I’m quite certain you have heard of the New Age movement. Though its popularity seems to have crested and begun to wane some time ago, it continues to wield a good bit of influence. But I wonder if you’ve heard of another similarly-named but quite different movement called New Thought. Unlike New Age which originated within Eastern religions, New Thought originated within a Christian (or Christianesque, at least) context. This means it has a guise of Christianity and uses many of the same words and concepts. It can therefore disguise itself within churches and movements while maintaining a veneer of Christianity. It’s a clever deception.
New Thought is the subject of Melissa Dougherty’s new book Happy Lies: How a Movement You (Probably) Never Heard Of Shaped Our Self-Obsessed World. As you may surmise from the title, Dougherty believes New Thought is not merely a movement that infiltrates and perverts Christian contexts, but also one that has helped shape the Western world. Have you ever wondered why objective truth has been diminished in favor of subjective feelings or why young people are told to relentlessly focus on positivity yet seem sadder than ever? Have you ever wondered why some churches preach messages of personal empowerment in favor of biblical emphases like meekness and poverty of spirit? The answer—or partial answer, at least—is New Thought.
New Thought originated in the United States in the early nineteenth century. If you have heard of Phineas Quimby or Franz Mesmer you have heard of some of its early founders. If you’ve encountered the writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson or Napoleon Hill you’ve read the works of people who popularized it. By this point, New Thought largely existed outside of churches, but then certain forms of Charismatic expression embraced its teachings so that today you can find it syncretized with Christianity in prosperity gospel churches or in churches like Joel Osteen’s. Where Christians are told to visualize outcomes, make “I am” statements, or “name and claim,” New Thought is in the background. It is a pernicious foe.
In a well-paced and reader-friendly book, Dougherty goes to great lengths to explain New Thought and show where it makes its presence known both in the wider culture and the church. It has influenced the rise of relativism and new notions of identity. It lies behind certain forms of self-help and the Law of Attraction. And it makes its presence known in Word of Faith, progressive Christianity, and even (to lesser degree) the seeker-sensitive Church Growth Movement. She writes to explain New Thought so Christians can identify and combat it. Yet she also writes to persuade those who may be entangled in it, who think they are Christians but are actually denying the gospel by looking for salvation from within instead of without.
I appreciate the work Dougherty has done in Happy Lies to uncover, highlight, and counter a dangerous movement. I don’t think she has fully convinced me that New Thought is quite as prevalent as she may suggest and, when it comes to New Thought’s influence, I think there may be some distinction to be made between correlation and causation. While I would be surprised to learn that the average reader of this blog, and therefore of this review, has been substantially influenced by New Thought, I would not be surprised to learn that they know and love someone who has been. In that way, I believe this book may prove both influential and beneficial. For that reason and others, I am glad to recommend it.
