← Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey
Ep 1154 | Ex-New Ager Reveals Cults’ Secret Invasion of the Church | Guest: Melissa Dougherty
01:04:17
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- [00:01]
Melissa Doherty
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- [00:31]
Ally Stuckey
From the New Age and Gender Confusion to Freedom in Christ Melissa Dougherty is an apologist and she just wrote a book called Happy Lies about how the New Age and the New thought have infiltrated the church. What we need to look out for as Christians. Her testimony from being raised in the world of Christian Science and the new thought that surrounds that ideology is just fascinating and super encouraging. You guys are going to love this episode of Relatable Foreign thanks so much for taking the time to join us. If you could tell everyone who may not know who you are and what you do, Sure.
- [01:16]
Melissa Doherty
I am Melissa Doherty. Some people might know me mostly from my YouTube channel. I'm also on all kinds of different social medias, but I talk mostly about New Age, new thoughts. I do some pretty mediocre satire if I say so myself. But yeah, it's good. It's okay. But yeah, it's. It's. I just kind of call myself a mixed bag when it comes to touching on different topics. But those are my fortes.
- [01:40]
Ally Stuckey
Which is why you wrote this book, Happy Lies. How a movement you probably never heard of shaped our self obsessed world about New Age new thought. This kind of movement that's really not new at all. Before we get into the core of your book, I want to take us back into your life. How did you start studying the New Age? How did you start knowing about it, caring about it, talking about it?
- [02:07]
Melissa Doherty
Sure, yeah. So my story is, you know, two threefold I suppose, but I grew up in what I thought was a Christian household, but really it was more intertwined with new thought, but I didn't know that's what it was called at the time. And what is that new thought? Which I'll get to. But basically, well, let me define it now. It has more influence than recognizing that is what the book is about. And I've never seen anybody write about it. And once I saw really what this was, that it's not the same as new Age, that it's not under this canopy and where it is everywhere, not just in society, but in the church. I had an epiphany. I'm like, why is nobody talking about this? And it was very personal to me because I grew up with these beliefs. In a sentence, I would say that it's the positive thinking movement in America with Jesus as its mascot. In two words, I would say it's metaphysical Christianity. And I challenge that. It's much more deceptive than the New Age because it's made to look Christian. Christian terminology, same terms, quote scripture. And that's really why I thought it was, it was Christian, it was just more spiritual.
- [03:19]
Ally Stuckey
And define metaphysical.
- [03:21]
Melissa Doherty
Great question. Yes. Because my seminary professors, they get like a twitch in their eye when I say that there is a proper use for it in the Christian world. Classical theism, where metaphysical is just the non physical attributes of God. You know, you're looking at omnipresence, his all power. You know, the things about God that make him God.
- [03:45]
Ally Stuckey
Sovereignty, omniscience, all of that.
- [03:48]
Melissa Doherty
Why does he reveal himself in the way that he does? Why must he act in certain ways? That's the metaphysics and theology in Christianity. I mean, they have seminary classes after that.
- [03:59]
Ally Stuckey
So not all metaphysics is bad. That's not what you're saying.
- [04:02]
Melissa Doherty
No, no. And it's interest. Mention it. Because almost every chapter in this book needed a. A caveat. Yeah, because it's like, okay, well you hear this, like affirmations. Affirming something doesn't always mean, you know, that, oh, I need affirmation in this. Some people might hear that and think, oh, that's bad. But really, it's just really defining the term. But in New Thought they would describe themselves as in the movement anyway, as metaphysical Christianity. What that means is beyond the physical. And to hash that out a little bit more, think of everything around you. Everything. You, me, sitting here, our bodies, words on a page, our cup sitting here. It has a spiritual counterpart. So what you do here in the physical realm affects the spiritual realm. So if you're trying to fix something in the physical realm, you fix it in the spiritual realm. And how you do that is with your thoughts, words and, and feelings, especially feelings. Feelings are very important, but it means that there's always something more beyond the physical that you're seeing and reading and experiencing. That's why looking for signs can be so important.
- [05:11]
Ally Stuckey
Is this like, okay, if you're sick, there must be something going on, corresponding in your spirit or in the spirit world that is making you sick. Is it that kind of idea?
- [05:22]
Melissa Doherty
Yes. And it's very interesting that you Use the word correspondence because there's a very interesting figure in the new thought world called Emmanuel Swedenborg. He's one of the fathers that I talk about in one of the beginning chapters, and he's a fascinating figure, but he has something that he called the law of correspondence, which is basically what I just said, that the material world is built on your mind, it responds to your mind. And that if you want to move things in the material world, you move them first in the spiritual world, done through your thoughts, words and feelings. And so sickness, health, wealth, things like that. I mean, we're talking about a movement that paraded the health and wealth prosperity that we see. And we see a lot of that in the Word of Faith movement, of course, too.
- [06:13]
Ally Stuckey
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- [08:07]
Melissa Doherty
Well, I grew up with a lot of old dusty books from my great grandparents that were fascinating to me because they were old and seemed ancient and had all this wisdom in it. And so they grew up, or well, they adopted it, rather. And then my mom grew up in it, and then I grew up in it. But it was always a mixture. Like, we went to a Presbyterian church. I think that my mom. I think they grew up in, like, a Lutheran church. And so the ideas were there, but there it wasn't. Like they went to, like, a separate church that taught these things. And so, yeah, I grew up with these. These beliefs that. That your mind really could control your reality, that if you believed hard enough, you could actually create whatever it was around you. And this is something that Jesus taught that's very important, is that everything was always like, hey, Jesus is the way shower. He was showing us our true human spiritual potential. What he can do, what he did, you can do as well, and more archetype. Yeah, yeah. And then Christ consciousness is a big new thought word. Everybody thinks things. That's new age. It's not. It's new thought. And Jesus would have been the example of obtaining the Christ consciousness. Remember how I said before, everything's metaphysical. That has a metaphysical definition. We would hear that and think, oh, it means Messiah. It means. In its proper context, that's exactly what it means. But not in new thought. In new thought, it's a metaphysical definition.
- [09:35]
Ally Stuckey
It's a higher meaning can attain to. So is this Christian Science?
- [09:39]
Melissa Doherty
Good question. Yeah. Actually, Christian Science would be a cult of new thought.
- [09:43]
Ally Stuckey
Okay, and was that. Were your parents and grandparents Christian Scientists?
- [09:46]
Melissa Doherty
Yes and no. They were kind of both. We had all kinds of books on the shelves from Unity, which is a. One of the largest new thought denominations, Religious Science, and then Christian Science. And I remember I still have it. It's in a bag. It's all broken apart. But it's Mary Baker Eddy's book, but translated into English from German. And so I still have that book and see it. But, yeah, the history is very interesting. But Christian Science, the beliefs are very new thought. But Mary Baker Eddy was. She made a lot of people upset. She was not. She was very cultish. And the movements. Her. Her teacher, Phineas Quimby, wanted to move away from that. And so because she. She went down a more dogmatic path, they wanted to get away from that. They wanted Jesus without the dogma. It was really your heart's desire. What's and that's the other thing, is that what. What you felt from within is what was true. And if you're reading something in Scripture and it doesn't resonate with you, well, then it has to be translated through the lens of love. And so that's why you get, like, people like Oprah Winfrey who. Who can say she's a Christian, but she.
- [10:57]
Ally Stuckey
I heard her say, you know, when she came out, I think it was 2014, 2015, saying, I'm pro LGBTQ. I've heard her say multiple times since then, if your theology is hurting people.
- [11:08]
Melissa Doherty
Yes.
- [11:08]
Ally Stuckey
If your theology is superseding your relationships. I saw someone say the other day, which, this is such a form of horrible emotional manipulation. If your theology makes someone want to kill themselves, then it's not good theology. And it kind of sounds like a similar idea that you have to put on the lens of, will this make someone mad, or does this fit the worldly definition of loving? If so, if it does fit that worldly definition, I'll take it.
- [11:37]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah.
- [11:37]
Ally Stuckey
If not, then I'll throw it away. Kind of like cafeteria Christianity.
- [11:41]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah, Cafeteria Christianity. It makes you the sovereign. And because ultimately what new thought teaches, again, and it's so tricky because it's in a Christian context, is that you are divine. You are the creator of the universe. You are a co creator with God. And so I'm hearing all this stuff growing up in a Christian context, not really thinking much of it, if I'm honest. I didn't really think much of spiritual things until I was 16. And that's really when I became a Christian. No doubt in my mind. I gave my life to the Lord and had that happen. I actually was at a very, very low, dark place, and I was suicidal. And I just happened to be at a party one night with a friend that. I mean, he was drinking, but he had just gotten saved. Brand new baby Christian. And he's there telling us that we're doing something terrible, like we need to repent. And it was very interesting. But, yeah, he's there telling the gospel, and I believed it. And I went home that night completely different. I woke up the next morning, and I remember sitting up, Ali, and I'm like, man, this is different. I mean, the light shone brighter, smells smell different, colors look different. I felt new. I felt born again, and I'd never even heard that term before. And so I felt like a new creation. But the biggest thing was a hunger to know more. I wanted to know the Bible.
- [13:04]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [13:05]
Melissa Doherty
And that actually was where the problem started. Because I, I, I discovered that there's maybe an anti intellectual bane within Christianity that's like they don't want to think about those things. They don't want to ask or ask or answer hard questions. And I'm talking Christianity 101 questions. Tell me about hell. I have issues with that. What's going on? How can a good God hell? All the things that we've always asked.
- [13:29]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [13:30]
Melissa Doherty
Things that we've asked for thousands of years in Christianity. Yes. How did we get the Bible? What's up with the violence in the Old Testament? Tell me about this God that I believe. And it was really there at that point that I discovered, okay, a lot of Christians don't like this.
- [13:44]
Ally Stuckey
And were you asking your parents because you, I guess at the time maybe thought that they were Christian. Were you asking a parent?
- [13:52]
Melissa Doherty
Well, my parents split up, so my mom, they split up when I was little. And my mom, I was asking everybody, I was so hungry and of course my mom, I mean, we grew up with these types of beliefs. And so I'm hearing one thing. And then we had the books on the shelf that I grew up with. Those were pretty pivotal because they talked about Jesus, they were talking about these tough questions with a very open mind. And so, and then I remember asking pastors and other Christians and I remember being told once that I was actually stumbling, stumbling them in their faith. And it just kind of turned me off.
- [14:25]
Ally Stuckey
Because of your questions? Oh, no.
- [14:27]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah. And it kind of turned me off a little bit. And so I started exploring elsewhere. And what ended up happening, it was a long thing that took a long time, but I ended up blending a lot of the New thought beliefs that I grew up with with my Christianity. Just not realizing that's what I did.
- [14:44]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [14:45]
Melissa Doherty
And I thought it was a New age, which would be appropriate perhaps to define at this point, because New Age is its own bucket. I would say that New Age is more Hindu, Hinduism, Buddhism, Eastern mysticism. And then New Thought is more Gnostic in origin. So you have these competing spiritualities that ultimately say, yeah, you are divine, but how they get there is different. And I had my friend, I have a friend, his name is Carl Tykrib. Brilliant man. He helped me, he helped peer review a few of my chapters. And he put it this way, he said that the New age is really external, like tarot card, psychic readings, transcendental meditation, Reiki, reincarnation, karma, you know, star seeds, light work. You're taking all these things that you're outwardly doing something. He said that New Thought is more internal in that regard. So. And I have a whole chapter about that. I go into more detail about the difference between New Age and new thought and why new thought is in its own bucket. But I thought I was in the New Age. But it was, it was really funny because when I did end up getting out of it, which was after I had my first child, and of all people, it was two Jehovah's Witnesses that challenged me. And I'm researching them, and as I'm researching them, I'm realizing, oh, what I believe is wrong, because if the Bible is true, then what they believe is wrong. But if the Bible is true, what I believe is wrong. So it was, it was kind of a rug that got pulled out from underneath me. Um, but after I got out of it, I'm like, yeah, I'm an ex New Ager. And people would come up and they'd ask, oh, sacred geometry, is that, is that New Age? Like, I didn't know math could be sacred. What it's like, yeah, what's happening here? I didn't know that Reiki. Never even heard of it before. I had no idea yoga would have been considered New Age. And I realized as time went on, maybe I was in something a little bit different. Heard the word new thoughts, thought it was the same thing, and it wasn't. It turns out that new thought is made to look Christian. And that's really why I wrote about it, is that I think that there's, there's an infiltration, a hiddenness that it's been hiding behind the leg of New Age.
- [16:49]
Ally Stuckey
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- [19:28]
Melissa Doherty
Oh, that's so interesting. You ask that. It was God's love. It was. There was something about the forgiveness and love of God that I had never heard. I'd gone to church. I'd heard about Jesus. I'd heard all about the power. I've heard about the power that humanity can have, supposedly. But I had never really heard it quite like that. Where there's nothing you've done, nothing you've done that he will not forgive. And there was something in that moment when those words were said that I felt the Holy Spirit like I'd never felt that before. And I can think of it now, even how I was sitting, I was holding a bottle of strawberry Boone's wine. I mean, because I'm lame. And there's this warmth, like this feeling, I guess, but it was more of a feeling. It was just this completion. I believed. I believed. I believed what he said. And it changed my life. I'm like this, God, tell me more. And you know, I did start going to church and I did learn some things. It was just my insatiable hunger, I suppose, to want to know more and then not being If I wasn't satisfied in it, I wanted to pick at every corner and dig through everything to figure out exactly how to understand hell from. Or the problem of evil from every angle. Because it helped me understand, maybe through my doubts. I didn't realize that at the time. I was kind of an apologist. Yeah, I. I liked digging into that stuff.
- [21:02]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah, yeah. And you said it was God's love. At that point, did you feel unloved? You said that your parents had split and you were in this dark spot. Like, what was that dark spot? What was going on in your life?
- [21:15]
Melissa Doherty
Well, I was. I can honestly say I don't think I was a very good person. I. I was very, very insecure. I told a lot of lies. I told, you know, I mean, here I am, this teenager that just. I don't know what I'm doing. I have. And I ended up hurting somebody pretty badly. And I felt really bad about that. But it was more than just feeling bad. I was not a good person. I didn't love myself. I didn't like who I was. I didn't see anything good in the fact that I could give anything to this world. And I don't think that there was anything anybody could have said, any person that could have come in my life to say anything that I. I needed to hear other than the gospel. It was. It was the gospel that. That really just brought me out of that place.
- [22:05]
Ally Stuckey
But, yeah.
- [22:06]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah, the. The suicidal thoughts, like that. It was the darkest I've ever felt at all. And that's the thing is that when I woke up that next day, it was gone. Yeah, it was gone. Like, I felt like this new person, brand new. And just I. I remember thinking, like, as I sat up, like, whoever that person was last night is dead.
- [22:28]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [22:28]
Melissa Doherty
And it was just really interesting. I experienced that.
- [22:31]
Ally Stuckey
Yes. And what's interesting also about the feelings that you had before believing in Christ was that that is the exact opposite message that the New Age especially. But I suppose also the new thought tells people.
- [22:44]
Melissa Doherty
Yes.
- [22:44]
Ally Stuckey
That you are inherently good and powerful. Or at the very least, it sounds like New thought would say you have the potential to be powerful if you aspire to this Christ consciousness. New Age would say you've got this, like, God is deep inside. All you have to do is find her. Love yourself until you get to that point. Then you'll be satisfied. But you felt the opposite of that. You had kind of grown up around some of those messages and you felt, no, I'm not good. I can't save myself. And so it actually.
- [23:13]
Melissa Doherty
I'm a horrible person.
- [23:14]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah. It makes me think that it's not just a wrong message. When these new age messengers or self love, self help people tell everyone you're beautiful and perfect the way you are. That is actually an impediment to the gospel because you needed to get to the place.
- [23:29]
Melissa Doherty
Yes.
- [23:30]
Ally Stuckey
Where you are like, I am not perfect. I am not a savior, I am not God, and I need help. And that is really what made you vulnerable in the best way to the message of Christ.
- [23:42]
Melissa Doherty
Right. It's funny you mentioned that too, because I have a whole chapter on the self help movement and I quote your book in it because that there's this. Exactly. You have this idea that you have this inner divine spark in the only sin you're is your ignorance to it.
- [23:56]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [23:57]
Melissa Doherty
You know, it's like you, you're good. You are inherently good and you got this and you just have to see it within yourself. And that is. So it's a crutch.
- [24:07]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [24:08]
Melissa Doherty
It's the opposite. And then, and then you have a further problem there. And I say that this is like the problem with like the, the gospel of Oprah, Oprah Winfrey, for example, is that if you don't think that you need salvation, if you don't think that you're a bad person or need a savior because you're the savior, that is a block to accepting, hearing, understanding the gospel.
- [24:33]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [24:33]
Melissa Doherty
And so it begins with that.
- [24:35]
Ally Stuckey
Another lesson I'm hearing from your testimony is that you were truly saved, you were justified at that point. But the sanctification process didn't look exactly like maybe the outside world would expect it to look or want it to look. You still believed some, you know, ideas of the new age and new thought. And from the outside looking in, someone might believe, that girl's not a Christian. She doesn't have the right theology. It's just a reminder for us to be gracious and patient with people who are new Christians. It might not mean that they're not really Christians.
- [25:11]
Melissa Doherty
They might be prodigal. They might be. And here's the thing. This is kind of my way of understanding where somebody stands, how do you respond to truth? Because when I discovered it, I leaned into it. I was like, oh, I, I'm sinning. This is repent. I need to repent. I need to fix this. Because once I understood, and that's the thing is I was really hungry, hungry for it. But once I understood, I shifted. Whereas other people, they justify it, they justify their sin. They want to Stay in where they're at. And there is no coming out of that in that regard. And so I think that that's one way to kind of look at it. But I'm glad you mentioned that. Yeah, like giving the grace and thinking that, okay, that person might be going through something. But I think that's one reason I think I've become very careful of kind of calling out somebody's salvation unless it's very obvious. But I think that there's a difference with how they accept truth being told. And I think that there's ways to kind of be mindful of maybe how we're speaking. But I think that that really has. Has been a weird litmus test for me. Like, how are you gonna take this? Because here's objectively what the Bible says.
- [26:24]
Ally Stuckey
Objectively, yeah.
- [26:25]
Melissa Doherty
And you just don't like that. Okay, all right. That's where we stand. Okay.
- [26:29]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [26:29]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah.
- [26:30]
Ally Stuckey
I think it's a little bit tough. And I don't know if I'm willing to make this like a hard and fast rule that if you're a new Christian, you shouldn't have like a social media platform about theology. I don't want to say that for sure because I don't know if that's always the case. But I do think it's tougher. Like, I'm glad that I didn't have a microphone when I was first, you know, learning because you're just, I mean, we're always going to be wrong about certain things until, you know, we reach glory and then we'll understand fully. But I, I don't know, it's a very difficult time after you become a Christian to then start preaching online.
- [27:06]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah, it's scriptural. I find that there's wisdom when you wait. There's wisdom in waiting in that regard. And for obvious reasons. Obvious reasons. And I think that I look back now and I wonder, man, if I had a platform and I was saying that stuff, I'd have to not just backpedal, but I would have hurt other people's theology. I would have harmed their walk. And there's no way. 10 years that point and then 10 years later, my theology is definitely stronger. But I think there's responsibility that goes with that for sure. Yeah, I agree with you.
- [27:44]
Ally Stuckey
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- [29:03]
Melissa Doherty
Know might not have New Thought.
- [29:05]
Ally Stuckey
Yes. Okay, let's. Let's flesh that out even more.
- [29:08]
Melissa Doherty
Okay.
- [29:09]
Ally Stuckey
The differences between New Thought and New Age. You give three big differences between these two things. Can you talk about that?
- [29:17]
Melissa Doherty
You might have to refresh me if.
- [29:18]
Ally Stuckey
I gave three New thought claims to be Christian. New Age is more associated with numerology, astrology, etc. New Age might be more pantheistic in their worldview.
- [29:28]
Melissa Doherty
Yes. Yeah. So New Thought would say that they are more panentheistic, which I just think is a fancy way of cheating because I mean you have theism and pantheism and there's probably a seminary professor that's much smarter than me that could hash that out a little bit more. But they would say that God is in everything, not that everything is God. And how I understand that they would hash that out is kind of how I explained before, that if God is in everything, we're all one. And it builds on this belief called non duality, which is the opposite of what Scripture teaches that we're separate from God. This is really important actually, because the Christian worldview says that God is not us. He's holy, he's separate from us. He is Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. He is not a human being and he is separate from us. We need to be made right with Him. That's where Jesus comes in. Non duality. Panentheism says, no, we're already all one with God. We are not separate from Him. And your sin is your ignorance to that. And when you realize that you are one with God, that's really when the spiritual awakening can happen. That's. And it's really interesting because you can talk with people that have had maybe what they would consider a spiritual awakening. And they see the world in this non. Dual sense. And what I've noticed is that it's almost like they have to shut off their mind a little bit. And this is one of the issues I had with New Thought is that it. Kind of the first name for New Thought was Mind Sciences. And I thought it was just a way more intelligent version of Christianity, just smarter, more open minded. But the irony is, is that it really does teach you to kind of shut off your critical thinking. Critical thinking is negative thinking. So you kind of dance between these names and all. But really what it does is that it, it makes it so that your. Whatever happens to you, whatever is brought into your world, whatever you're thinking about, you are in essence creating whatever you feel about something you are bringing into your reality. So. But yeah, I think that you named a few things that would put those two things in their own little buckets. But New Thought and New Age, they are not the same thing.
- [31:55]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [31:55]
Melissa Doherty
And I think that's. That's really one of the things that I think people kind of struggle with.
- [32:01]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [32:02]
Melissa Doherty
Is defining that. But I. Yeah.
- [32:04]
Ally Stuckey
Which one do you think has seeped more pervasively into the modern church?
- [32:11]
Melissa Doherty
Which New Thought Teaching, New Thought or New Age? I would say New Age. I would say that is more obvious. If you have a church like Bethel, for example, they are very open saying, oh, look, look at that, those tarot cards. Maybe there's some truth here in astrology or numerology or whatever.
- [32:28]
Ally Stuckey
There's been a Bethel pastor specifically to.
- [32:31]
Melissa Doherty
Say that, oh, Physics of Heaven is actually one of their most damning books that they've written. Have you read that book?
- [32:36]
Ally Stuckey
Is that by Bill Johnson or is it by.
- [32:38]
Melissa Doherty
Oh, who's it by? Two women.
- [32:40]
Ally Stuckey
Okay.
- [32:41]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah. I mean, it's endorsed by Chris Valatin and Bill Johnson, but their names are escaping me. I haven't actually thought of it for a while. They took the book off the shelf, though.
- [32:49]
Ally Stuckey
Oh, really?
- [32:50]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah, they took the book off the shelf. But Physics of Heaven was very disturbing because, you see, I saw it and I'm like, wow, this is a lot of what I used to believe. You know, you have quantum mysticism and metaphysics and all these things that they're trying to.
- [33:06]
Ally Stuckey
Ellen Davis and Judy Franklin.
- [33:08]
Melissa Doherty
Very good.
- [33:08]
Ally Stuckey
And I don't know anything about them or if the book mentions tarot cards, but I know it does. I've read about the book and I know it does mention a lot of like almost paranormal, superstitious things that are not founded in Scripture.
- [33:22]
Melissa Doherty
Yes.
- [33:22]
Ally Stuckey
And that is kind of this idea of correspondence that what is happening in heaven corresponds with something here and we can make manifest.
- [33:31]
Melissa Doherty
Yes.
- [33:32]
Ally Stuckey
Kind of all those things, the kingdom of heaven different than how Jesus, you know, tells us to advance the kingdom here on earth as it is in heaven. It's much more, I don't know, it sounds a lot more like witchcraft to me.
- [33:45]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah, it's, it's, it can get very witchcrafty. And that's the idea is they look at that and they think we can redeem that there's power there. New Thought, I think is a little bit more. I mean, they would probably be. I use them as an example because they're probably the ones that would be more open to rolling out the red carpet to pretty much any weird thing because they don't want to miss out on a blessing from God or a power from God or something like that. New Thought, I would think is more hidden in that regard. So, I mean, we're talking affirmations, manifestation visualization, health and wealth, prosperity teachings. I even have a whole chapter on the very questionable roots of the seeker friendly model with Robert Schuller, who was a New Thought pastor, who mentored many pastors that are still around today. I mean, we have these issues with this movement. Norman Vincent Peale, he's a New Thought pastor, and the power of positive thinking. And we, we have these things where what makes New Thought very difficult is that you can say, okay, I need to think positive about myself. And then somebody might think, oh, well, that's New Thought. Well, hold on. We need to kind of hash that out a little bit. What do you mean by that? Yeah, what do you mean by being positive to yourself or loving yourself? What does that mean? And so is there some sort of innate power with your thinking? If you're thinking positive, are you thinking that there's a frequency or vibration that goes with that that somehow is creating the world around you? And so I think that that's kind of where we can see that in the church. But I have a whole chapter, for example, on like the Word of Faith movement, where when I got out of these teachings, I just got done doing Law of Attraction, speaking things into existence, co creating with God. And then I see it in the church. And at first I was confused because I didn't know what the Word of Faith movement was. I didn't know what prosperity Gospel was. And I experienced it first and then I saw it and it took me years to kind of put those two things together. The Question is not if new thought teachings are in the Word of Faith movement. They are.
- [35:55]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah. Tell me what the Word of Faith movement is.
- [35:58]
Melissa Doherty
The Word of Faith movement is. It's a name that they gave themselves. Think of. It's synonymous with the prosperity gospel. It's the idea that God always wills you to be healthy and wealthy and you can speak and create as God created as well. This is very simplistic way to describe it, but some teachers that are very prominent in the Word of Faith movement. Kenneth Hagin, he's the father of the Word of Faith movement. Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, you have Creflo Dollar. I could go on and on these. Joel Osteen, you have Joyce Meyer. Yeah, yeah. And a lot. All of them are teaching the same philosophy, theological philosophy. I would say the. Kenneth Copeland is probably the most outspoken, but Joel Osteen is probably the most new thought word of faith pastor that I could. That I can name.
- [36:52]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah, yeah.
- [36:53]
Melissa Doherty
In fact, New Thought reverends, ministers look at him and think, wow, he's teaching a new thought message.
- [37:00]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [37:01]
Melissa Doherty
Good for him. He waves the Bible around. We don't like that.
- [37:03]
Ally Stuckey
But yeah, yeah. They kind of seem like this is. It seems like Bible verses to bolster his, you know, self help speech. Basically the points that he's making about self empowerment.
- [37:15]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah. The I am affirmations.
- [37:17]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah. It's just they have no answer for what's going on with the Christians in Syria right now.
- [37:23]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah.
- [37:23]
Ally Stuckey
Or what's going on in the Christians, you know, in different parts of Africa that are beheaded for their faith.
- [37:31]
Melissa Doherty
Exactly.
- [37:31]
Ally Stuckey
And the ironic thing is that a lot of prosperity preaching is actually imported into places like Africa. Unfortunately, it's blowing up there right now. Some of these people have, you know, worldwide ministries that's funded by billions of dollars and we're going to these poor countries and preaching this heretical message which not only not save their soul, but will not save their body. So they're left with feeling when they're still, you know, getting persecuted by the radical Islamists. They're. They're left feeling that it's their fault that they didn't declare it enough, that they didn't have enough faith.
- [38:11]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah.
- [38:11]
Ally Stuckey
That. That's why they're not rich, that's not why they're not saved, when really they're supposed to be serving the Jesus who says, in this world you will have trouble. And all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. And so there's such danger to this. There's such a danger to this message, it's not just, oh, yeah, we kind of disagree. No, this is anti gospel and an impediment to saving faith.
- [38:36]
Melissa Doherty
Yes. And then they take the critical thinking. I was saying before, you can't do that. You can't think critically because, oh, that's Satan. Right. Like that's Satan trying to bring doubts into my mind. And so you end up not thinking critically about the teacher or what you're being taught, even though you're commanded to. And so, yeah, it creates this whole mess. It's, it's very messy. But you know, if I were to describe Word of Faith, I would say it's a soup of Pentecostalism, the Faith cure movement of the 1800s and new thought. And so there's something here.
- [39:11]
Ally Stuckey
Movement of the 1800s. Can you flesh that out?
- [39:13]
Melissa Doherty
I wish I could, actually. I mean, the faith cure movement was. I actually just did an interview with Rob Bowman about it, about the whole Word of Faith movement, and he would probably know a lot more about this. But the word, the faith cure movement was what E.W. kenyon adopted and got into, which is that God always wills you to heal, always wants you to be healed through.
- [39:34]
Ally Stuckey
Faith physically on this side of heaven.
- [39:36]
Melissa Doherty
Yes. And so a lot of those teachings that you see transported over into the Word of Faith movement come from the Faith cure movement. And so I think, I think one faith cure teaching is that Jesus had to go to hell. I believe that's one of them. That he had to go to hell and, you know, preach the gospel that he, he. There's like a teaching. I know that. Excuse me, like Joyce Meyer, a few other people teach these, these teachings. He had to go to hell for three days. Certain aspects of that movement have entered, been introduced into the Word of Faith movement. And what I attempt to do is like, okay, well, what's new thought? Yeah, what, what are those lines that I can draw? Yeah.
- [40:17]
Ally Stuckey
Okay. Tell me a little bit more about how these things manifest themselves. Not just in the, like big Joel Osteen churches, but kind of in all seeker sensitive churches and preaching. There's a part of this, and I kind of understand this temptation to tell someone who you want to be a Christian or who was in a really low place like you were to be like, oh no, you're good, you're not a bad person. You're actually a good person and it's okay, like, you're gonna be fine. God's gonna help you. Like, I see the temptation behind that. I see that like even as a parent to my children, like that's the, that's what we want to tell them. So tell us how this shows up in different kinds of evangelical churches.
- [41:04]
Melissa Doherty
Sure. Yeah. And it's not just seeker sensitive. I think that there's, there's many secret churches that are biblical. But I think that there's dangers, of course, when it comes to these kinds of teachings, the positive minded teachings, the teachings that make you want to be attractive to the believer.
- [41:23]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [41:24]
Melissa Doherty
Or to the unbeliever, I mean, and unoffensive. Unoffensive.
- [41:28]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [41:29]
Melissa Doherty
And I think that there's a danger there, of course, because the first thing you want to mess with is offending people. You always want to mess with the message of the cross. And I'm like, don't do that. You're taking away the stumbling block. The very thing that's supposed to offend somebody, you're taking it away. And so you get a lot of false converts who feel really good every Sunday. They, they hear about how to manage their stress.
- [41:52]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [41:53]
Melissa Doherty
And they hear about how to maybe handle their marriage.
- [41:55]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah. But whatever you win people with, you win them too.
- [41:59]
Melissa Doherty
Exactly, exactly. And so the most nuanced chapter, the hardest chapter to write was the chapter on the seeker model. Because of this nuance, because it's, it's a, it's a cheap shot. You can't just cheap shot one way and say, oh, all secret churches are bad. And then you can't cheap shot the other way and say that there's nothing wrong. You have to have this conversation. And so I start with Schuler, the, one of the creators or the creator, the, the main face of the seeker model. Why was it created? What were the intentions there? And what new thought beliefs from Schuller informed that model? And I just, I can't unsee it. You know, once I see it, it's just, okay, well, you're creating a space for the non believer. And then you have this possibility thinking that he, that he taught the, the, this positive thinking kind of aspect, which some of them do. But really what it, what it caters to can be an in house conversation that we need to have, you know, and so, but yeah, that. Now you ask how like other dangers though, can get into these churches. And one of the problems I'm seeing is that there is a lack of being able to understand bad theology. There's a lack of discernments in the church. And one of the questions that I asked is, okay, how does that get there? But also I see a shift where people are, they're, we're Fed up. We're fed up. We're like, okay, can we start thinking critically about our faith? And one of the problems that I see, okay, personally, with specifically New Thought teachings, let's take affirmations. Affirmations. A lot of people are going to hear that right now and think, oh, okay, yeah, I do. Affirmations. What a lot of people don't realize is what affirmations are is New Thought prayers. They were created by the New Thought movements to speak affirmative prayer in the now in order for you to basically manifest what it is. You don't ask. In other words, you say it as if you had it. And then your feelings are very, very important. Feelings are everything in New Thought. That's where your power is. If you feel like you have a relationship, if you feel like you're rich, if you feel that you can have that job according to these laws of the universe, you must get it. And so I'll be having conversations with, with Christians about these beliefs and they're like, oh, yeah, yeah, I believe that. And so I, I have to pull out of them a little bit more, you know, like, where did you get that from? Who have you read? Yeah, you know, because if you're reading the Bible, it's. You don't just get that black and white message. You don't get this message of, oh, if you speak it, believe it. If you have these kinds of, you know, that faith is a power or that you can speak affirmative prayer instead of asking and trusting like there's no model there. And so I'm just wondering, where does that come from?
- [45:10]
Ally Stuckey
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- [46:44]
Melissa Doherty
Yes. Yeah, that's another chapter. That's chapter eight in the book. Because Elisa Chiller is a mutual friend of ours. Me and her have a joke that a progressive Christian and a new Ager, really a new thoughter, would go into a coffee shop and realize that they're best friends because they basically believe the same thing. And I would joke with her, I'm like, but why? Where does that come from? Why is there you have universal Christ, Richard Rohr. Richard Rohr is a hodgepodge, but he talks, he says very new thought things sometimes and other times he doesn't. And then you have other progressives talking about the Christ consciousness, these, these, the divine mind, these, these really new thought words. And so I, I attempt to explain that parallel, how that happens, why does that happen? And again, a lot of it does have to do with the overall fact that new thought as a movement is interwoven throughout America. But it's also something that is adopted within many churches by many Christians. And it gives you this alternative Jesus, it gives you this alternative gospel that sounds a lot like the progressive gospel. These are two different movements, to be sure. But the fact that I can find so many new thought beliefs among progressives is very interesting to me. Let me give you one of them. Your true authentic self. That's a huge progressive word right now. That's a, a very big new thought word too. Your true authentic self. Your true self is your divine self within. And you have two parts of yourself, your false self and your true self, your false self. And this would be a new thought idea as well. Also, progressive is built is what society tells you what it is. Right? And so your false self is something that needs to be deconstructed so you can uncover your true self. This is why there's this constant drone of uncertainty. And. Well, at least I believe that's why I think that that's one reason why, is that you can never be absolutely sure of what you believe because then you're rebuilding your false self. Is that from society or is that from my true self? And so, I don't know, I'm just gonna. Yeah. And so and then truth. Truth is redefined completely. I have a whole chapter on that. That. That's really interesting, too, because I did a lot of interviews for this book. A lot of them made it into the book. Face to face, Boots on the ground, made calls, interviews. And I always wanted to start with, like, truth questions. And there was this one reverend, and it's in that. In the progressive chapter, and my friend Greg Kokel, he and Frank Turek, both of them, like, if you're asking a truth question, push it as far as you can. See what you can get away with, just to see where they're at. How far will they move the goalposts? And this one reverend, I was asking him, well, okay, I believe my true self says that tobacco is a vegetable. And he's like, that's dumb, right? Like, that's just. Why would you believe that? I'm like, okay, well, I believe that, though. That's my truth. And through a series of questions, by the end of the conversation, he was believing, yeah, okay, it's your truth. Tobacco can be a vegetable.
- [49:55]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [49:55]
Melissa Doherty
I'm like, how far are you going to move these goalposts? And so, yeah, these little dances with all these things, with progressive Christianity and new thought, I say that has way more in common with new thought than New Age progressive Christianity does. Yeah, I'm not saying that there's none, but I. I think as far as that belief goes, as far as those, the. The actual ins and outs is more than you thought.
- [50:19]
Ally Stuckey
And so much of what you said we can see manifested specifically in a variety of ways in progressivism. But gender is the first one that comes to mind. And it's this kind of. You know, Nancy Pearcey writes about this so beautifully and love thy body. And I talk about it some, and you're not enough when you serve the God of self, or I called it the cult of self affirmation, where you're serving the God of self. The two highest values are autonomy and authenticity, which can both be good things when they are in submission to Christ. But when they're not, when they are your highest values, then autonomy justifies doing whatever you want in the name of controlling yourself. So abortion would be one example. Authenticity justifies doing whatever you want in the name of being yourself. So if your true self, as you said, and your true inner self is who you really are and informs physical reality rather than the other way around, then of course you can declare that you are a girl, even if you were born male, because you have that power. And it's also Connected. Because you have the power of speech to declare a new reality that everyone else must then submit to. And I'm so curious about this part of your story. I haven't heard you share about it before, but you also had some gender confusion, gender deception when you were growing up. Can you talk about that?
- [51:42]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah, that was very difficult to write that chapter because it's very vulnerable.
- [51:47]
Ally Stuckey
Yes.
- [51:50]
Melissa Doherty
And to be honest, I'm still working that out myself on many levels. But the spiritual beliefs that I grew up with, what I believed about my inner self, really fed into that. Yeah, this is really who I am. And this. I'm a 90s kid. You know what I mean? Like, there was no social media. There was nobody feeding me this.
- [52:13]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [52:13]
Melissa Doherty
There was nothing happening. It was just. I had a very strong dislike for being a girl I didn't like. I thought boys were smarter, they were funnier. They. Everybody listened when they spoke. They had better positions, better. They were leaders. They were powerful. You know, all these things.
- [52:33]
Ally Stuckey
More athletic.
- [52:34]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah.
- [52:35]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [52:35]
Melissa Doherty
And it was actually Abigail Shrier's book. I cried. I cried when I read that book at the end, because.
- [52:40]
Ally Stuckey
Her first book.
- [52:41]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah, her first book, Irreversible Damage. I quote her in that book. I actually. At the end of the chapter, because it made me cry. It's like, you're not a deformed version of a male, you know, And I loved that. Not that she said that, but it was the. I wrote it in the book and I quoted her on that, but it. In a certain aspect or a certain section of her book. But, yeah, the. The. The worry there. The concern that I had, though, is that I grew out of it, but I still struggled a little bit with seeing men equal to me. Okay. Because a new thought and New age men are not equal. You as a female are superior to them. And that was very attractive.
- [53:25]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [53:25]
Melissa Doherty
Because then it's like, oh, I'm better than you. There is no equality here. I'm. I'm a female and I have all these qualities that you don't. And so it came into this competition, but when it comes to the. The element of the spirituality that I had to deal with that, especially as a young kid, I'm this tweenager teenager kind of dealing with, who am I and what am I? Why does my body and why does my heart say two different things? I had no context for. However, what I did have context for were, like, I had a lot of. Ralph Aldo Emerson. He's one of the fathers of new thought and your true authentic self. He had this.
- [54:05]
Ally Stuckey
I did not know that.
- [54:06]
Melissa Doherty
Yes.
- [54:07]
Ally Stuckey
And we read a lot of him in high school. I mean, obviously, he's a. I didn't know. Amazing writer.
- [54:11]
Melissa Doherty
He's an incredible writer, but I didn't.
- [54:13]
Ally Stuckey
Know that he had any association with New Thought. Interesting.
- [54:17]
Melissa Doherty
Yes, He. He is one of the fathers of New Thought. And he wrote a very famous essay called Self Reliance. And in that essay, it's basically everything. We're talking about who you are on the inside. You do. You boo like it's you. That's who you are. And he's also a transcendentalist. Right. So he's one of the main figures in the Transcendental Movement. I was reading Carl Truman's book, and in reading his book, I'm like, man, this sounds a lot like what I grew up with. Why does this sound like New Thought? What is going on here? He's talking about Romanticism and the. The origins of the sexual revolution.
- [54:50]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah. The rise and fall of the modern self.
- [54:53]
Melissa Doherty
Yes.
- [54:53]
Ally Stuckey
Is that what it's called?
- [54:54]
Melissa Doherty
That's the thicker version. I read the layperson version, which is a strange new world.
- [54:58]
Ally Stuckey
Okay. Carl Truman.
- [55:00]
Melissa Doherty
Carl Truman.
- [55:01]
Ally Stuckey
Recent, by the way. You're not talking about while you were a teenager. You're talking about in the last few years, as you've. As you've learned. Yeah.
- [55:06]
Melissa Doherty
Yes. And I'm reading his book, and I was struggling because I'm like, why does this sound like new thought, expressive individualism, all these things. And it was in. In doing the research on. On Emerson that I realized you have these corresponding movements of Romanticism and Transcendentalism where if I could describe Romanticism in a word, it would be emotions. If I were to describe Transcendentalism in a word, it would be self, and both are authoritative and who you are. And I think I understood at that point, like, oh, okay, I kind of see where this kind of comes from. And I actually did a little bit more of a deep dive podcast on the transcendental gender stuff and the connection there with cultish on a podcast with them. Because you're right, it's not a topic that I've talked about very much, but I'm very fascinated with this whole. It's not just gender. This is the other thing. It's not just gender in new thought spaces or these spaces where you have this freedom of identity and that whoever you are on the inside is not just, oh, I feel this way. Whoever you are on the inside is divine. So it makes talking to them a very different experience. You're not Just talking to a person who might be gender confused, which there are those. To this person, they think that whatever is telling them, informing them of their identity, is God.
- [56:30]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah.
- [56:31]
Melissa Doherty
So you're going against God? If I'm going against them, I'm going against God. And so I've had to kind of take a position where I have to understand that I'm talking to somebody that actually believes that this is a divine thing that's happening within them.
- [56:46]
Ally Stuckey
Can I ask something?
- [56:48]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah.
- [56:48]
Ally Stuckey
It's going to be controversial. And I don't know if you've talked about this, because a lot of the theology, obviously, we see it in all different kinds of churches, all different kinds of places.
- [56:56]
Melissa Doherty
Sure.
- [56:56]
Ally Stuckey
This seems to be a. Especially prevalent in majority black churches. There's a lot of prosperity preaching, but a lot of. As you're talking, I'm like, I've heard that a lot. You are divine. You are a queen. You are, you know, some. A goddess, Something special. And. Yes.
- [57:13]
Melissa Doherty
Yeah.
- [57:13]
Ally Stuckey
I don't know. I don't know if you've ever talked about the roots of that or why that is.
- [57:17]
Melissa Doherty
It's interesting you bring that up. That is a controversial question, especially today's political climate. But I guarantee there's a lot of people watching that are like, ali's not wrong. You know, there's something there. And I was reading Kate Bowler's book. Do you know who that is? Yeah. And there's a whole section on this that she talks about with the black church and the prosperity gospel and all these other theologies that kind of entered into the black church. I mean, Carlton Pearson is one of them. Carlton Pearson was a Pentecostal word of faith preacher, Reverend Ike. And both of them were very off when it came to a lot of their. Their teachings. That's like an origin there in that regard. I haven't looked too much to it. But you're not wrong. Yeah. I have friends. I have a friend. In fact, we've talked many times. She's black, and she talks about this a lot on her. She's in ministry as well, on her channel. And that's one thing I asked her. I was like, so what's up with this? You know, like, how does this. How do you. How do they square this circle? How do they make it so that, you know, maybe in some of their churches that aren't black, black have a different view on these things, but for the black church is very different. Tell me about that. Yeah, you know, so I. I wouldn't say that you're wrong in that A.
- [58:36]
Ally Stuckey
Lot of the prosperity preachers that I see, like, we played a clip the other day and it was like kind of a funny clip, but it was this.
- [58:42]
Melissa Doherty
Which one was it?
- [58:43]
Ally Stuckey
She was this older white lady. I had never heard of her, seen her before, but she was her. She's using a food analogy. She was like, when you need oil in order to fry, all of these things.
- [58:55]
Melissa Doherty
But I saw that when you.
- [58:56]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah, if. And what oil do you use to fry bacon? Yeah, you don't need it. And it was like you are your own anointing oil to give yourself power. So it's this older white lady, but almost the entire congregation was black. I don't know if people know who, like, real talk Kim is. She's got like over a million Instagram followers. She talks like that very prosperity preacher. Same thing. And she's just this like, you know, 40 something white lady. Almost her entire congregation, it seems like it's black. And so I don't know. I just think that that is interesting.
- [59:30]
Melissa Doherty
And I wonder what's the correlation there?
- [59:32]
Ally Stuckey
I wonder why specifically in majority black churches, that seems to be very prevalent. I don't know.
- [59:39]
Melissa Doherty
I don't know either. That'd be an interesting thing to look into, though.
- [59:41]
Ally Stuckey
Yes. Next video for you. Okay, tell us anything else you want to say about this book. What do you hope people walk away with? What's the main thing you hope people learn?
- [59:55]
Melissa Doherty
Well, first of all, I never wanted to write a book. Oh, yeah, no.
- [60:01]
Ally Stuckey
You have so much material, though, to work with for a book. I'm so glad you did.
- [60:05]
Melissa Doherty
I put everything I had in this book. I. You put your life on hold for so long and it's. This is the biggest project I've ever worked on. So that's just a little bit about.
- [60:19]
Ally Stuckey
You know, it's like having a child.
- [60:20]
Melissa Doherty
It feels like you gave birth, Ali. It is. It's like you get. You give birth on paper and especially it depends on what you're writing about. But this was not an easy book to write.
- [60:29]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah, it's a lot of research.
- [60:31]
Melissa Doherty
It was. And with all that, that to be said, the reason I say that is because I didn't do it for myself. I want people to read this and know that what it is. What is this? Why has nobody talked about this? What's the history of this? Where is it? What are some conversations that we need to have? And then I. I kind of leave a call to action at the end. An example, a real conversation I had with a woman who was reading Emmett Fox, who's a very well known new thought author and she's like, oh, I'm loving this, this is great. I've never heard scripture like this before. And I'm like, oh honey, we need to talk, you know. And her response was, oh, tell me more. Like she leaned into it. And that's kind of what I want to leave people with is that if you're, if you're reading this, I was very careful in making it so that it was conversational and informative. But I'm hoping that it leaves people with a sense of okay, I know what this is, I know how to deal with it. And now I need to maybe make shifts in my own theology and so I hope they lean into it.
- [61:37]
Ally Stuckey
Yeah. Awesome. Happy lies. How a movement you probably never heard of shaped our self obsessed world. So good. So much information in here. You can get it on Amazon or anywhere. Anywhere sold, right? And everyone needs to subscribe to Melissa's channel. It's not only informative, makes you think, but it's also very entertaining because these are serious topics, big topics and you could be like, you know, very serious and grave the entire time. But you do it in a way that is very watchable, very enjoyable. So your channel is just Melissa Doherty, right?
- [62:10]
Melissa Doherty
Just my name.
- [62:11]
Ally Stuckey
Okay, so everyone go find her. If you don't subscribe, a lot of you probably already do. Go ahead and do that. Melissa, thank you so much for taking the time to come on.
- [62:19]
Melissa Doherty
Thank you for having me.
- [62:24]
Ally Stuckey
Before we head out today, I just want to remind you if you have not gotten your tickets for share the arrows 2025, now is the time to do it. We are continuing to sell even though all of those early bird tickets and the early bird discount or over that ended after about 24 hours, even less than that. We are still selling these tickets like hotcakes. And I'm just so thankful to the Lord for allowing me to be connected to such an engaged audience that wants to come together with like minded women, to worship together, to hear clear teaching together, to be edified and to be challenged. So I want you to go ahead and make your plans right now because once it's sold out, it's sold out. You want to get a good hotel room, you want to make sure that you good, good flights, nail down the logistics so you don't have to worry about it and you can get the best prices on all of those things. Go to share the arrows.com when you do, you'll see where to get your tickets. Bring your small group, bring everyone that you possibly can. If you want an opportunity to meet me to meet the other speakers, there are VIP options that you can purchase too. We've got a lot of fun in store for our VIPs the night before the event. Go to ShareTheAeros.com.