Thread by @Cajsa

This is Phineas Parkhurst Quimby. When you wonder what happened to American Evangelicals and false spiritual leaders like Jerry Falwell, Jr. you should look to this guy. His teachings inform their faith more than the Bible, though they may not know it. He founded "New Thought"

One of Quimby's principal ideas was "Our mental states are carried forward into manifestation and become our experience in daily living" You can read more of his crap here.
phineasquimby.wwwhubs.com

Quimby was a traveling hypnotist and a bit of a huckster, but who knows, maybe he believed this stuff. Mary Baker Eddy took some of his ideas and founded Christian Science. The big thing he inflicted on us was the Law of Attraction. You probably hear it in many forms. 3/

Some Laws of Attraction crap. Sounds harmless enough, but then people merged Quimby's crap with the Bible and created the Prosperity Gospel 4/

The Evangelical movement in America is infected with New Thought and now preaches the Health and Wealth Gospel or Prosperity Gospel. Jerry Falwell, Jr. is now infecting the Southern Baptist chuch with the New Thought virus. 5/

The Prosperity Gospel's main idea is that people have a contract with God. They believe and donate to the church and if they believe enough and give enough, God will reward them with health and wealth. If you are sick or poor, it's because you don't believe enough. 6/

Jerry Falwell was asked what about Trump shows his Christianity & earns his support. He answered it was his business acumen. His wealth. That's pure prosperity gospel, measuring worth by wealth. 7/

Here he is again, advocating prosperity gospel values. He mocks the poor and only values the rich. Never mind that research shows poor people give more generously than rich people & Trump criminally abused his charity to enrich himself 8/

Here is a good primer on the Prosperity Gospel from a Christian perspective.
thegospelcoalition.org/article/what-y…
9/

So, back to Quimby. The interesting thing is that Quimby's ideas continued in two different streams, secular and religious. On the secular side, we have the New Age movement, the inheritor of New Thought. "The Secret" is a bestselling modern descendent of Quimby's ideas. 10/

The infection of religion by Quimby's ideas occurred in multiple steps. One of the people injecting New Thought into Christianity was the Baptist pastor E. W. Kenyon 11/ en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E._W._Ken…

He told his followers to repeat to themselves "God is in me. God’s ability is mine. God’s strength is mine. God’s health is mine. His success is mine. I am a winner. I am a conqueror.” 12/

You can go to an online bookseller and search for E.W. Kenyon and see titles like "A New Type of Christianity" and "Signposts on the Road to Success" You can also go to the source - a site of Kenyon disciples. 13/
kenyons.org/who-was-ew-ken…

You see New Thought everywhere. Every time you hear someone say "Everything happens for a reason." you're getting some New Thought garbage thrown at you. Oprah is totally into New Thought. But the religious expression continued through Oral Roberts to Joel Osteen and more. 14/

The media doesn't write much about the prosperity gospel because even those who preach it don't usually call it that. It's so crass, isn't it? But it is powerful perhaps because it inhabits the secular & religious realm. 15/
washingtonpost.com/posteverything…

You see, whether you are secular or religious, New Thought is omnipresent. We are constantly told we are the impediment to our own success. If we only thought positive or had more faith, we would succeed. Quimbyism has conquered both secular and religious America 16/

So we don't even talk about eliminating poverty anymore. After all, the poor don't create jobs (bullshit) and if they're poor, it's their fault. God is not blessing them or they didn't conceive and believe, so they didn't achieve. 17/

And we all assume the rich are being rewarded by God or have worked harder and smarter, though reality TV should disabuse everyone of that idea, we still give the rich unearned moral worth. 18/

With the secular New Age and the religious Health & Wealth (Prosperity Gospel) preaching the same thing, it's no surprise American's have lost their compassion and in many ways, their humanity. Perhaps knowing this is a false doctrine, knowing the source will be an antibody 19/19