We feel pretty safe from certain heresies. We side-eye the extreme health and wealth teachings of Joel Osteen, or the signs and wonders claim of Kenneth Copeland and Todd Bentley, and we mentally dust off any thought of it afflicting our conservative Anabaptist circles. But the more subtle teachings tend to slip in the back door with less fanfare; sometimes through books or business and leadership seminars.[^1]
This was the case recently in my own community. A book promoting “positive thinking” and the “power of our words” garnered enough local interest to result in a well-attended seminar by its author, a professing Christian.[^2] The author quotes Bible verses and uses biblical language as he describes the positive and negative impact of our words. But behind the inspiring storyline lies a philosophy that is distinctly different from biblical Christianity: that our words manifest reality and we must speak our decisions into existence. We look inward for this divine power instead of looking to God and praying “Your will be done.”
Let’s take a closer look at three closely linked heretical teachings. These are New Thought, Positive Thinking, and Law of Attraction.
New Thought
New Thought is not a new movement and is more rooted in Gnosticism than in the gospel. The movement’s founding in the 1800s was inspired by Phinehas Quimby who was fascinated with mesmerism and believed all illness came from false beliefs.[^3] Although Quimby himself never started a church, his teachings inspired the metaphysical systems later known as New Thought and Christian Science. Additional influences, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and other transcendentalists, helped shape New Thought’s blend of idealism, mysticism, and optimism. The movement taught that thoughts themselves are forces that shape reality. The divine spark within each person gives us the power to manifest outcomes through right thinking and the words we speak.
New Thought is not New Age. Although the roots of both connect to some of the same transcendentalist thinking, New Age came to prominence a century later in the 1960s counterculture mix of Eastern mysticism, occultism, and astrology. It also drew heavily on New Thought principles. But New Age will usually not pretend to be Christian and is more pantheistic and springs from Hinduism and Buddhism. It emphasizes Eastern meditation, energy fields, crystals, and becoming one with the universe.[^4] New Thought is more subtle. It borrows biblical phrases but often redefines or takes them out of context. This will vary by the individual. The following are some examples.
Jesus is seen not as the unique Son of God, but as a mere man who achieved a higher level of “Christ Consciousness” that all humans can attain. He was more of a guru than a Savior. Sin is redefined as ignorance of our true, authentic self, and salvation becomes enlightenment, awakening the power already within us.
A “rebirth” in New Thought worldview is a spiritual transformation that realizes this inner divine power, casts off our negative thinking and releases us from our fears and limiting beliefs. In essence, we become gods of our own making, looking within for strength and deliverance.
One of the most influential figures to carry New Thought into the mainstream was Norman Vincent Peale, author of The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). Peale was ordained a Methodist preacher but today is considered a heretic by many theologians. Peale drew heavily from metaphysical writers such as Ernest Holmes (founder of Religious Science) and Charles Fillmore (co-founder of Unity). His message of optimism and self-belief helped lay the groundwork for what would later become the Prosperity Gospel, influencing figures like Robert Schuller, who preached self-empowerment as faith.
Positive Thinking Movement
The Positive Thinking Movement became a dressed-up version of New Thought mysticism. Writers like Norman Vincent Peale and Napoleon Hill took those same ideas about the creative power of thought and emphasized success, confidence, and optimism rather than enlightenment or divinity. These writings were key to the modern self-help movement in America with Jesus as its mascot.
While Peale didn’t openly deny God, he shifted the source of power from God to the human mind. Faith became a personal power rather than a trustful dependence on God. He used scripture verses to support the idea that success and happiness came through affirmations and right mental attitudes.[^5]
Peale’s disciple Robert Shuller, founder of the Crystal Cathedral, taught that the key to overcoming life’s problems was self-esteem and positive expectation. This emphasis on self-belief and personal success became the fertile ground of the “Prosperity Gospel” where faith is equated with wealth, health, and achievement.
Christians have many reasons to be positive, but our hope and strength lie in God as we live in submission to His perfect will. We esteem Christ as Lord and not ourselves.
Law of Attraction
The “Law of Attraction” is a New Thought spiritual idea that proponents claim is a universal law where your dominant thoughts attract corresponding outcomes in your life. The belief is that thoughts and emotions have energy or vibrations that attract similar vibrations from the “universe”. Focusing on health, wealth, and success attracts the same while negative thoughts attract illness, failure, or tragedy.
A core concept is that everything in the universe is energy and energy is first vibrations before it is matter.[^6] Everything is constantly moving or vibrating and is positive or negative. Our thoughts, and especially words, produce this rate of vibration or frequency and will attract positive or negative things and circumstances into your life. Similar energy concepts permeate many New Age alternative health practices. But that is another topic for another day.
The pseudoscientific Law of Attraction gained a resurgence with Rhonda Byrne’s popular book The Secret (2006). This book is New Thought repackaged in modern language and is a spiritualized self-help guide. Byrne’s three-step process to ask, believe, and receive is based on a quote from Matthew 21:22. Visualizing, speaking affirmations, and believing the desired outcome already exists will manifest it into reality. The Law of Attraction offers divine power without divine lordship.
Practical Appeal
All of this has a very practical appeal to us because we’ve all seen the impact of a negative attitude. The Bible has plenty to say about the power of the tongue and the impact it has.[^7] Our communication should be edifying to those around us and our wholesome upbuilding words will have a positive effect on those who hear them.
But the biblical purpose for wholesome speech is completely different than the motivation behind New Thought and the Law of Attraction. We speak to edify those around us, loving others as God loved us. We speak out of motivation to serve others in the spirit of Christ and our desire to faithfully serve Him who gave His life for us.[^8]
We don’t speak thinking we can manifest the reality we want because we have the power within us. Nor do we think that once a decision is made, we must speak it into existence.[^9] This would make us little gods and is completely opposite of the true Christian life where we look to our Creator, Almighty God, who created the heavens and the earth. We live with the desire to do His will and not ours. We must bring glory to His name and not ours.
Biblical Power
The truth is much more exciting than anything the Law of Attraction can offer or anything our positive thinking can conjure. A born-again Christian is given the power of the Holy Spirit within him. He gives us the power to control our tongues and speak edifying words of life to those around us. We have the power to live victorious over sin. We have the power of prayer to appeal to the Creator of the universe who holds all power in His hands. We do not live in fear of attracting negative energy, but rather we ask Him to cleanse us from our sins and all unrighteousness. We have the power to confess our sins to each other and ask for forgiveness and know that He will save us and heal us.[^10] But in everything we pray, Thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.
We live in freedom as a bondservant to the one who gave His life for us. Will we suffer at times? Yes, because we live in a fallen world that is subject to sin. But He that is in us is greater than he that is in the world.
God will give us the wisdom to see the truth. We do not need to constantly fear deception and look for a demon behind every bush. But we do need to be diligent and aware of what we read and who we listen to. Even more importantly, we must question our own motivations and desires. Why does this appeal to me?
Additional References and Helpful Resources
- Happy Lies – Melissa Dougherty (2025 Zondervan Books)
- Live Your Truth and Other Lies – Alisa Childers (2022 Tyndale Elevate)