up in the air because it's the perfect place for balloons because of the wind because whenever you fly a plane, you just kind of go where you want. But out here, the wind has to be a certain way. And they have what's called the box where if you fly up in the air, it goes right, then up, then over and back down. And so naturally it's kind of a growing community of hot air balloon pilots. And you can get on a crew to help crew the balloon, you know, pack it up, pull it out.

It's a big thing. And he got involved that way. And eventually he's like, yeah, I think I want to do this for a living and went and got his pilot's license and did all the serious stuff. That is fascinating. That is fascinating. I had no idea. Come on my redneck mind, I thought, I didn't know there was a pilot.

I thought they were just jumping in and hanging on. No, sir. And we'll figure out where it land. I mean, I always liked it because I thought it was kind of a redneck thing. James comes from the land of, hold my beer and watch this mentality. That's why he describes that. Yeah, the only time I was on a hot air balloon, which was self-made, and we jumped off the little cliffs down there where we used to jump in the river.

I was not piloting that contraption. I mean, you don't say. I just went straight down in the river and, you know, swam to shore. Yeah, you kind of have to be a meteorologist for it. You know, you have to know where the wind's going and all the things. It's a whole thing. It's a whole thing. That's a lot.

That's fascinating. Seems like something I could get into. Well, I wanted to say this. I have done a couple of events in New Mexico, but I've duck hunted out there several times. And so I didn't know if you were aware of this, but there's a lot of ducks in New Mexico. No. I don't pay very much attention to the ducks outside the zoo. Well, I didn't hunt in the zoo.

I draw a line there. Where did you go to hunt, though? Where do we have them out here? You know, it's been a few years, but there was a fireman out there that wrote a letter, and my dad said, yep, there's... Wasn't it more the southern part closer to Mexico is what I was thinking on the... Maybe Las Cruces. We were around some native reservations.

I remember that. So I'm not sure where that's at. Yeah, and Mexico is filled with all kinds of different. I mean, we're in the Albuquerque area. So we're kind of in the middle up there. So maybe you were more up north, it's more green. So. We went several times and had, because the best thing when a state doesn't have a whole lot of water they're not known for,

it kind of localizes the ducks. And there was no hunters around. It was us and the firemen. We're just going out there wherever. So it was kind of hot air balloons. Did you see any while you were out here? I wonder if you could hunt out of a hot air balloon. I'm sure I did now that I'm thinking about it.

I don't think you can shoot a hot air balloon. Ask your husband about that, Melissa. That's great. I must do that before I got. I may have to do that when I get the resurrected body just to do it. I mean, Jesus ate fish post resurrection. Well, dad always said, and now, Now I guess he knows.

He said when he gets on the other side, he said it's going to be a pristine swamp, ducks everywhere, shotgun shells. You don't have to wear eternal supply and not a game warden in sight. That's what he used to say. Yeah. Yeah, he can toss things out of the balloon. They do target practice, like little army men with the parachutes, right? They just toss them out.

I don't think you can shoot a gun out of the hot air balloon, but I will ask just for your sake. Well, I will accept that challenge if we ever want to do that one day. Well, you're welcome to come on out if you guys ever want to go up. So Melissa, it says here in the bio about you, you're a Christian apologist, author, artist, wife, and mother. And so we already got to experience a little of that. We picked up our hot debate from earlier, and you jumped right in. So we're going to have that debate at some point, and you're going to come back because that was... 100%.

That's too much fun. And Zach needs to buddy. It's fun. I don't want to bring up what the debate was, but I'll just say this, that Melissa was certainly team Zach. It was nice. It was very... Zach, do you feel fortified now

that Melissa has come on and joined you? I can tell already she's very smart, too. The biblical arc of creation, fall, redemption, restoration. It felt like restoration. It felt like the Lord was doing something. I felt vindicated. It was beautiful. Okay, is this right?

I look this up. According to AI, the definition of an apologist is a person who offers an argument in defense of something controversial. Yeah, anybody could be an apologist technically. Like, think of a lawyer. There's Muslim apologists for Islam. There's LDS, Mormon apologists for Mormonism.

And then there's Christian apologists. And that's what it is, is that there's an active defense, knowing what you believe and why you believe it, using a lot of critical thinking, logic reasoning, knowing your Bible and what it says and why it says it, in order to defend it because there's a lot of garbage out there. And my background, actually, I grew up in a new age, new thought kind of movement. Two different things.

That's actually what my first book was about Happy Lies. It was about the new thought movement. And it's about a movement you've probably never heard of that shaped our self-obsessed world. That's the subtitle. And so there's a lot of nopi nonsense out there, my friends. And I'm just here to make it less nopi. And so people can know what that is.

so they can know better what they believe and why they believe it. So say, in my simple mind, here's what I got out of that. Lawyers actually are going to heaven. There's going to be some that make it. Yes, sir. That was a joke, but kind of not really. That was a good joke. I came to that realization when I went to Alliance defending Freedom

and met some of those lawyers who donate their time for religious freedom. and found out, yes, there's some fantastic lawyers. So tell us a little bit more about that, Melissa, because we'll get to your book, which is why we brought you on. But I was curious about that, because I saw that you had come out of kind of that mysticism or what would you call it, as you described it,

that background, because Zach deals with that a lot up where he is in his area. Is that not correct, Zach? Don't you deal with that? Talk with folks. Yeah, we live in Asheville, which is a very new age. They call it a vortex city.

But we've seen so many people coming to Christ out of that in the last couple of years. That it is pretty wild. But yeah, that's the world that we live in. And it's been interesting, though, I think that a lot of these new age mystics that we've met with, they do at least have a much more poignant or maybe visceral longing for a kingdom that's here. they don't have the context for that. And then when they meet Christ, are like, oh, this is the one we were looking for. I mean, it's just been an incredible journey the last four years at our church.

I mean, I'm telling you, we baptized probably 40 or 50 of these people into Christ. And so it's been pretty beautiful. So I came from Louisiana, though, Melissa, so I didn't have that background. Obviously, that's not a big thing down where we came from. So we moved here. It was kind of, we were a little bit ill-equipped, but the Holy Spirit certainly has equipped us over the last few years. So I'm looking up your book right now.

I didn't know that was your background. That's interesting. So this episode is brought to you by Pocket Hose, the world's number one expandable hose. Jase, it's springtime. You've been outside. We've been doing a lot of cleanup work in the yards ever since the ice apocalypse. How much is this product helped you?

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through the years. Check this product out for a limited time. Our listeners can get a free pocket pivot and their 10 pattern sprayer with the purchase of any size copperhead hose. Just text Unashamed to 64,000. That's Unashamed to 64,000 for your two free gifts with purchase. Unashamed. came to 64,000. Message and data rates may apply C-E-terms for details. Yeah, there's a mecca of people coming out of New Age. What I thought I came out of was New Age, though. So I always say, I'm an ex-new thoughter with a little bit of X New Ageer sprinkled in. And that's where I never wanted to write a book because it's hard. It takes a lot of time, a lot of research, and there's a lot of responsibility when you put your name on something

like that, especially if it's never been touched before. And so when I realized what it was, I'm like, oh, no, I have to write a book. And so I did. And I'm glad I did. But yeah, it's called Happy Lies. Yeah, the new thought movement. I think it always helps to kind of define the two because everybody's heard of new thought. Everybody, if they've never heard of the word new thought, you know exactly what it is, though. But everybody knows usually what New Age is. And they can spot it better, especially Christians. So like New Age, if you think about it, it's more Eastern. Think of more Hinduism, Buddhism, Transcendental Meditation, Psychic Mediums.

Yeah, the crystal ball, chakras, reincarnation, karma. Energies. Yes, Reiki. All those things, right? We know exactly what it is when we see it. New thought, I didn't even know there was a word for it, but it looks and sounds. It's more Gnostic in origin. It claims to be true, real Christianity. This is where it gets tricky, because you have people calling themselves Christian who are believing in these metaphysical beliefs. If I were to define new thought in two words, it would be metaphysical Christianity. All that means is that everything that you see physically has a spiritual counterpart. including words.

And so when you're reading the Bible, if you're reading it, say you're reading something, you're reading something as simple and clear as John 1-1. Okay, we read that. And there's a fancy word in seminary and in apologetic spaces called hermeneutics. And all that means is understanding the context in which you're reading. We do this with any history book, by the way. Who's writing it? Where did they write it?

When did they write it? who are they writing it to the fun stuff i get a kick out of that i'm like oh this is what it really means and then you draw the meaning from the text now take that and reverse it completely you're the arbiter you're the one that interprets it on how it feels to you and what it means to you because metaphysically speaking truth is found from within not outside of yourself because God is in you. So it's a subjective interpretation. It's metaphysical.

There's a higher, deeper, esoteric, hidden meaning within that text that's meant for you. And so that makes it really tricky because then people are like, oh, it's secret, it's hidden. And it gets, it got me. Okay. It got me. So metaphysical Christianity in a sentence, I would say it's the positive thinking movement in America with Jesus as its mascot. This is a movement within America, within the world, really, of positive thinking.

Your words can create your reality. Your thoughts can create. All you go, sickness, poverty, things like that are all a state of mind, how you feel creates your reality. You speak affirmations. I am affirmative statements because what you speak, you create. and it creates a lot of distortion of truth, which is why the book is titled the way it is happy. It's happy lies. And the cover is very specific as well. It's a mirror because there's a

saying in New Thought that when you look in the mirror, there's a God staring back at you. And that's the secret. That's the truth of what Jesus was really trying to say. So some terms that people might understand in new thought, Christ consciousness, that's a big one. Speaking and believing, naming it and claiming it. There's a lot of word of faith, positive confession in that movement that's actually directly from New Thought. I always wondered why that was. I'm like, man, why are you guys doing the law of attraction? I used to do that and, you know, but that's, it's related. There's a lot of pseudoscience of, you know, neuroscience and quantum mechanics says that, did you know that it can change the dynamic of your food, the chemistry of your food, the chemistry

of your food depending on how you feel, a lot of that is really new thought. You create and affect the reality around you. And it sounds really good. And it duped me. It got me. And so, yeah, that's basically what the book is about. That's fascinating. Or two things that when your description of it, what I was thinking, and you just said it,

you got there where I was thinking, listened to you, was it's the ultimate form of idolatry. Yes. You are God. Yes, you are God. I mean, that's where you go with that, right? Because you create. We're going back to a conversation that happened in the garden. Yeah, that's what I thought.

Yeah, because that was the ultimate lie, right? You will be like God. And so I totally see it. I had no idea. I did not know any of that. You just described that that was the foundation. I'd heard of the movement, but I didn't know really what they believe. I'd never researched it.

It's not too far away from, you know, we're studying, 1st John right now. Yeah. And these people not acknowledging Jesus as coming in the flesh. Yeah. Yes. These people trying to lead them Australia, I think, which he dubbed that a spirit of the Antichrist.

Mm-hmm. And so I see a lot of similar. He's writing to a church that had been affected by Gnosticism. Yeah. Yeah. That's kind of what we had concluded. And you know, another thing you said, Melissa, I was striking. You said we make that we were making a lot of I-Am

statements, which is such a big deal when you study John's writings about there's only one I am. Yeah. It's not you. Yeah. You can I am all you want, but you're not the I am. You know? You got it. Yeah.

That Jesus coming to flesh is kind of like the big dividing line. We've dealt with a lot of this, even when you're talking about, Melissa, even with these new age folks coming to Christ. it's kind of a process of getting out of that mentality. I mean, even the term esoteric, I've heard that once. I've heard it a thousand times. And it was like the idea that there's this hidden special knowledge that I'm getting this private kind of revelation, not even revelation, not even really revelation, because it's derived from within. You know, you just determine your own reality. The way it kind of manifests in, pun intended, in pop culture language is I'm going to manifest this.

Yes. And so manifest, you know, I'm manifesting. What does that mean? I'm making this thing come into being. I'm going to say the thing that I want to happen. So then it drips down even into kind of pop culture of people who aren't necessarily new thoughters or new age. Yes. They're just, they're just, they've just bought into it. They're like, I'm metasting what I want to be true. Yep. You get it. This is how everybody knows exactly what it is. And even the self-help movement was built on the shoulders of new thought authors like Napoleon Hill. People don't realize he's a new thought author and a scam artist, by the way. I made a whole video. about him. You have, gosh, who was the other guy? Dale Carnegie. I mean, you have so many people who were writing about basically that you now have attributes of God that once only belonged to God.

That's the big secret. So, yeah, you got it. You nailed it. But that's not the book we're talking about today, is it? No, today. But that is a very interesting book. So, yeah, I definitely want to talk about this. So here on some of the other things, set. We've got the book, The Day that Made the Way. And it's a Brave book, which we've been, Brave has been a sponsor of the podcast for quite a while. Missy has a book with Brave, and so do Jeff and Jessica, of course, our old friend Kirk Cameron, a ton of people that are awesome. And I loved it. I jokingly say that Jay's does better with children's book because he likes pictures. I do. I like it.

The illustrator did good here. Tebow on the podcast recently because he has a new illustrated book and Jace was was enamored. But it really is good. And I'll say this as we begin the discussion about it because I want you to give us on the, give us the why you wrote it and the importance of it. But it was, it was very C.S. Lewis. Yes.

Thank you. Yes. That's what, that's what I thought because we just did a Hillsdale studying on C.S. Lewis. And I love it when you can create. other people. I could never do. I don't have enough creativity to do that, but you created like this

new group of people and in a setting where children would love the story in how you describe it. They're called the Sunderers. But tell a little bit about why you wrote it and kind of what your purpose was in writing.

Hey guys, I want to tell you guys about something that's really cool we're doing with our Hillsdale Friday episodes. We're going to pick one listener to come down to Westman Road, Louisiana, to watch a live recording of Unashamed. And we're going to pay for it. We're going to pay for travel and lodging for you and a guest,

up to $1,000 each. All you got to do is take the ancient Christianity course with us. We're doing that every Friday. Finish all the quizzes and send us your certificate of completion. You can sign up and take the course for free at Unashamed for Hillsdale.com. Then you can upload your certificate at watchunashamed.com, and you'll be entered for the drawing. We'll pick a winner in June, so you guys stay tuned.

Yeah, it was twofold. I am not excited to write again, right? A book, I'm good, I'm done. But a children's book was very different because, first of all, they pitched to me that it would be an allegory around Easter, my favorite holiday of all time. I love Easter. And I'm like, oh, okay, let me think about it. But then it turned into a family project where all of a sudden, because you know how Brave is? They're phenomenal. They're such a good, yeah, I love Brave. They're great. great family company, very family oriented. They just, they do it so well. And they just opened the doors wide open. Like, bring your kids. Let's get ideas from them. And I'm like, okay, I'm sold. Let's do this. And so they got to design some, like the Senders, they helped design the Senders, right? They sent in their drawings and the illustrator did a phenomenal job. Somebody said it looked like a baby Groot. That's what I thought. I thought baby Groot. That's exactly what I thought. over my head. I totally didn't see it until somebody mentioned it. I'm like, oh, no, I can't unsee it. That's awesome. That is so good. But yeah, the girls, they designed their own little characters. They

didn't want to be in specifically. My oldest daughter, she's like, let's make them twins. And, you know, one of them was a boy, the other's a girl. It was fun. And then, of course, we had little Easter eggs, pun intended. You know, if my husband has hotter balloons are in the beginning. And then there's me and my husband and we look that way. And it was just, so fun because we all got to come together to do that part of it. And then it was the actual allegory part of it. The storyline was phenomenal. The meaning, the direct correlation to scripture. I mean, look at the cover. I mean, is that not narrow gate? You know what I mean? It's the light. Yes. And one thing I really wanted to transfer over was the light because

John 6, everybody knows John 3, my bad. John 316, for God to love the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever should believe in him will be saved, right? But then if you keep reading the rest of it, it's so good. It's so beautiful. Because the idea is that, you know, Jesus said, I didn't come to condemn you. I came to save you. Why? Because you're already condemned. People miss this. People think that God sends people to hell. It's like, no, you're already on your way there. I'm here to save you from it. And then the verdict is that the light came into the world. Jesus came into the world, but people loved their darkness, right?

They loved their darkness. They didn't want to be exposed. They're afraid of the light. They're not afraid of the dark. They love their darkness. They're afraid of the light. And so there's an allegorical truth all throughout the entire book about that. And at the end, it's my favorite, the little sunder, which means separated, by the way.

So the terminology was very specific that Sunder means to be separated. And at the end, this little Sunder, he's looking at the light and he's just kind of afraid of it. And he looks and he sees the bright one. That's the main character, the Jesus figure and the allegory. And he runs towards the light, right? And it transforms him. And so that's the lesson at the end. I leave it with that scripture.

And I say, don't be afraid of the light. You know, little kid, little child reading this story, run to the light. You're going to have this division within you. You're going to have this fight, but go towards the light. Yeah, you say the quote that you had in there at the very end, before there was a way into the light, someone had to step down into darkness. And it's really, really, really good. And one of the things I love, we talk a lot on this podcast about living in light now

and the idea of when Jesus came, he brought eternity and the concept with him. And so when the kingdom is established, we live in the light now. And that's what the book teaches, which I thought was really, really good. In other words, instead of waiting until eternity before we go into this light, it's like now. It's so weird because I remember my dad who we witnessed do thousands of Bible studies on our couch. When we were kids, we would watch this. And he was so blunt because he had such a terrible background. I guess he got away with it.

I mean, he would confess his sins openly. But he used to ask people, it's interesting, you brought that up. He had asked him, are you scared of the dark? And when you say that to people, everybody always says yes. Yeah. Because they're thinking, oh, yeah, if all the lights are out, you know. And he would say, well, you're not acting like it. Because he's already heard what they're into, you know.

And then he would read that end of John 3. Really? And he would say, you're scared of the light. Yeah. And so it's interesting when you brought that up. Oh, they love that. Because I thought, well, my dad used to use that same principle with just an individual on the couch talking about how they're living their life. And so I thought it's very.

I love that. Yeah, it's profound. But it makes people think, you know what? Yeah. Because when nobody's around, I'm doing a lot of cutting up. Well, and Melissa, that was one of the things. I said it was like C.S. Lewis because a lot of his allegories, he pressed the same point that you're doing in it. And I love it that it's shaping in the minds of children because they have to see, you know, they may not even get it in the moment, but they're going to get it at some point.

And but the idea that it's, it's hard to separate from that which we're plagued with because that's what we know. And a lot of Lewis's work was like that. Zach, you mentioned before on the lizard, remember on the, was that from Great Divorce. Yeah, the great divorce. Yeah, the lizard's on the shoulder. On the shoulder. Lippin his tail and whispering the lies of lust in his ear. And the angel's like, hey, can I kill that?

And he's like, ooh, I don't know. That's going to hurt. Yeah, it might kill me. He's like, yeah, it might. But, I mean, you want to go on like this? And then when he took the lizard off and threw it on the ground and it turned into like the stallion or something that the man could ride. And so the thing that was controlling him, that was having dominion over him, he ends up having dominion over once the liberation happened.

And I think that it's such a key thing. And I love the way you can tell those stories, Melissa, because I think the default position of the way most of us grew up if you're in church culture, even if you're not, you've grew up with a very humanistic framework of how you interpret reality. And so everything is about, I'm going to perform so that God will give me the reward and not simply. me to the punishment place when this is much more about just the like this is more of an ontological reality this is the way the world is yeah this is this is this is being and one way is life one way is death and so my revelation is not a i'm providing with you i'm turning on the light so that you can see yes yeah life really is and you guys are in first john now too because he's talking about uh you know the lights there and the darkness doesn't know doesn't know it

Yeah. Yeah. Well, you think about like when we've told this this analogy on the podcast before, but you know, you wake up in the middle of the night. I've done this several times in my life. I'm in a hotel room. I don't know where I'm at. I wake up. There's no light whatsoever. And you just kind of freak out. And you're like, where am I at? What's going on? Do you have no context for anything? And the moment that you find relief is when you stumble, you know, to the floor. And then you can see that little crack under the door. You say that crack of light. And then that's your context. Now, now I've got a place to move towards and move and get out of the darkness. But there's nothing worse than waking up in total darkness, not knowing where you're at. We've all had that experience. And as soon as you can find that smallest sliver of light, then you can have hope.

And I think that that's kind of the picture, you know, when you write in the book. It's beautiful. Yeah. And I hope it steps like or sticks with kids because there's something about, allegory, like Pilgrims Progress. I'm not sure if you guys have ever watched the animated version, but that's what we watch every Easter. And that is the, I always want to say Paul Bunyan, John Bunyan, yeah, the elementary kid in me and the Christian, you know, they kind of fight for that name. But yeah, John Bunyan, he wrote the Pilgrim's Progress. And there's something about

allegory, even Tolkien, I'm reading through the Lord of the Rings series again. It's just, there's something about when darkness is in the world and there's pain and there's evil and they're suffering, those stories, those stories speak to that fight, that fight against good and evil. Because that's what it is. I mean, it's an allegory book for kids, but I want them to remember it because they're going to go out there someday in this battle and they're going to have to fight a spiritual battle. And there's something about knowing, knowing, knowing, what that goodness is and that it's worth fighting for and what that light is and how to dispel the darkness because there's so many lies out there. There's like a thousand million

trillion lies, but there's one truth and there's so much darkness, right? But that light is so bright. I really just hope that they remember that. I want them to have that kind of, like you mentioned C.S. Lewis, why do we all know that, right? Like, why do we all respond to that? And, So that's my hope with it, is that what allegory in general has done for me and my children, I hope to kind of pass that baton over in this book. Yeah, I think it will. I mean, we were talking about this in a previous podcast. You know, Lewis was a skeptic. We all know kind of this story.

But like what, there's an interesting story of how Tolkien basically would walk with him. Who's the other guy? They were three or four of them. But they would walk with Lewis as he's working through his doubts, and he's trying to intellectually satisfy all these objections. And I love apologetics, too. But that did not really do anything for him in terms of coming to Christ. And it was when Tolkien was basically like, you got to quit, like, not that you leave your rationality,

but like you're trying to approach this strictly through the lens of rationality. and he said, you know, won't you just rest in the story of Christianity? And it was the story that led Lewis to Christ. And I think that that's how we all operate primarily is through the lens of story. And it's not anti-rational. It's more than rationality, though.

And with kids, especially, that's why I would highly encourage you guys to get this book. I'm always a big advocate of any of the stories that we can tell our kids when they're young. to foster the imagination for the kingdom while they're very young, to put that to incubate them in these stories, because I promise you the time is coming when there's another story that's going to be inundating them.

And that's what scares me with my own kids. It's like the other story that they're hearing that is a story of deformation, not a story of transformation. So I highly encourage you guys to get this book. So the book is The Day that Made The Way. And I have on here you can go to made the way. com to get a copy of it. Is that right, Melissa?

Yes, sir. Made the way.com is where it is. And I think that you can also get a plushy. There's an option to get a plushy there too, a little sender plush. Oh, awesome. And they can find you on YouTube because I know our listeners, a bunch of them are going to want to come listen to what you have to say. So you're just your channel or whatever's on YouTube. Yeah, you can just look me up, Melissa Doherty on YouTube.

I'm on Instagram, Facebook, all the socials. Excellent. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. What a blessing to get to meet you. And when we're ready to have that big debate, we're going to bring you back. Let's go. Let's go. Gloves on. It'll be fun. It'll be fun. But yeah, thanks for having me. It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Melissa. Thank you, Melissa. We'll see you next time on Unashamed. Thanks for listening to The Unashamed podcast. Help us out by leaving a rating and review on Apple Podcast. And don't miss an episode by subscribing on YouTube. And be sure. to click the little bell and choose all notifications to watch every episode.