Is Your Church Teaching New Age Ideas? With Melissa Dougherty — The Alisa Childers Podcast #87
Ex-New Ager Melissa Dougherty joins me to discuss certain New Age ideas that are being marketed to the church as "Christian." What are the buzzwords, catch phrases, and teachings that are coming to a church near you?Watch on YouTube:
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Alisa,
I have to boil this all down into very simple terms. True Christianity is faith in the perfect person and work and power of Jesus Christ.
The only supernatural aspect we have is our eternal soul. We have NO power apart from the Holy Spirit.
So any belief that ascribes supernatural power to us intrinsically I simple call Christian Witchcraft.
I have inherent power – I want to learn to exercise this power – God can be manipulated if I do this correctly.
This is simply Witchcraft, that God approves of, per these progressive teachings. All heresy.
Don
3/25/2021 04:58:07 am
I agree completely. The other common hersey, and I dare say the most dangerous, is the idea that we are equal to God or "little Gods". As you stated, we have access to the throne of God and the power of God only through the complete work of Jesus and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It has absolutely nothing to do with us. We can ask anything of God but it is His perfect will that provides the answer in agreement or not.
Greg Pavlik
6/29/2021 02:11:27 pm
This is completely wrong, this is classic orthodoxy. The New Testament understanding and the early Church understanding of the Gospel was summarized by Athanasius in On the Incarnation "God became man so that man might become god".
Anthony Barber
12/8/2020 03:07:40 pm
Powerful podcast. I'm reminded of "The Power of Positive Thinking" and Possibly Thinking….Norman Vincent Peale and Robert Schuller. I used to be into these guys, until I read my Bible. You are right it sounds so good, so positive, but they are broken cisterns that hold no water. Thank you Alisa!
Megan
1/24/2021 11:39:04 pm
Hey Alisa! Thanks so much for this podcast, it has shed a lot of light on some areas I have allowed these false teachings to creep in. I am a relatively new christian and have bought into some of this stuff, and until now haven't come across anyone willing to address it-even when I have asked pastors etc about it.
I was curious if you have heard of a "sect" of Christians who believe that Paul was not and should not be considered one of the apostles, but rather a false teacher himself who has been given far too much credit and given too much space in the bible (a large portion of the new testament) His words about clean and unclean food, his dispute with Peter, him being blinded and never actually seeing Jesus or being discipled by Jesus like the others, what he says about works and faith, the law – I am being vague because I don't remember exactly but these are the main arguments made against him. A friend presented me these "deeper truths" and it infuriated me, we argued a TON over it for a long time, and I don't feel I know enough about this. I do know that my heart is saying don't believe it, don't take away or add to God's word, but 2 Timothy 3:16 was written by Paul, so the argument there is that of course a false prophet would claim that. It feels like this person is twisting and contorting the bible to justify their bend toward legalism, which would be comfortable for this individual, who is coming from a catholic background. This friend instead chooses to focus only on the old testament and "the red text" plus extrabiblical books- the book of enoch, sirach and the gospel of Thomas stuff like that. The reasoning behind this is that some time ago some books were taken out and some added in"to hide the truth". I have never been able to get a straight answer about what this "denomination" is called, because I don't think it exists, and I haven't found anyone else, but according to my friend others believe this too.
I myself believe that the entire bible is a beautiful picture of God's love for his people, and I have tried to convey this, but ultimately my frustration was clouding my ability to remain civil to this friend. I drew a boundary and we no longer discuss it, but reading the epistles since this argument, these thoughts have unfortunately poisoned my experience.
G Thomas Hedlund
3/24/2021 11:35:22 am
Hi Megan, I'm sorry no one responded to you. I understand your struggle. I might be considered a 'new'ish Christian (saved about 4-5 years ago), but I thought I was saved a few years before that, only to discover the Word showed me I merely 'believed,' as James implies, 'even the demons believe… and they tremble' (2:19).
It is tough to deal with false teachings, especially in our modern church society. I have found most churches ascribe to false teachings, even manipulating the Word to serve a need. And it's tough talking to people who are entrenched in these false systems.
However, with this friend of yours, he clearly does not have the Truth. The New Testament stories we have were carefully compiled, and there was a simple rule about which ones to include: when it doubt, throw it out. In other words, if they couldn't prove with a high rate of confidence and historical support that a letter was written by the attributed author and within that first century, it wasn't included.
So, to claim Paul wasn't an apostle denies his own admission and therefore denies the Spirit. But how do you deal with people like this? You can't continue to be friends and set aside this topic. Jesus said, 'If you deny Me before others, I will deny you before my Father in Heaven.' He also warned that 'Do not think that I have come to bring peace, but a sword…' that your enemies will be people within your own household. Why? Because if you are truly willing to give up everything for Him and His Kingdom, you can't stop sharing the Truth, and that can lead to being hated and losing friends, even family, even the people you love the most. "If you do not give up everything you have, you CANNOT be my disciple."
The Bible is the story of Jesus and it is beautiful. But it's also a stern warning not to take salvation and this gift lightly. It costs us everything, and it is inspired. But, when dealing with your friend, think about this: there's nothing new in the 'New Testament.' EVERYTHING that Jesus taught and revealed to us is in the Old Testament. So you could just talk with him based on OT and Jesus' words alone and see the truth.
Unfortunately, as the Word tells us, if you aren't led by the Spirit, you won't understand. For though they have eyes to see and ears to hear, they will not see and they will not hear the Truth.
Carie
9/26/2021 08:12:32 pm
Hi Megan, I know exactly what group of people you are talking about. It’s called the Hebrew root movement. I, unfortunately, have a family member wrapped up in this mess. It’s so sad and hard to talk about it with them because they always find some scripture that they misuse. I actually was wanting more info on this too
The argument is against scripture itself as Peter warns us…
2 Peter 3:15-16
15 and consider that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation—as also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written to you, 16 as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which untaught and unstable people twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the Scriptures.
John
3/29/2021 09:35:39 am
Would you say that the Emergent Church and Progressive Christianity is the same thing?
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