New Thought and Progressive Christianity? What are they? And what do the Scriptures teach about them? We will talk about it. I had this.
fascination with The supernatural in general, whether it was paranormal, whether it was any sort of spiritual event, I was absolutely fascinated by it. And my mom, in particular, had had a lot of spiritual experiences growing up. She had Things happen to her that I almost wished would happen to me. Welcome to Understanding the Times Radio with Pastor Josh Schwartz and Ken Michael. Radio for the remnant.
Brought to you by Olive Tree Ministries. In our program, Pastor Josh and Ken talk to Melissa Doherty. New Age, New Thought, and the Rise of Progressive Christianity. We are in confused times, yet, take heart, Jesus is in control. Here is today's programming.
I remember it was the weekend. And I was hanging out with one of my friends. mindlessly just hanging out. I I literally was trying to waste time. We get a call from one of our mutual friends.
and asked us if we wanted to go To a house of another mutual friend of ours at a house party. Yeah. To go hang out at this house party, I walk into the house where this party is happening, and Mike, my friend who had invited me, was. In the corner, right as I walked in. Just Almost looking like he's in an argument with somebody.
And as I sat down, Mike is still arguing. A lot. He's being very loud about it to the point where. Our friends have to calm him down. It turns out.
What had happened is Mike just Got. Saved. He had just found Jesus. There was Something he said, of course, to his spiritual nature that I had disagreed with. And What he said next.
Changed everything in my life. And it was so simple. All he did. I remember him pointing at me, and he said, No, there's nothing that you've done that God cannot. Forgive.
He loves you. Welcome to Understanding the Times. I'm Ken Michael, along with Pastor Josh Schwartz.
Well, our guest today is Melissa Doherty. And if you're not familiar with her and her ministry, you are in for a treat today. Melissa, we want to welcome you to the program for the first time. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
So, Melissa, tell our audience who's not aware of you and your ministry, what it's all about, and how did Jesus interact in your life? Yeah, so my ministry, most people would know me from YouTube. I do satire, theology, apologetics, and everything Jesus related.
So I usually say it's a mixed bag. And long story short, I got saved when I was 16, got involved with a lot of very questionable beliefs that I thought were Christian. Turns out they weren't. And when I discovered that, it was 2011. And it was actually Jehovah's Witnesses who came to my door that challenged me and caused me to research.
And that's a whole story in and of itself. But then I ended up getting into ministry after that to Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, learned a lot about. Critical thinking, logic, cult mindset, mind control. And then later on, after that, I got into New Age and New Thought, teaching about what that is, and ended up writing a book. Here I am doing just this whole mixed bag of Everything that you could think of thrown in there as far as theology, cult mindsets, new age, new thought.
anything that you could really apply in those in those terms. Wow, that's amazing. You have all kinds of stuff going on there.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but you do have a bit of maybe spiritual or demonic interactions in your past, correct? Oh, yeah. Yeah, some of it for sure. That's not something I talk about too much, but yeah, I dabbled with. I would consider now to just be flat out occultic.
I did not think they were occultic at the time, though. And that's the tricky part.
So when I say that I got into some tricky spirituality thinking it was Christian, it was basically this thing called new thought. Didn't know the name for it at the time, but um, let me give you some things to describe that: like law of attraction, manifestation, uh, words. Creating my reality, thoughts becoming things. And I basically would. Go into spiritual places to kind of for power, basically.
I wanted power, spiritual power. And I would read books and practice things that were inherently unbiblical, but I had issues at the time with. Understanding and trusting the Bible. And so I remember one time, for example, wanting to. Interact with my own spirit guide.
I wanted a, I thought that was biblical. Isn't that silly? I thought it was something that God wanted us to have, to have knowledge and information. And it really was about that, just finding this hidden esoteric knowledge that was spiritual knowledge that would give humans. Power because we were inherently divine, like Jesus was.
We just had to. open up our minds like he did in order to uh harness that power. And so, uh yeah, a lot of really odd things happened. Uh and I wanted more odd things to happen as crazy as that sounds 'cause it didn't scare me. It yeah, it gave me a rush.
Yeah. I think what's interesting is we have seen and are continuing to see this whole rise in emotionalism and new thought and new age feelings that are spiritual, that people for some reason are connecting to Christianity. And it's clearly not biblical. And the Lord rescued you out of that and has given you discernment and understanding of what his word truly is. And it's been amazing to watch how the Lord has really blessed you and your ministry to work through that.
Yeah. And you talk about you being these little Gs, if I remember right, little gods. Explain to our audience what the difference between new thought and new age. Is there really a difference between the two? Oh, yes, there is a big difference.
This is a mistake I made. I was wrong about this for a few years, and I Didn't think much of it, but I would explain myself as an ex-new ager. And part of that's true. I was maybe. 20% new age, but I was mostly new thought.
And I realized when I got out of it, it was 2011 when I got out of New Age, New Thought, when I realized I was in something a little bit different than what these ex-new agers are talking about. I didn't know what Reiki was. I didn't think anything of yoga. Yoga is considered new age. I didn't know that.
There's just a whole list of things that I was not involved in. And it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized, oh, there's a very big difference. And wow, this explains a lot. Let me explain New Age a little bit briefly, and then I'll briefly explain New Thought. New Age, when you think of New Age, I want you to think of Eastern mysticism.
Think of like Hinduism, Buddhism. You know it when you see it. Think chakras, tarot cards, psychic mediums, Reiki. Which is like an energy healing. There's a form of that, a new thought, but it is very different.
Think of past lives, reincarnation, transcendental meditation. There's just a whole list of it. It's very external. You walk into a new age door, you know you're there. New thought is a lot more tricky in roots.
It goes back to Gnosticism. It's very Gnostic in origin, though it's kind of evolved in those ways. And in two words, I like to explain new thought is metaphysical Christianity. Think of it like as a hidden, higher esoteric version of Christianity. Yeah, there's always something hidden within the text that those who are awakened, those that want to see, can see.
And it's very mysterious and very alluring. That's what got me. And in a sentence, I would say that it's the positive thinking movement in America with Jesus as its mascot. In a person, I would say it's Oprah Winfrey. She's probably the best example I could use to explain what new thought is because everybody thinks she's a new ager.
But Oprah denies that adamantly. She takes offense to people calling her a new ager. She says, She's a Christian. And some of the practices, I put them earlier, I said a few of them earlier: law of attraction, manifestation, your prosperity, health, and wealth teachings, the idea that God always wanted to be healthy and prosperous. That's actually a new thought teaching.
Your thoughts are things, your words create your reality. Christ consciousness. There's a lot of things that. People kind of throw into the new age bucket that are actually inherently. Historically, new thought.
It has its own history, its own founders, and its own lineage that is separate from New Age.
Now, it does come together. These two do have some similarities. Like there are some spirit dabblings, of course, in new thought. But where they really come together is the idea that you are divine as a human being. New thought is trickier because it's made to look Christian.
So we can think that we're divine and can have God's power in the name of Jesus, where New Age would kind of leave Jesus out and say that we're all divine. Wow.
So you mentioned Oprah.
So then, in New Thought, is there then many ways to the one true God? Like Oprah would say, your way may be different than mine, maybe different than someone else's. Is that their thinking? 100%. Yes, it's very religious.
It's all about Unity. In fact, that is the name of one of New Thought's largest denominations: unity. The idea, not to sound too geeky. But to put this really simply, in Christianity, we see ourselves, the biblical narrative is we are separate from God, right? He's holy, he is different than us, we are not the same as him.
in New Thought and a lot of other world views. You are not separate from God. And that's the illusion is that you're taught that you're separate from God. That's a lie. You're not separate from him.
You are one with him.
So if we're all united in God, then it doesn't matter what you believe about God because that's your view of how you come to God. And we should respect those views.
So yeah, 100%. That would my way of understanding Jesus might be different than your way. And I'm going to respect and accept that because that's the loving, higher spiritual thing to do. And that has all kinds of problems in reality and in objective truth because they're all not true. It does come down to your mindset.
You have to. You have to see the good. and only the good. You have to see the loving thing and only the loving thing because that is the higher spiritual virtue, but you don't really play that movie forward. And when you start doing that, you start realizing the issues with that view.
Right. And this is exactly what Paul was combating in the book of Acts there at Mars Hill in Athens. He was dealing with all this thought. There's so many other gods and there's so many different ways, but he says, No, see, you have a plaque even to the unknown God. Let me introduce you to him.
His name is Jesus. And so we have to go back to what the scriptures say. Yeah, we can think all we want. God has given us a mind that is rational and that has almost seems to be limitless. And yet we have to be grounded in what the word of God says.
Jesus is the way. Jesus is the truth. Jesus is the life. And there is no way to the Father but through Him. He is our rescuer and He is our Savior.
And it's so interesting to me that many people are flocking to this modern Gnosticism of new things. Thought thinking that it's the right spiritual loving thing to do. More people than we realize are into this, and it's. Anything other than salvation through Jesus Christ.
So, Melissa, what changed? I mean, what happened to transform you from believing this into a follower of Jesus Christ?
Well, that's where the story is very interesting because I was a Christian at 16. I became a Christian 180. That is probably the most supernatural experience of my life, if I'm honest. I was one way one day and another the next. And I explained this very briefly because I wrote a book about New Thought and I kind of sprinkled my story in there throughout.
And one of the things, the major issue I fell into when I first became a Christian is I encountered what I would consider an anti-intellectual. Uh, vein within the Christian church, nobody really dared to think about their faith deeply. And I was looked at as sort of a pariah for asking questions. I didn't realize I was like an apologist, right? I'm like, oh, give me, give me more, let's ask all the questions, let's dig into our faith.
And, you know, Christianity 101 questions, what about hell? Like, I actually don't know where we got the Bible. How, what about this? What about that? I was very hungry, and I just kind of got that side-eye look, like, you're making me stumble in my faith.
You need to just go be quiet. And I didn't like that. And so, What ended up happening is, I grew up in New Thought Beliefs. That's an important background. I actually grew up with.
These types of beliefs and thinking, I just didn't realize it was called new thought.
So I'm looking right now at this mini library I have of my family's books, these new thought books that I grew up with, that I started kind of leaning into because they talk about Jesus, they talk about God, they talk about the Bible and the Gospels, and they just sounded way more spiritual about it. opened their their arms to questions and so I kind of leaned into that and so over time I just started supplementing these beliefs with my Christianity thinking that was real Christianity and I, a long story short, here, but I that's when I hit the wall though, was when I slowed down after I had my first child because I still had questions that didn't quite make sense. My mindset at the time was very important to understand because the positive mindset is important because if you create your reality through your mind, you got to be careful what you're thinking. And yeah, I remember turning on K-Love.
Okay, I'd turn on K-Love and I'd be like, this is too negative. Like, I thought K-Love was too negative. That's how, yeah, yes. Positive, encouraging K-Love was too negative for me. That should tell you where my mind was.
So I couldn't really go down a lot of paths that I should have gone down, mentally speaking. When the Jehovah's Witnesses showed up, though, it took me a few visits to realize, maybe what you believe isn't what I thought. Because I thought everybody believed in the same thing, especially if you said you were a Christian. And it was in researching their belief that I simultaneously started being challenged. I went online and I found all kinds of wonderful ministries.
Keith Walker with Evidence Ministries, for Mormon.org, for Jehovah.org, like so many ministries that were just devoted to that. And they really did a good job teaching the Bible. And it was challenging what I believed. And I'm like, okay, well, all right, I need to lean into this a little bit more. But really, what did it was a forum that I came across talking about, it was basically a Christian going back and forth with a new ager.
And the new ager is like, yeah, we're God. We're all God. We're this, we're that. And the Christian just doesn't skip a beat, comes back saying, well, you will be as God. Hmm, sounds like a slimy serpent to me.
And Yeah, that was revolutionary to me. A lot of Christians listening would be like, well, yeah, duh. I mean, that's a common Christian teaching. That was the first time I had ever actually considered, I fell for the serpent's lie. I can't believe it.
Now, this is important. I went to church, by the way. I was going to a Christian church, a non-denominational Christian church for over 10 years and had never heard anything like that. I had never heard of the serpent's lie. I had never heard of the term new thought, much less new age.
I had never heard of this before. And so I was very embarrassed. Very embarrassed. But I leaned into it. I wanted to know more.
Tell me more. Gimme, gimme, gimme. It was like the first time becoming a Christian. I'm like, tell me more and more and more. And that's really when I started slowing down.
Being way more humble, asking more questions. And these ministries, they took me under their wing. Like I was mentored by these people who had been doing this for decades. And that was 2011. And it wasn't until 2019, 2020, I think it was 2020, that's when I started going online.
So a long time kind of learning how to talk to people, learning about. These different religions, ministries, I'm still learning a lot, but that's, yeah, that's the story, basically. Josh, it goes to the importance of teaching the full counsel of God from Genesis to Revelation because what she's referring to is found right at the beginning of the book in the book of Genesis, the serpent's lie. Yeah. First lie ever told.
What's fascinating to me, Melissa, is as you're talking about all this and how you dug in, you did exactly what the Bereans did. You took God at his word and said, okay, there's got to be answers here. And what I'm seeing and what I'm hearing are two totally different things. What does God say?
So that's amazing.
Now, as we transition into a second segment, you deal a lot with another aspect of Christianity that I think is very important for us to discuss, even in short, today, and that's the movement that many people are calling progressive Christianity.
So let's listen to a clip and then get your perspective. Christianity has never been flawless. Jesus Christ is perfect, but his followers, not so much.
So the church constantly needs correction to stay on course. One recent movement aims to correct problems in contemporary Christianity by creating a new kind of faith. It's called Progressive Christianity. Progressives point out that Christians have responded inadequately to current cultural challenges. They want to reinvent a Christianity that embraces diversity, welcoming all people, advocates for social justice for the weak and vulnerable, and actively cares for the environment and the future of our fragile planet.
In regards to progressive Christianity, It's very hard. Progressive Christianity, as I've said many times on this podcast, is hard to define because it's really just the view that Christianity is progressing.
So, all these doctrines that have been settled in the mind of the progressive Christian can be updated and we can tweak them and we can even look at the biblical writers and say, I disagree with what they said because the whole view of the Bible in progressive Christianity is different. There is a very dangerous brand of Christianity that has emerged on the scene over the past 20 years or so. It's called progressive Christianity. And basically, the premise behind it is that as the world has progressed, as culture has changed, as Certain things have gone on in our world that have shifted the culture as it relates to moral issues and things of that nature, then, hey, God has progressed in his view of these things. And therefore, Christians need to progress as well.
Because if not, you're one of those Christians that are in a stone age, right?
So, for instance, Christians should be able to be homosexual and serve in ministry positions as pastors and be leaders and be ordained. And they should be able to marry whoever they want to be married to, and they should be able to do whatever they want to do with their bodies and things of this nature. This is just one of the many signs that lets you know that when your church or people that you know, or even maybe yourself watching this video, you're starting to embrace these things because you're progressing along with the culture, not realizing that God is not, will not ever, and has not ever progressed in his view of these things. You're listening to Understanding the Times Radio. Pastor Josh Schwartz, along with my co-host, Ken Michael.
Today we have on Melissa Dougherty. You can check us out at our website, olivetreeviews.org. And there are so many resources on there. We'd love for you to peruse there for some time.
Now, Melissa. That's shocking to me that progressive Christianity has such a foothold. What are your thoughts? Oh, I think that the clips that you just showed are would be most of the things that I would say. What I think about it, I'm not surprised at all.
I think that this is just another. uh notch in the order Of things that Christians have always had to deal with. I mean, you're talking about a God that progresses. Elisa said that perfect, that they're not trying to look at what the scripture says, they're not trying to. keep to the like historic beliefs.
They're not trying to look to see how God has revealed them himself. I mean, he's always progressing. They don't look to conserve Christianity. They look to improve Christianity. And I always say that When I was in a lot of these new thought beliefs as a Christian, I was.
Very progressive. I would have been pro-choice. I would have been very liberal. I would have been pro-social justice. And it's very interesting to me because the assumption is that Christians don't care about those things.
That's odd to me because We've always cared about those things. I think what happens is there's been abuses within Christianity. And I've been thinking a lot lately about cover-up culture within. Any institution within the church, within politics, within anything. And the idea that we don't need to, we need to keep this quiet because it's going to hurt the church, or we need to cover up because look at all the good this pastor or person has done.
I, and I'm starting to read books about it. My friend Mike Winger, he's doing a lot of videos on bringing forth the abuses within church. It should be Christians that bring this stuff forth.
So I think they are frustrated, right? They see the abuse, they see these things done, and there's this over-correction and a complete loss of faith. On their part, thinking, well, if that's Christianity, I don't want anything to do with it. And so they've created this new form of Christianity that. Yeah.
Is not associated with what they would consider abuses.
So I think that that is. A a tactic of Spiritual warfare of Satan himself. Because if you, if you want to make, yeah, like if you want to make truth look hateful. That's a brilliant way to do it because then you look at something that's true. You look at the Bible, you look at scripture, you look at Christians, the gospel, the way that it's supposed to be presented, and you associate that.
with injustice, with hatred, with uh racism. And so you're like, no, no, I want anything to do with that. That blocks you from actually looking at what it truly says.
So there's lots I could say on that. I actually have a whole chapter in my book about progressive Christianity and the overlap. With new thought beliefs, not new age new thought beliefs, because a lot of them hold on to what I would consider to be demonstrable new thought beliefs. Yeah, and Josh, what we talk about this all the time. What we're seeing is instead of the church influencing the culture, The culture has now influenced the church.
And as you said, Melissa, they're going along with these progressive ideas.
So, Melissa. What tactics do you use? How should a believer combat this? Oh to vet it. First, to know what it is.
I think that recognizing it is very important. And second, one of my favorite things to talk about. That I think more and more I enjoy talking about this is how to talk to people. I think that's because I experienced that, right? I first became a Christian and inevitably became like this mystical new thought progressive Christian because I didn't have people that Wanted to talk to me that could answer my questions.
I think that when. We are afraid. to lean into s to what somebody else is Position is, I think that that's where we kind of go wrong. I do think that if you say you come across a progressive, um And I did a lot of interviews for my book, by the way. This is basically my MO: Why Do You Believe What You Do?
Tell me what you believe. Why do you believe that? Where did that come from? And there's two things I found that the reason why a lot of people will deny, because you have to deny a lot of like reality and truth. To believe in a lot of these things, right?
So that comes on educating ourselves to know what that is. But I found that usually it's pain. And um Distrust. Those two things form a lot of really strange beliefs. If you have a strong sense of distrust towards Authority, government, institutions, whatever, you might come out with some, you might be prone, you might be very gullible to like a lot of conspiracy, right?
Or you might just be distrusting it of anybody in clergy, right?
So the distrust, but then pain, all of them, every person I talked to had been hurt. Uh, they had a lot of church hurt, they had a lot of uh, somebody had hurt them profusely that they trusted in a Christian circle, and so um, I think understanding that is very important to vet it. And then, you know, coming from somebody who's a Christian, you care about their story. I think that that can do a lot too. I personally go in with a very modest approach.
I don't go in thinking I'm the Holy Spirit. I go in knowing what I know with an arsenal of information, but I do 95% listening and 5% talking usually. Yeah. And Greg Kochl is a great, great resource on this as well. He wrote a book called Tactics.
And it's not like a gotcha kind of book where you're trying to set somebody up and convince them. You're just using critical thinking and logic and biblical scriptural ways to use apologetics and scripture to combat what somebody is saying in a loving and truthful way. That's what I think we need to be doing more.
So there's a lot to say about how to vet it, but I think I would, I usually kind of. Start with that.
Well, time is failing us. And I think that that is a fantastic answer. And Greg Kogel is a fantastic book, Tactics, is Amazing.
So we're going to have to have this conversation more at a later date. But can you just in 10 seconds tell us how people can get in touch with you and get a hold of your book? Yes, anywhere you purchase books and usually on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube is where you will find me on social media. Fantastic.
Well, thank you so much for your time. And I couldn't help but just work through the reality that Peter tells us in 1 Peter chapter 3 that we are to give a defense for what we believe. And in order to give a defense for what we believe, we have to know what we believe. And so we have to be founded in the Word of God. And that's just been the theme throughout this whole conversation.
You have to know what the Word of God says so that you're not duped either to be a part of Gnosticism or neo-Gnosticism and New Thought, and so that you're not duped into part of being a progressive Christian.
So know the Word of God because that's why God has given us His trustworthy, true, absolute, complete, and perfect. word.
So Melissa, thank you so much for your time today. Yeah, thanks for having me on.
Contact us through our website, olivetreeviews.org. That's olivetreeviews.org. Call us Central Time at 763-559-4444. That's 763-559-4444. We get our mail when you write to Olivetree Ministries and Jan Markell, Box 1452, Maple Grove, Minnesota, 55311.
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So don't grow weary in well-doing. You are called for such a time as this, and that means we are watching the last act of a long drama. and that all things prophesied are falling into place. Be unto your name Be unto your name.
