← Stand to Reason Weekly Podcast
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- [00:29]
A
All right, friends, welcome to the show. And I'm glad you joined me for this particular hour because I have a special guest who has written a special book. And my guest today is Melissa Doherty. She's a Christian apologist, probably best known for the Melissa Doherty YouTube podcast. It has over 318,000 subscribers. I think that's more than we listen to our show. I don't know, but that's pretty impressive. And her videos, which primarily cover new age stuff and new thought, have have been viewed over 18 million times. And I've had many conversations with Melissa on the telephone on YouTube. I zoomed. I've been on her show, met her at events and everything. More than all the accolades, though, she's my buddy. Melissa, great to have you on the show today.
- [01:20]
B
Yeah, it's an honor to be here. I'm glad that we get to hang out because I think we just hung out on Saturday over the fall. That's right.
- [01:26]
A
We zoomed. Right? It was great. It's always a lot of fun to talk to you and I'm thrilled for your book. Touching on an area that needs discussion. Now, a lot of people are familiar with New Age, but they're not so familiar with new thought. By the way, I'm just curious. We've done so many things together in so many venues. Is this the first time you've been on the show?
- [01:49]
B
No, this is the second.
- [01:50]
A
Okay, this is the second. This is the first time as an author, as a published author. Congratulations on Happy Lies. How a movement you probably never heard of shaped our self obsessed world. And that's the book we're talking about. Release date is a few days. January 28th.
- [02:09]
B
Yeah.
- [02:09]
A
You know, Melissa, I just checked this out on Amazon. You're actually running. Your ranking is just over 2000 and you're actually number one bestseller of religion and philosophy.
- [02:20]
B
Oh, interesting.
- [02:21]
A
Number two is CS Lewis's Four Loves. You beat Lewis out of that category.
- [02:26]
B
Does this mean I'm a philosopher now?
- [02:29]
A
Yeah, there you go.
- [02:30]
B
Tick tock.
- [02:31]
A
It would, huh? And in the apologetics, you are one of the three. You're number 10 there, but you're one of the three most wished for books next to Mere Christianity and Case for Christ. So you're doing really great there, by the way, for comparison, Happy lies is number nine. Unapologetics and Tactics is number 26. So I tip my hat to you. I want to start with this. This is. You did a little video clip on Amazon, which I saw yesterday, and you say something very enticing there. I'm just going to read what you said and I want you to pick it up from there. What if I told you that an obscure positive thinking movement from the 1800s is quietly influencing countless Christians today, maybe even you? It's a movement that traded salvation for exaltation. And here's the twist. You already know exactly what this is, and at the same time, you don't. And this is why I wrote my book. That is really enticing. I want you to do a video for my books that's enticing as that. So that's an appeal that piques the curiosity, obviously. Okay, what's going on that I know about, but I don't know about something I know, but I don't realize is dangerous, which is the intimation there. So let's just use that as a jumping off point for you to introduce in general the book Happy Lies.
- [04:04]
B
Yeah, great. Yeah. Well, thanks for having me on and having me be able to talk about this. But yeah, that is the ultimate issue, I think, at hands with this movement. It's a movement, it's a philosophy, it's not a religion. It's. It's actually infiltrated the very fabric of society, in American society, yet nobody's ever heard of it. And I find that very interesting. I believed in these beliefs as a Christian, not realizing that it was this thing called New Thought. I grew up with these beliefs. My family, for the last, let's see, few generations, grew up with these beliefs. I have the books of my grandmother, my great grandmother sitting on my shelf back here. And so I, we just thought it was Christianity. We thought it was just this, this metaphysical Christianity. I thought it was just this higher spiritual version of Christianity. And so when I repented of these beliefs that I thought were New Age at the time in 2011, that's what I thought they were. I thought that it was, it was just New Age. But that's not the case. Right away, right off the bat, I noticed that there was something different about my experience because these ex New Agers, because you leave the New Age, you get to know other ex New Agers. Their experience and beliefs are, were fundamentally very different than mine. I remember people asking me, you know, hey, Melissa, wow, you left. The New Age is, is Reiki New Age? Tell me about Reiki. I'm like, what is that? I'd never heard of it before. I never knew that yoga, for example, would be considered New Age. It's a, it's a Hindu practice. I did not know that. I thought it was just a form of exercise, stretching, sacred geometry, you know, all. All these lists of things that I thought I wasn't into. I was into something I thought was Christian. So that's really important. And so kind of fast forward, I. I discovered, stumbled upon, if you will, rather this epiphany of understanding of my past beliefs that, oh, yeah, I. I was in this. This new thought thing, but it's all basically New Age, is what I used to say and believe I'm the next New Ager. And I'm okay with that. I'm okay with people understanding and thinking that I'm an ex New Ager if they want to kind of list me as that. But technically, I am an ex new thoughter with maybe a little bit of ex New Ager sprinkled in.
- [06:35]
A
Yeah. Because the context in which I first met you was as an ex New Ager. That's the way I recall. And I was on with you and your compatriot, who has her own show now, but we did some shows together about things I had written. And so as you began to research more, you realized, God, that wasn't so much New Age. This is a whole nother thing.
- [06:58]
B
Yeah. This is a whole different movie.
- [07:00]
A
I'm curious, what tipped you off to this difference between the two?
- [07:05]
B
It was a series of things I never wanted to write or anything like that, but I took a break from seminary, and it was in that time that I just started reading a lot of these books and watching videos, things that I had shelved for a while. And I'm starting to read, and I start realizing, why does this sound like what I used to believe? Why does that sound like I used to believe this isn't New Age? And I. I'm starting to piece all these puzzles together. And it was just an epiphany I had one day. I was reading something, and I think it was about Richard Rohr is what I was reading about. And I. I saw he's always been a. A hodgepodge to me of. Of different beliefs, and he's kind of hard to figure out.
- [07:48]
A
Right.
- [07:48]
B
But even him. I'm reading the stuff that he's saying. I'm like, this sounds like what I used to believe.
- [07:53]
A
Yeah.
- [07:54]
B
And all of a sudden I realized, oh, oh, New Age, new thought. These are two different things. And so I started looking into that more. I started going down that line of thoughts, and I got all the boring history books on new thought that I could get my hands on that I didn't know existed. And I started reading and I read and I read and I realized farther, the closer I got to this new thought thing, the farther away I got from New Age. Even though I understood what that was, it was understanding new thought. And that is when I realized, oh, this isn't just an alternative belief system. This is in the fabric of America. I mean, you're talking self help movement, you're talking even roots in the seeker sensitive model. You have positive thinking pastors, new thought pastors that everybody heralded as Christian teachers and leaders. You have self help authors that are new thought authors. Norman Vincent Peale, Dale Carnegie, Neville Goddard. You know, these people, these men who have called themselves Christians using Christian terms that are popular throughout society. And so what people don't realize is that these ideas and these beliefs and these teachings have become popular not just in society, but in Christian thought. And that's what makes it trickier and that's what distinct thinks it or it makes it distinguished from New Age.
- [09:25]
A
From New Age. So I have more questions about that. But I'm curious. So you are going along for quite a while, steeped in New Age concepts, yet thinking you were a Christian. As you look back now, do you think you were a Christian then and just confused 100% you were a believer?
- [09:42]
B
Oh, yeah. I don't have any doubt. I became a Christian at 16. It was an amazing experience. I believed. I believed, but I was hungry. You and I, we had this conversation actually the first time I came on because you stumbled across my video of me talking about this moment right here. Is that what stumbled me was actually other Christians because I had lots of questions and I was stunted in my growth in that regard because I'm excited about this new belief, but I don't understand what I'm reading in the, in the Bible. Tell me about it. And again, keep in mind the background that I had growing up and new thought. I had all this other stuff being taught to me about who Jesus was, about this, this inner power we had. And that sounded way more enticing than what these cynical Christians were saying because they didn't have the best attitude about my questions. And so I, you know, went to where I could, the open arms and so these teachings and beliefs that fed me. And so I just think I got led astray. I think you can be in error and still be saved.
- [10:52]
A
Sure, sure.
- [10:52]
B
I think I was. Yeah. And then God providentially brought me out of that. And I think that's kind of where I'm at today is, oh, I can speak about this.
- [10:59]
A
Yeah. So how would you, I mean I think a New Age is kind of a, kind of a modern or pop Hinduism in a way. There's certain aspects of it that are really close. This is a completely different thing. It's not a religion as you characterize it so much as a philosophy. How would you characterize new thought now as distinct? What are the characteristics of new thought that are foundational to that idea?
- [11:28]
B
Sure. So if I could describe new thought in a sentence, I would say that it's the metaphysical positive thinking movement in America with Jesus as its mascot. It's Christianity without a theological seatbelt. It's Jesus without the dogma. All right. And this is fundamentally what drove the movement in the beginning was, oh, freedom. And the word that I'm going to use is antinomianism, which is a fancy word for just no law. You're the, you're the authority. It was a shift of authority of, hey, you don't need this, this God, you know, telling you what to do. You're the authority. And so this is post enlightenment. And that's a really important time for the growth of this movement to, to get its roots because it sounded really good and was a great alternative to what others would consider, you know, a really legalistic religion. And on top of that, it had teachings of prosperity and health. So there are some terms that people might associate with New age that are actually new thought. And here are some of them. The law of attraction, manifestation, visualization. The Christ consciousness, which is a key new thought belief where we would think of Jesus Christ as one person. We think of Christ as the Messiah, the anointed one. Very Christian concept, very Old Testament, very beautiful. In new thought, remember, it's metaphysical, there's always a deeper, esoteric level of meaning. And so Christ and Jesus are separated. Jesus obtained this thing called the awakening, called the Christ. And so can you. And you are just as much the I am as Jesus is. Which brings me to I am Affirmations which are rooted in new thoughts. I am affirmations are considered new thought prayers. They're affirmative prayer. You speak in the now. You speak as if you had it. And then you have other words that kind of go along with it. Things that would be inherent to new thought, like co creator. You're a creator with God. Vibrations, frequencies. There's a misuse of science. Hear a lot about neuroscience and quantum physics, things that most people cannot verify. They will sit here and say, oh, these beliefs are not only Christian, but they're scientific. So it sounds like it's just Christianity on steroids, where most Christians are looked at as anti intellectual. Hey, we're the superior version of this. We're trying to bring this back to the roots. And what really distincts. Here's the main distinction between New Age and New Thought besides this is that I would say New Age is more rooted in Eastern mysticism. There is some overlap. Okay. Like spirit guides. I was trying to invoke my own spirit guide, for example. I wouldn't have looked at any of the things in New Age as being wrong inherently. I just wouldn't have even known they existed, nor that I practiced them. But in New Thought, the roots are more gnostic. So they would think that they are restoring the true teachings of Jesus. The Bible, it's metaphysical. And because truth is from within, you interpret scripture through that lens, through your lens of love or your truth. And that, as you know, I'm sure, can put a twitch in some people's eyes.
- [14:57]
A
Yeah, yeah, right. Well, I'm trying to think of the best way to kind of sum the theological core up here. And you pointed out this very self. Well, I want to say self centered. I'm not referring so much to a narcissistic impulse, though that may be part of what's going on in a lot of things right now. But rather it's a theology of self where the self is the theological center, the core, the truth. But there are the theological elements that are involved there. You talked about the law of attraction, you talked about the Christ consciousness. Can you flesh those out a little bit more in terms of the kind of theological core of new thought?
- [15:41]
B
Yeah, so it is more panentheistic, which I think is kind of a cop out because it mends together theism and pantheism. So they would say that we're not God, but God is in us. So they call it a divine spark from within. And your only ignorance, your only sin is. Well, the only sin really. And their answer for evil is your ignorance to that divinity from within. So if. No matter what evil, if you want to call it that, in their view, that happens. The reason why it happens is because you are ignorant to your.
- [16:19]
A
Your true self, your true divinity. Like.
- [16:21]
B
Yes. Yeah. It's a way to kind of make Christianity not just more palatable, but to make it so that it's powerful. They didn't think that they were just changing Christianity. They thought they were improving upon it. And it builds on the concept of idealism. Okay, this is important. If I were to put it. I'm trying to make it simple, how to put new thought, because it's about your thoughts. It's about your thoughts becoming things. And it builds on idealism, which is a. It's a way to view truth where the material world is secondary. All right? The true reality is mental, it's in your mind, and the material world is a response to it. So that means you can create your own reality. You are the God of your world. And this is what they are trying to teach people. This is ultimately the core theological point, is becoming conscious of it, which is what they would say Jesus did. Okay, so Jesus and scripture and things that are in the Bible, if you are ready for it, is what they would say. Are you ready to understand the truths within the Bible? Which makes it sound really secret and it makes you very powerful if you have figured it out, if you can tap into it.
- [17:42]
A
So this reminds me of all this secret knowledge, higher knowledge, the distinction between the physical realm and the mental realm. And the mental realm is the spiritual realm is where things are really happening. You can dis, in a sense the physical realm. And that has different manifestations. It sounds a lot to me like 2nd century Gnosticism, which was a development of Platonism, which is idealism too. So I mean, the early Christians dealt with all of this.
- [18:17]
B
Yes, this is not new.
- [18:20]
A
I think when we were talking about this, writing the book, I said, yeah, new thought, old lie, you know. And actually you used that for a title of one of your chapters. I was glad to see.
- [18:29]
B
Yes, I did. That was Greg's idea, just so everybody knows.
- [18:34]
A
But I'm really trying to emphasize not my idea part, but the content of that is that this has been around for a long time. So are there the way this is being played out now for the last hundreds of years, few hundred years post enlightenment, in different figures? We'll talk about some of them. Also. The influence on the church, is that playing out in a fundamentally different way as 2nd century Gnosticism, or is it playing out? The theology is fundamentally the same, but it's just got a gloss on it, it's got a new face, it's got a more hip look to it in the way it's being described. Would you say it's largely the same?
- [19:15]
B
I think that it is on the core the same, but I do think it has a pop culture facelift. Yeah, 100%. I don't think anybody realizes that when they're reading some of this material that, oh, that's Gnosticism, but, you know, but new thought has made it where it's repackaged and it is, it's the oldest lie in the book.
- [19:37]
A
I was talking last week about Billy Carson and Wesley Huff and you know Wesley and he's endorsed your book, I understand he was a great. But Billy Carson made some comments during their conversation, their controversial conversation that got a lot of play on the Internet about, about the Christ consciousness. I mean, he uses that phrase. That was immediate tip off. I wasn't sure where Billy Carson was coming from, but that was immediate tip off to me of generally where he's coming from. There's lots of variations of this notion. But I'm wondering, when people say they're spiritual but not religious, is this part of what they're referring to? Have you run across that phrase associated with these things? Yeah, yeah.
- [20:23]
B
And in fact, I use that sentence in the book to describe it. It's the spiritual but not religious dogma of the day. It takes it where you can have your spirituality and the power. And I think that's what draws people to these beliefs is that you're. Hey, yeah, you are, you're. You can still have these Christian concepts, but there's, there's this power.
- [20:44]
A
Yeah.
- [20:44]
B
That's with. Within it and what Gnosticism does. And a lot of people that I talked to, I interviewed a lot of people for this book, they would take a lot of these Gnostic concepts, like Eve being the good guy, you know, she was just trying to show us Satan is the good guy. He was trying to show us our inner divinity. And these Christians, man, they're trying to hide it. Jesus, the reason why he got crucified was because he was speaking the truth about our inner divine power. And they killed him for it. These, you know, these religious zealots, which is basically us, they would.
- [21:17]
A
Modern day.
- [21:18]
B
Modern day, yeah. And so we're trying to stifle the truth when in reality they are believing the lie. And so that's, that's the switch.
- [21:27]
A
So you mentioned about the law of attraction here. And I think that this kind of captures part because I have the book. Is it called the Law of Attraction by Berne? Is that her name?
- [21:38]
B
Oh yeah. The Secret by Rhonda Byrne.
- [21:40]
A
The Secret, yeah, the Secret. But it's about the law of attraction. And once you know the secret, well then your life totally changes. And she talks about the law of attraction there. I actually, when I read this, indeed I saw it on my bookshelf just yesterday, I was thinking it was new age, but really this is a manipulation of reality using these new thought techniques. So can you talk a little bit about the law of Attraction and.
- [22:08]
B
How.
- [22:09]
A
That exemplifies a bit of new thought theology.
- [22:13]
B
Yes, new thought. The law of attraction is inherently new thought. It goes back to what I was saying before that thought thoughts are things. That is the law of attraction in a sentence. And this is vital to the law of attraction. First, number one, it's a law. Okay? So remember what I said about it being spiritual and scientific. It mixes it together, saying with so much confidence, Greg, that your thoughts are so powerful. It's a law of the universe. It is a spiritual law. Whether you believe it or not, your thoughts are attracting into your life whatever it is that you are thinking and feeling. Now, notice the emphasis. It's on your feelings and what you are speaking. There are power. There's power in your words and there's power in your thoughts. So this is great news. This means that you can change your reality. So whatever it is that you are trying to change in your life, just change your thoughts. You want to be rich? Well, you just need thoughts. If you need romance, well, you just need thoughts. Here's how they the law of attraction.com would define the Law of Attraction. The law of attraction defines your ability to attract into your life what you focus on. Whatever you're thinking about, whatever you can imagine is achievable if you take action on a plan to get where you want to be. The true definition of the law of attraction is like attracts like. Whatever you give your emotional energy and attention to is what will come back to you. The law of attraction governs anything, everything within our abundant universe. It doesn't discriminate, discriminate. It only exists with perfection, whether you like it or not. So it's very confident. So what this entails, in essence, is that you are a powerful being and your thoughts are powerful. So the law of attraction is saying that, hey, why not focus on these positive vibrational things, not the negative. You don't want to be focusing on anything negative because that's what you'll bring into your life.
- [24:28]
A
Well, this makes this a good segue into my next observation about this particular like attracts like. And the law of attraction is that when bad things befall people, the only proper analysis is you brought this on yourself.
- [24:44]
B
Yep.
- [24:45]
A
Is that fair?
- [24:46]
B
Oh, 100% yes. You brought that to yourself.
- [24:50]
A
And that's the way they see it because you were thinking, pardon me, the wrong thing. So it does raise a question about Jesus, crucifixion. I don't know if you thought of it. It's the first time that occurred to me because they're they see Jesus as this noble person doing all these great things and teaching all of this stuff, but he gets himself crucified. And if like attracts like, then what was attracted was his crucifixion. He must have been, what, imagining, confessing or whatever, that instead of something else, exaltation, I don't know. So, I mean, that raises a question for me. This is an internal difficulty, you know, that they have. So it reminds me of the times when I was in India a number of years ago, before Stand of Reason started. And there's a guru who was really popular there, Madras. And he claimed to be a reincarnation of Jesus, which a number of other people have done in the past. Contemporaneous folks. I don't know how they could all be the reincarnation of Jesus all living at the same time, but that's another issue. But here's what I brought back from that. So I'm thinking about it. Christianity, the system that they're teaching, if this guy is a reincarnation of Jesus, considering who Jesus was, it's pretty discouraging that after 2000 years, this man from Galilee, who was so perfect, still couldn't get out of the cycle of reincarnation. He's still being reincarnated. And that guy is the guy, allegedly. So this did not. This is not good pr, you know, it seems to me, yeah, they don't.
- [26:32]
B
Play the movie forward. They don't play the movie forward. And, Greg, you're exhibiting exactly something that a lot of people in this movement kind of don't like, which is critical thinking, because negative. Critical thinking and negative thinking are used synonymously because you don't want to think that way, Greg. You don't want to. You know what I mean? And so there's a level of not being able to think these things through that ironically, you're thinking is on a higher moral and superior spiritual ground. I remember having that same thought. And the way that I would have thought about it is that, you know, you know, Jesus might have brought that on himself, but look, you know, he still rose again. You know, like, you focus on the positive, Greg. I was so positive that I would turn on Caleb and I would think it was negative.
- [27:19]
A
No kidding.
- [27:19]
B
Because.
- [27:20]
A
No kidding. The Christian station, right? The Christian music.
- [27:22]
B
Positive, Encouraging. Yeah, encouraging. Caleb. They're talking about the blood, though. They're talking about the cross and Jesus dying. I want to focus on the positive. Right. So there's a level of, you know, you don't want to mess up your energy.
- [27:35]
A
Yeah.
- [27:35]
B
And so it's like there's this thing of just not thinking about it. And the way that these beliefs are designed is you're, it's designed to make you not doubt and not question.
- [27:46]
A
So I have a, I have an applicational question though. How would you distinguish new thought from just a healthy optimism?
- [27:54]
B
Oh, great question. Oh, I love this question. Yeah. Because this is, this is probably one of the bigger issues I have with explaining anything about new thought because there's always this positive aspect of it that is not harmful, that's aligned with reality, that's true and good. No matter who says it or whose mouth it comes out of, it's true. And I actually write about this in the book and I make a distinguish, I distinguish between positive thinking and healthy mindedness versus new thought. It's biblical and good and healthy to, to wake up and try to think about what am I thinking about today? What is this? What what am I thinking about that's contributing to maybe issues that I'm having, right? I mean, what am I watching? Who am I talking to? What am I thinking about? Am I doom scrolling? How much screen time do I have? What am I eating? What's my diet like? And thinking, okay, I'm going to make a positive effort, an intentional effort to do better. Okay. There's nothing inherently new thought about that at all. I think that that's wise. Well, Paul says there's wisdom in that.
- [29:08]
A
Yeah. Philippians 4, 8. Whatever's true, whatever's honorable, whatever is right, whatever is true, whatever is lovely, whatever's of good repute. How do I know these words? Because I have to remind myself of them so I can think properly, the way God wants me to think. New thought, though, takes it to a different level.
- [29:26]
B
Thought gives you power. Okay. That's the simplest way I can put it is that it takes, I think people that are attracted to these beliefs. Part of the reason why is that it gives them control. This is a constant thread that I saw in my research and every interview that I do is I am in control. And a lot of times that comes from a point of view, pain, because they don't, they've experienced something that maybe they weren't in control. And so that gives them power personally, but it also gives them spiritual power. Okay? So what new thought does is that it gives you spiritual control and spiritual power. So your thoughts are no longer just positive, you are now told that your thoughts can create your reality. So positive thinking looks to God. Okay, New thought positivity, right? They exploit this good thing and they, they Redefine it to make it in the bait and switch you is what they do. And they make it into this thing that says you are God. Okay. And they will cloak it in virtuous language in Christian terms, because no Christian will say, oh, I'm God. They won't say that. They'll say, oh, I have power. Right. I have power to speak this. I have power to believe this. I haven't been endowed with this power. I'm a co. Creator with God. All right? And so that's what those. That. That's the terminology.
- [30:56]
A
That's what the new age. I'm sorry, the new thought person would. The way they'd characterize it.
- [31:00]
B
Is that what, that's what new thought would say? Yeah, yeah, that's what a Christian would say. Not realizing that it sounds very new thought.
- [31:07]
A
Oh, I see what you're saying. Okay. Because they're obviously there. We are. We are to have Philippians 4. 8. We are to focus on the things that are helpful and useful, true, honorable, right, good, whatever is lovely and of good repute. Any excellence, anything worthy of praise. That's the healthy part. And when it comes to whatever power we have, it's derivative. God provides through the Holy Spirit the ability to overcome the ability to see things in a different fashion. The new thought thing, and I like the way you put it here, it wasn't just my perception, my perspective that would change. No, my thoughts could change my reality. I was magical.
- [31:55]
B
Yes.
- [31:55]
A
And that's obviously totally different than what Paul is talking about there in Philippians 4.
- [32:00]
B
8. Yes, yes. And so again, remember, it's a metaphysical definition. You're not just reading that passage hermeneutically. You're not reading that passage to understand it in the perspective of the author. No, no, no. That's for you. Whatever. The power is aligned for you to come to that passage. And because you are the sole authority in how that affects your life, you're going to read that passage with more meaning than what was intended.
- [32:34]
A
You have a word that you coined. See if I can pronounce it correctly. To describe.
- [32:38]
B
I know what you're thinking of.
- [32:39]
A
Metamistagorical.
- [32:41]
B
Yes, he did. Good. Good job, Mr. Gokul. Yeah.
- [32:45]
A
So like Shakespeare, you made up a new word. But tell us, this relates to what you were just talking about in terms of how people in new Thought read Scripture.
- [32:58]
B
Yeah. So the reason why I coined that term is that it's metaphysical, but it's also allegorical. And that's something that new thought has taken, you know, and it's funny because why don't they ever do this with any other sacred text, you know what I mean? Like I don't see them taking, you know, the, the Quran and doing this. It's always the Bible. I don't see them taking, you know, all these other books. No other book. Okay. Even a book written by a new thought author that would be taken literally. Exactly. So it's very inconsistent.
- [33:30]
A
So when you're using the word metaphysical, there's lots of ways that this word is used. But your meaning of metaphysical is that above the physical, in the mental. And well, what comes to mind is like Ralph Waldo Emerson. And I know that he, that's a metaphysical philosophical thinking that the deeper meaning, not just the obvious reading, but there's a deeper meaning behind it that has relationship to this inner divinity. So the Transcendentalists, for example, that was a very self centered movement and Emerson was a major player in that. I don't know if Emerson is a father of Henry. What about Henry David Thoreau? Same category. So tell me a little bit about Emerson and the role that he played in this movement.
- [34:31]
B
Such a good question. Yeah. So first let me clarify metaphysical, because you're right, a lot of people may not catch this, but you can have metaphysical Christianity and then that's different than the metaphysics of Christianity. So like I go to ses, right, and there's a whole class, Southern evangelical Semini. Right, yes.
- [34:53]
A
It's a philosophical category. We use the term metaphysical as a way of understanding the nature of the world and what's real. That's the metaphysics. And you could have a theistic metaphysic, you could have a materialistic metaphysic. Right. This is being used in a different fashion.
- [35:09]
B
Exactly, thank you. Yes, exactly. So, and that's not what I call them. They would say it's metaphysical Christianity. That's how they describe themselves. So it's important to just understand, understand. And that's why I define it the way that I do. It's a higher Christianity on steroids is kind of the way I put it. So. But yeah, Emerson, Emerson is a, he's one of the fathers of new thought. And if you know, you have all these people that played a part that held the baton and passed it on. And I'm positive I could have written five or six chapters on just the fathers and the men and women, fathers and mothers of new thought. So I had to stick with the big players. And Ralph Waldo Emerson is one of them. And, and in fact, remember in the beginning I was talking about the books that I was reading that I was just like, wow, this sounds like what I used to believe. This sounds like what I experienced. One of them was Carl Truman's book Strange New World. And I'm reading it and he's talking about romanticism and expressive individualism. And I'm like, wow, this sounds like, sounds like new thought. It sounds like what I used to believe what's going on here. And I didn't realize that it's, it was the crossover of the transcendental movements and the, in the informed beliefs, if you will, of new thoughts that went parallel to that. That's exactly what it was. And so there's this level of self. If I were to describe romanticism in a word, it would be emotions, transcendentalism, if I were to describe that in a word, it would be something self. And both are like the authority of who you are. Your true self is from within. And what Ralph Waldo Emerson did is that he took this and he applied this to these new thought beliefs and it gave the authority to your emotions, your feelings and yourself. So your true authentic self is found within, not from without.
- [37:08]
A
So I was reading, reading Carl Truman's book the Stranger World. And just for clarification, for those not familiar with him, Truman was writing an analysis of the development of thought. He wasn't advancing new thought ideas as positive appropriate, but in that you realize as you're reading what he's describing in the romantic period, what happened there and began to influence modern thinkers was what you have come to recognize as new thought. Right? Yes, I'm getting that right. Okay, so I'm just thinking of the transition here of new thought to the self help industry. And you mentioned a couple of different people, like, I don't know, did you mention Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich? Yeah. And you did mention Dale Carnegie. Now he was monumental bestseller, how to Win Friends and influence the People. I read that and a long time ago there was a lot of good stuff in there. You know, use a person's name. The sweetest sound to a person is the sound of his own name. So you mentioned that sometimes these new thought bromides seem to work. And maybe you could say a bit about that. Dale Carnegie's book on public speaking. I got a lot out of that one too. It's really well done. But there's a mixture of things that are in there. And so how do we. Do you have any thoughts about how to in a sense separate the meat from the bones? In this case?
- [38:47]
B
Yes. This is actually one of the Hardest things about writing on this topic. I had analysis paralysis writing this book because exactly what you just said. There are books and things and teachers, people that I listen to today, you know, things that I would personally struggle with, that somebody who's not a Christian, who might be into these beliefs says something very helpful and good and true that has genuinely helped me. It's just good advice or aligned with reality, you know, and what this ends up doing is it muddies the water. It really muddies it up. Because what people end up doing is that it therefore might seem like, oh, the rest of what they're saying is valid. And I found this to be difficult to nuance. I did my best, but the way that I'm going to put it is that every single chapter that I had to cover had, had its challenges and its strengths. And what I find overall, this is the bigger picture of everything, is that whatever you're signing up for, that's good and true and you're signing up for that. You're like, yeah, sign me up. This is great. And then you play the movie forward and all of a sudden there's things that are added to that that you're not realizing that you're signing up for in the long run, you know? And like imagine you're, you're, you have a cookbook, okay? And it's filled with recipes, all right? And you're following it, you're reading it and you're following a specific diet or a lifestyle philosophy without realizing that's what you're doing, though, okay? So you're making the recipes as you're supposed to be doing it, but you don't realize that in the long run you ought not do that because it's the keto diet or it's the Atkins diet, but you don't know that. So underneath it all, there's this bait and switch that you at. As you go further down the line of these beliefs, you don't realize that that's what you're doing. So for, for example, let's take some self help techniques, okay?
- [40:58]
A
Okay.
- [40:59]
B
If you are, say you're in therapy or you're reading a book that's helping you cope with your anxiety and it's giving you ways to change the neural pathways in your brain, how to think, how to control that, what's going on in your brain, it's good scientific stuff, okay? But let's just say in chapter eight, they start saying, okay, now to enhance this, I need you to do affirmations. I want you to enhance the neural Pathway, experience. This will actually help manifest things into your life. You've already purchased the first eight chapters or seven chapters, so to speak. But on chapter eight, you're not ready to give it all up. You've already signed up for the whole thing.
- [41:44]
A
Sounds good so far, kind of thing.
- [41:46]
B
Exactly, yeah. And so that's what's the underlying thing about it is that it introduces spiritual concepts. Okay. That may not align with a Christian worldview without explicitly stating it. And this is the fundamental problem with new thought beliefs is that you don't realize you're signing up for it. This is the problem with a lot of MLMs as well. Multi level marketing companies. You're going in with cheers of positivity, you're going in with goal setting and boss babes and with all these good business advice, everything that you could think of a team that's going to help you. But hey, here's this prosperity book that's really going to help you align with how to grow your business. And again in that book, let's take Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill, one of the number one recommended books in mlms. That book has. Greg has great business advice. I've read it. I think that there's things in there that he says that are true and good and wholesome. But then you get to chapter six and he's having a business meeting with imaginary cabinet members that look and sound a lot like spirits. Okay. You know what I mean? And it's like, oh, okay, I'll sign up for that. Because the rest of it has been helpful.
- [43:05]
A
The kind of subtle bait and switch seems to me like a characteristic is like people who start taking up yoga. And I'm not totally against yoga because I think there are a lot of stretches that are in this. But it is actually a Hindu asana. In other words, it's a spiritual practice to help you to accomplish spiritual goals. That's the way it started. So if you are stretching and doing different things with yoga, okay, that's one thing, you're doing it for this good purpose. But then it moves another level so that you start doing spiritual exercises as part of it. You kind of get drawn in to this deeper experience of yoga that is based on spiritual commitments. The stretching thing drew you in and has its benefits. And in my view, most of the times it's just innocuous. It's helpful. A lot of times people. I was doing a stretch for a long time. I didn't even know it was a yoga move, but it was a good stretch. But nevertheless, there's these other elements that eventually start taking over or at least become embodied in the enterprise. So yoga now becomes a total spiritual experience. Now it's something totally different than what you originally signed up for. And that sounds like what you're describing here.
- [44:26]
B
Yes. And it's like, give me more. I want more of this. I want more results. And so they start kind of going, falling with those dominoes. And in fact, I actually just filmed, and I'm editing right now, a satire about the affirmations having a meeting.
- [44:43]
A
Oh.
- [44:44]
B
And it's like. It's. They're. They're tired of just being Instagram slogans. It's like we were actually created for a purpose. And that's the idea. Is that affirmations? Sure, they might be encouraging and helpful for you, but they're designed with a very specific purpose. I am affirmations. I am. And there's power in those words. And so how much of this are we signing up for? How much of this are we discarding? And that's the domino. That's the bait and switch.
- [45:11]
A
Well, I think people reading your book Happy Lies will have enough insight into the bigger picture to be able to see these kinds of things happening. And in fact, we got about 15 minutes left. I want to focus in on specifically how new thought concepts have crept into to the church or in what many people would consider spiritual enterprises. You talk a little bit about Alcoholics Anonymous and new thought concepts. There's a group that says, okay, you've got to admit you can't do this yourself. You need God's help. You need the higher power. But then they get very subjective and relativistic about what the higher power is. And that's always been a concern to me. It seems to me like you're just fooling yourself. You make up this higher power, whatever it is, and then it's just a way of you doing it yourself when you're supposed to be saying you can't do it yourself. I don't want to get into Alcoholics Anonymous, but I do want to get into new thought penetration of the church. I mean, this is really more where the rubber meets the road for a lot of Christians. So where do you see? What are some of the places where you see new thought penetrating the church or informing Christian practices in a way that's unsound and inconsistent with good Christian theology?
- [46:39]
B
Sure. Well, there's a lot of places, but I have an entire chapter about the Word of Faith movement, which is probably the biggest aha for me, because again, When I left these beliefs, thinking they were new Age, you know, I'm leaving behind Law of Attraction, speaking things into existence. You know, that my words have power and all these things. And then I'm turning over here and I'm like, what is this group of Christians doing? What is happening over here? Why are you practicing what I would have seen as the Law of Attraction? Because you have to understand, I was taught about health and wealth, prosperity, health and wealth, teachings in New Thought first, before I saw them over here in the Word of Faith movement, which I later understood that to be. And I'm like, well, which came first? It was undeniably, of course, new Thought. And you have New Thought, in fact. Aha. There's a book right here. I have it always right here. I feel like I should move it. But it's always so useful right here. It's basically a New Thought book. All this is filled with are testimonies of people who healed themselves and became rich through their right thinking. It's health and prosperity. And it goes back all the way to New Thought leaders. And so it began with health and it evolved into prosperity. And then it was almost like you had this in the 1800s. You had the Pentecostal higher life faith cure movements kind of going on, you know, and the revivals. And they see this group who seem like they're Christians on steroids getting all these results, but that kind of looks occultic. Let's see what we can do to respond to it. And so ultimately, there wasn't a syncretistic adopting rather of a lot of the metaphysical beliefs instead of a disdain for them. Because again, I always think the allure is power. They want the results. And so, hey, how can we Christianize this? And so I kind of draw the lines back from. In that chapter from Health, wealth, positive Confession, and the Little Gods doctrine. There's four areas that I draw back to New Thought, the influence of New Thought.
- [48:57]
A
These are the things that you see in Christian circles, some Christian circles that have their roots back in New Thought. So did I see a piece? Was it Ken Copeland? Did you want to go to a Ken Copeland conference? Did I see a video that you did on that?
- [49:10]
B
Yes, sir, I did. I went famous.
- [49:12]
A
I went to that, you know, health, wealth, prosperity guy. So did you get rich?
- [49:19]
B
No, no, I got told off, though. Yeah. There was a woman there that she did. You know what's funny is that it's so funny, Greg, how much you come up in conversation because, you know, just simply asking questions.
- [49:34]
A
Yeah.
- [49:34]
B
Like, every interview and it comes so naturally to me that it just. All you gotta do is kind of ask people what they believe in.
- [49:42]
A
And you have a lot of those conversations in the book. Yeah, that's really good.
- [49:46]
B
I didn't have to go very far at all with a lot of them, and so. But this one woman. Yeah, she was there and comes totally friend crushing on me at first. Just comes right up to me out of nowhere. I'm like, whoa, do we know each other? Very friendly, like, overtly extroverted. Kind of threw me off a little bit. But we were just not besties. After 10 minutes, when I told her why I was there, I was like, yeah, I actually don't agree. That's why I'm here. I kind of want to. I want to hear what he's saying. I want to ask questions. I want to learn, and I, you know, want to see what he's. What this is all about kind of thing. And. Oh, she just. She was entirely sold out with the health and prosperity gospel, defending Kenneth Copeland. And I talk about it in my video. But, yeah, I think that that's also very difficult for a lot of people to do, because if these teachings are not right, and in these areas, in these Word of Faith spaces, you do not question your leaders. You don't question the anointed. Okay.
- [50:41]
A
That's right. You don't touch God's anointed.
- [50:43]
B
You don't touch God's anointed. So if these things are bad. Yeah. Then the teachers aren't.
- [50:48]
A
Yeah. Just for the record, when David said, you don't touch God's anointed, he was saying, you don't kill God's king. All right? You don't kill him. That's what he meant by touch. But he criticized Saul roundly when Saul deserved it. So, anyway, the. Do you see connection here? I got two other areas here in the final five minutes or six minutes ago. Progressive Christianity and the new Apostolic Reformation. Where do you see new thought in progressive Christianity?
- [51:19]
B
Yeah. So our mutual friends, Alisa Childers, we always had this inside joke of. Well, I called it New Age at the time, but I'm like, man, New Age and progressive Christianity are like the same thing. And I even made a satire about this as well, but it's really new thought. And I. I make a. A Venn diagram in the chapter, kind of trying to show people. I'm like, it's not New Age that you're seeing people when they talk about Christ consciousness, when they're talking about universal Christ, when they're like, Very Richard Rohr isms on some regards and sometimes not. You know what I mean? Like what's progressive and what's new thought and what's just mysticism. And so I kind of put it all together and then I talk about reverends doing reverend swaps at progressive churches and new thought churches in my area because their theology is so similar. And so I delve into that and I would have been very, very progressive. Again, I didn't realize there would have been a name for it, a word for it when I was in it. I wouldn't have known I was new thought. I wouldn't have known I was progressive, but I would have been pro choice. I would have been a Democrat for sure. Politically speaking, I would have been pro social justice because that's the higher spiritual level to be on. That's really what it's all about. This is what Jesus would have taught. You know, I would have just taken that stuff hook, line and sinker. And so there's definitely parallels there, you know. And the last part that I'll talk about as well, which might be a controversial chapter, some people may not like this, but I mean, I can't help the history of it. But Robert Schuller, which you and I talked about briefly before, you know, I know you helped me a lot, kind of mentored me through this book, but Robert Schuller is a positive thinking pastor from the 80s and he started off really well, but he went off the deep end when he got ahold of Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale's work. Norman Vincent Peale is a new thought minister. And so he started really changing the way that he was doing church and was infused with new thought beliefs. And so what this did, it informed his ecclesiology, how he did church. And he started reframing everything he was doing around the unbeliever, wanting them to come to church. And this is the genesis for the seeker sensitive model, or I dub it the seeker centered model, which I did get from Greg Koukl. And so there's a difference between the two and I say that in the chapter. But he is a controversial figure in the models and he has affected the way that we do church today. And my argument in that chapter isn't, oh, this is all bad or this is all good. I'm making the argument of we have a hard conversation to have here because how much of this belief system has informed the way we do church and why we do it, why are we doing this?
- [54:07]
A
So in the distinction you make, and we talked about this is that there is a difference between seeker sensitive and seeker centered. That's a big distinction there. What about the New Apostolic Reformation? I mean, this is another controversial area within church. Holly Pevek and Doug Guyvid have done a lot of great work on this big warning. But does New Thought relate at all to their movement? Have you pursued that at all? I can't remember in the book if you touch on that or not.
- [54:40]
B
I actually purposely didn't mention the nar. And there's a reason why the Word of Faith movement, think of it like a tree where there's offshoots that kind of are part of the Word of Faith movement but are separate from, you know, the, the Fathers on some levels. The NAR New Apostolic Reformation is, is, you know, the fivefold ministry. Apostles, prophets, and you know, the way that they're doing. Right, yes. Is actually separate from the original Word of Faith teachings, which is about prosperity and health.
- [55:17]
A
Right. However, their ecclesiology is a little different.
- [55:21]
B
Yes. And they have Dominion theology. Their, their eschatology is. You know what I mean? Like they, they have taken the Word of Faith beliefs and would look to Word of Faith leaders like they are the Fathers of. Like they uplift them and uphold them as leaders. Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, though nobody wants to talk about him. They do. They look up to Kenneth Copeland, Kenneth Hagen, Creflo Dollar. I mean, they're all from the same fold. I would say that the NAR at this point anyway. I would say it's like a growth of that. That is different, but it's of the same cloth. And actually, Holly, read my book. Yes. Yeah, I wanna. It was so hard to write because there's so much to say. And so I had to stay focused about the direct line of new thought into Word of Faith. However, you cannot escape it. I have yet to see anybody, any teacher, prophet, apostle in that movement that is not also Word of Faith. So it's. Yeah, they dance the same dance.
- [56:25]
A
Melissa, it's been great talking with you here. We're almost out of time. I just want to repeat the title again, Happy Lies. How a movement you probably never heard of shaped our self obsessed world. You've done a great job here and the endorsements are abundant and including mine and Wesley Hupps, but I have the arc, the advanced review copy, so I don't have all the endorsements here, but you did a sensational job and it's doing really well. Hasn't been out yet. Releases in just a couple of days on the 28th and I'm just proud of the work that you've done, Melissa. And all the best to you on this book.
- [57:01]
B
Thank you. I appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.
- [57:03]
A
Melissa Doherty, happy Lies. And I'm Greg Kochl for Stanley a reason. Give them heaven, friends. Bye bye now.
- [57:33]
B
Sam.