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New Thought Christianity: A Brief History

New Thought: Ancient Wisdom

New Thought and Christianity mix as well as Christianity and everything else. What is important to realize is that the fundamental principles behind the entire New Thought Movement predate Christianity, even the Old Testament, by many thousands of years.

Many scholars call these lessons Hermetic Wisdom, but even that is misleading because Hermes is a Western name attributed to an ancient Egyptian philosopher named Thoout. ‘New Thought’ is essentially the teachings of a 5,000 year old Egyptian named ‘Thoout’ adapted to our modern palates. Basically, the New Thought Movement is based on the notions of:

  1. Divine goodness
  2. Equality between race, gender, creed and economic situation
  3. Human creative potential (we can create the lives we want)
  4. The Similar Things Agreement (also called ‘Law of Attraction’)
  5. The inclusive / omnipresent nature of the Godhead

Sounds simple enough, right? It is not really different from the Declaration of Independence of the United States. Would it surprise you to learn that the original 20 signers of the Declaration of Independence were students of these ancient Hermetic teachings?

New thought meets Christianity

Among other things, Emma Curtis Hopkins (1849-1925) is often credited with coining the phrase; “The New Thought Movement”. She was a tremendously confident, prolific, outspoken, and controversial figure in our world’s history who was always ready to stand up for precisely what she believed in; including being fundamental to ensuring the right of women to vote in the United States.

As editor of “The Christian Science Journal,” she tried to bring the eastern lessons of Hinduism and Buddhism into the realm of Christianity. He firmly believed that the seeds of truth lie in all the religions of the world and must be understood from a point of view above any property. In other words, he did not see Christianity limited by strict dogmas or singular teachings, but saw the central concepts as present in religions around the world.

But Christian Science was a religion and she was not willing to dismiss its strict teachings for the sake of a woman’s views. So she was fired as editor of the Christian Science Journal and was about to be excommunicated from its ranks.

If you can’t join them, hit them …

From their perspective, the central teachings of Christianity insist that divinity is omnipresent. How could the Divine be simultaneously almighty and omnipresent, but belonging to only one religious group?

It didn’t make sense to her. If God is omnipresent, we must be able to see God’s signs everywhere, end of story. So he decided to start his own church. Here it is where it gets interesting. Emma Curtis Hopkins, editor of the Christian Science Journal, is fired from her position as editor and decides to found her own church, naming it exactly like the one she just left! If he couldn’t get the Church of Christian Science to see things his way, he was going to create his own Church of Christian Science and call it: The Church of Christian Science.

How is that possible? Well, that sort of thing can’t really happen these days, but this was more than 30 years before radio or the widespread use of telephones and the Christian Science Movement spread rapidly across America. People were interested in a new way of practicing their faith and Christian Science was quickly filling that void popular in the then 37 states of the USA. People were interested in the teachings, most people did not even give in! notice that there were two completely unaffiliated organizations with the same name!

The Christianity of the new thought proliferates

Emma Curtis Hopkins was something of a “Preach What I Practice” teacher. If his students were to follow in his footsteps, they would also have to create their own churches. Some of his notable students include:

  • Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, co-founders of Unity Church
  • Anna Rix Militz, who founded The Home of Truth
  • Ernest Holmes, who founded the Church of Religious Science.
  • Malinda Cramer, Nona L. Brooks and Fannie Brooks, co-founders of The Church of Divine Science

There are many other Christian New Thought groups with more than 800 churches around the world and close to 10 million practitioners spread throughout the world. They are so diverse that any effort to describe them concisely here would be ridiculous.

So are they all the same? Do they all teach the same things? In reality, each and every one of them teach something different, but the Basic Principle: “There is an omnipresent force of goodness underlying all things” is a common root to all of them.

This is a principle of epic importance to people around the world. Getting rid of the idea that we are inherently bad and replacing it with the idea that we are inherently good is a tremendously empowering way of thinking. Literally hundreds of different churches now offer their own versions of that same fundamental truth to the world. For my part, I think it’s a pretty entertaining way to spread the word. After all, the idea of ​​being ‘born good’ instead of being ‘born a sinner’ should be worth at least a few dozen versions …

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