

The Melissa Dougherty Podcast
Melissa Dougherty
You'll find a mixed bag of Jesus, theology, Christian apologetics, and cultural topics from a Christian perspective here. I'm an ex-New Thoughter (with a little Ex New Ager sprinkled in) and a lot of my videos focus on topics related to this as well. My hope is to help Christians thoughtfully know what they believe and why they believe it.
Episodes
Mentioned books

Jan 9, 2022 • 21min
Counterfeit Vs. Authentic: Can Christians Redeem New Age Practices?
*This is audio extracted from my YouTube video from June 2021 converted here in podcast land for your listening pleasure.*..Is it true that for every counterfeit spiritual experience or practice out there, that there's an authentic one? These are teachings such as clairaudience (speaking to angels), channeling spirits, spirit guides, spell casting, trances, astrology, auras, psychic powers, or just ‘fill in the blank’ with any New Age teaching. In many churches and in Physics of Heaven, it's taught that there’s an authentic version of these new age teachings that actually belongs to the Church. I want to give my respectful but firm disagreement about this ideaAnd guys, to be clear -yes- this book is a book currently sold at Bethel's book store and endorsed by Bethel's leaders. Beni and Bill Johnson contribute chapters in the book and Kris Vallotton gives the introduction. This book is the epitome of what concerns me about what is happening at Bethel and what they're teaching. When I'm having a conversation with someone at church and their theology is a direct result of what they read in this book? That means it's influencing Christians. I can't not speak about this. ●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/●Instagram: @melissaldougherty ●Twitter: https://twitter.com/Meldougherty77●My Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/

Dec 17, 2021 • 19min
The Pendulum Problem: The Issue with Fanaticism
The podcast discusses the Pendulum Problem where people adopt extreme beliefs to distance themselves from past trauma. It explores the impact of apathy and extremism in belief systems and how trauma can lead to extreme swings in beliefs.

Dec 11, 2021 • 28min
What the Bible REALLY Says About True Love.
**This is audio extracted from my YouTube video from September of 2021 converted here in podcast land for your listening pleasure.*I’m going to give you some core differences between the type of love we see expressed in society, the culture, and the world compared to the love that is taught in the Bible… and yes, there’s a big difference. When I was in the New Age, I had a complete distortion of what I understood ‘love’ to be, but at the time, I truly perceived ‘love’ to be a deeper spiritual law. It was emotional, but it was more than that. I thought of it as a universal power, used to wield peace and harmony sheerly based on the power of my thoughts and feelings and how I treated others. In my mind, it was through the power of ‘love’ that we’d bring a sort of awakening through humanity. So when I started learning about what the Bible *actually* taught about love as defined by God, it took a very long time of intentional study to ‘unlearn’ what I was taught. Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/●Instagram: @melissaldougherty ●Twitter: https://twitter.com/Meldougherty77●My Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/

Dec 2, 2021 • 42min
Why the Law of Attraction, Oneness, Universalism, Mysticism, and Religious Pluralism aren't Christian
*This is audio extracted from my YouTube video from November of 2020 converted here in podcast land for your hearing pleasure.*Want to know why Universalism, the Law of Attraction, Mysticism, Religious Pluralism, and Oneness isn't Biblical? Well, here you have it. In a previous video linked below, I went over Five New Age teachings that I have seen enter into the church. Though there were a lot, I only went over the top five I saw the most. I won't be going over each one in detail like I did in the last video, but I will be going over how each one of these beliefs is completely against what the Bible says and what Jesus taught. Think of this as a sort of follow up video from the last one. My original Video of the Top Five New Age Teachings in the Church: https://youtu.be/FCDbO8Lc5NUMy Social Media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/Instagram: @melissaldoughertyWebsite: https://www.melissadougherty.co/ ●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/●Instagram: @melissaldougherty ●Twitter: https://twitter.com/Meldougherty77●My Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/

Nov 15, 2021 • 1h 49min
Over the Rainbow: From "Born This Way" to "Born Again"
*This is audio extracted from my YouTube video from November of 2020 converted here in podcast land for your hearing pleasure.*Our culture is upside down. There are now hundreds of genders, truth is whatever you want it to be (as long as it's culturally acceptable), and tolerance is more than just a bumper sticker, but a redefined term that implies we 'conform' or we're canceled. We have celebrities like Demi Lovato changing her identity numerous times. Instead of seeing this as alarming, or that there's a deeper issue there, our culture celebrates it and sees anything otherwise as hateful. It's exemplified and put on a pedestal. (Please pray for her.) But what if these are just symptoms of a deep, dark hole in our spirit and soul? I interviewed my good friend Jen who is a former lesbian and new ager who came to Christ in 2018. She was brave enough to share her story with us all in the hope of sharing the hope and love that she found in Jesus. *He* was what she was searching for her whole life. This interview was no simple task and we discussed this on many levels before putting this out there to the world.The first part of this interview focuses on Jen's story. In the second part, we discuss common questions people bring up about this issue, but we don't go into as much detail as some would probably like. So please be sure to check out the resources here for this topic to learn more, and please pray for all those in the LGBTQ community.●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/●Instagram: @melissaldougherty ●Twitter: https://twitter.com/Meldougherty77●My Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/

Oct 7, 2021 • 52min
What REALLY Happened at the Council of Nicaea?
*This is audio extracted from my YouTube video from November of 2020 converted here in podcast land for your hearing pleasure.*I got the great privilege to sit with my friend and brother in Christ, Wesley Huff, and ask him to talk about this. I would consider Wesley to be an expert on this sort of topic, so I find what he has to say on this topic to be very compelling and hopefully will be to you too.Wesley's Website:https://www.wesleyhuff.com/Wesley's blog about the Council of Nicea:https://www.wesleyhuff.com/blogWesley's List of Apologetic books You Should Have:https://www.wesleyhuff.com/blog/2018/11/13/the-apologetic-books-you-should-already-have-on-your-shelfMy Social Media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/Instagram: @melissaldougherty Website: melissadougherty.co●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/●Instagram: @melissaldougherty ●Twitter: https://twitter.com/Meldougherty77●My Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/

Sep 30, 2021 • 26min
The Four Main Flaws in the American Church and What to do About it
*This is audio extracted from my YouTube video converted here in podcast land for your hearing pleasure.*What do we do when we have churches with their hearts in the right place but their methodologies, priorities, and goals are flawed? The "American Church" style has a reputation for entertainment, preaching prosperity, life application, wonders, healing, and miracles... but not necessarily the Gospel, or exegeting scripture and theology. It creates a frustratingly watered-down gospel and puts the need for discipleship on the back burner. I asked Dale Partridge on to get his insights on this and what we can do about it. Dale's Information:Reformation Seminary about House Church Planting: https://reformationseminary.com/Dale's Website is about teaching Biblical literacy and getting back to the Bible: https://relearn.org/Follow Dale on Social Media:https://www.instagram.com/relearnhq/Follow his Podcast:https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...My Social Media:Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChri...Instagram: @melissadougherty77 My Website:https://www.melissadougherty.co/If you are led, please consider donating:https://paypal.me/MelissaDougherty77●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/●Instagram: @melissaldougherty ●Twitter: https://twitter.com/Meldougherty77●My Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/

Sep 7, 2021 • 45min
Being Politically Incorrect to be Correct: Men Are Awesome and Demi Lovato is Still a Woman.
Men are amazing, useful, necessary, and contribute immeasurably to society. Demi Lovato is a woman.A few years ago both of these statements would have been obviously true and acceptable. Now, they conjure up wrath, division, and bitterness. Sometimes I just gotta stir the pot. So stir I shall. *swish.*My website: melissadougherty.co●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/●Instagram: @melissaldougherty ●Twitter: https://twitter.com/Meldougherty77●My Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/

Aug 23, 2021 • 15min
Sharing Truth in Love: Encouragement and a Plea to Christians
*This is audio extracted from my YouTube video from May 2020 converted here in podcast land for your hearing pleasure.*Let me get mushy for a second.This is made in hopes that we can have some insight into how we look, sound, and act as the Body of Christ. I have found myself visiting the same set of Scriptures over the last few months, and I thought it would be an encouragement to all of us during a tough time, but also in hopes that we can all learn how to treat others as we would want to be treated. We're not going to be perfect. I'm definitely not! But I'd hope that we can remember that making our lights shine doesn't mean sacrificing good theology... or our ability to be kind. Especially to those we disagree with. ●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/●Instagram: @melissaldougherty ●Twitter: https://twitter.com/Meldougherty77●My Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/

Aug 18, 2021 • 1h 10min
When Lies Become "Truth" and the Monsters it Makes Us.
*This is audio extracted from my YouTube video converted here in podcast land for your hearing pleasure.*Heads up... Dense conversation ahead.You've been warned. What do you do when suddenly everything in your culture gets turned around? We're finding more and more people embracing blatant lies thinking it's the high moral ground. As language becomes less expressive, minds are more easily controlled. Wrong is right. Right is wrong. Up is down. Down is up. Babies in the womb aren't actually babies. Men have periods. Men are women. Women are men. At the same time... there are no men or women. Gender is fluid. The color of your skin determines your worth and character. Never in my lifetime did I think this would be considered 'progress'. It ironically hurts more people than it helps, especially those who truly struggle with their sexual identity and those begging to be heard about true injustices. The world hurts the world to help the world. Slavery is freedom. War is peace. Love is hate. This reminds me of Orwell's "Newspeak." This is confusing.And I think it's supposed to be.Why?Power.Apathy makes people prefer the false peace of conformity to the tensions of liberty. Whatever and whoever has the power can pressure you into believing their version of truth.... even if they're flat-out lies. Anyone who opposes this is viewed as backward and ignorant. We live in a world where there is more and more intense social pressure to accept that there is no such thing as objective truth. There's only power. Whoever holds the power decides what is true and false. The value of truth claims depends on who's making them. More and more people are knowingly believing lies out of fear of opposing them. Personally, in a few short years, this has been in my face. It's been difficult and confusing to sort out what's happening and trying to understand it in a meaningful and accurate way. It felt messy. It's like you're trying to clean your kitchen, and can handle the regular mess of everyday life. Then suddenly, your kitchen expands ten times bigger and the mess is no longer one you're capable of handling by yourself. It's time for reinforcements who have had MUCH more experience dealing with MUCH bigger messes. So I handed Greg Koukl his metaphorical mop and broom. I asked Greg on to give me his thoughts on this. As I mention at the beginning of the video, I listen to his podcast, Stand to Reason, regularly. He did one in May that really resonated with me. We discuss things like:How do we discern truth in this divided world? Are we really entering into soft totalitarianism? What does that even mean? Are we inflating this? With such militant and intense pressure to conform, what can we do about it? And much more. I walked away from this conversation with a lot of the understanding, perspective, and insight that I've been craving about these topics. So yeah. This was an interesting interview.●Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewAgeToChristianity/●Instagram: @melissaldougherty ●Twitter: https://twitter.com/Meldougherty77●My Website: https://www.melissadougherty.co/


