Christianity and the Law of Attraction

November 19, 2020

What I’m about to talk about in this article will undoubtedly segregate some of the Deconverted Men reading this.

A portion of the ex-evangelical community is made up of people who now only believe in cold, hard science and refuse to entertain the notion of anything that can’t immediately be proven with science.

That is okay. That’s a very normal and healthy place to land post-deconversion. It’s a very logical reaction for someone to take after deconverting from a religion that forces him to believe supernatural claims on the basis of mere faith.

If you’ve read my book, then you know that while I support cold, hard science as a perfectly acceptable standard of belief, I prefer to open myself to possibilities that are a bit more esoteric—things that cannot be definitively proven or disproven by science (yet).

However, I still strive to incorporate these topics into my life while remaining grounded.

With all that being said, today I’m going to talk about the Law of Attraction and how it relates to Christianity.

First of all, what is the Law of Attraction?

It basically states that whatever you spend a lot of time thinking about you will ultimately attract into your life. That includes money, relationships, and opportunities. The inverse also works. If you spend a lot of time thinking about strife, drama, and sickness, then you will also attract those things into your life.

The Law of Attraction has been around for centuries, usually called by other names. Its most recent iteration exploded into the mainstream with the book The Secret, which came out in 2006. It got on Oprah, and as with everything that gets on Oprah, it sold like crazy.

Deconverted Men who are all about cold, hard science will dismiss the Law of Attraction as nothing more than woo-woo nonsense. That’s fine.

Do I believe in the Law of Attraction? Yes, I do. However, I believe in it with some very strong caveats. I’ll explain.

I do not believe the Law of Attraction does you any favors when you take it too far. You take it too far when all you do is sit around and merely think about all the stuff you want—more money, a new relationship, a new job, whatever—and don’t actually do anything about it.

I believe you must combine action with your thoughts. Only then will the things you think about be delivered into your life.

The Law of Attraction is not a magical genie. You can’t just daydream about stuff and wait for your wish to be granted.

The Law of Attraction is a tool to hone your thoughts onto focused, specific changes that you’d like to see in your life. You can then use these targets to guide the action steps that you’ll take toward achieving these changes.

Keep in mind these three points:

• Thinking with no action leads you nowhere.
• Action with no thinking leads you somewhere eventually, but maybe not where you actually want to go.
• Thinking plus action equals the manifestations you desire.

What does all of this have to do with Christianity?

If you ever had an answered prayer, then you’ve experienced the Law of Attraction.

Perhaps you had a big test coming up that you really, really needed to do well on so you could pass the class and graduate on time. You prayed hard for God to help you pass the test. Not only did you pray, you studied your ass off. You spent time thinking about what you needed and took action at the same time to bring about that result. When you passed the test, you thanked God, but really, it was you manifesting your own needs into your life.

Maybe you’ve found yourself in a situation where you needed to choose between two good jobs. You prayed for God to show you the way he wanted you to go. In addition to praying, you spent time researching each job, making pro and con lists, and interviewing people that worked at each company. Over time, the correct path became clearer and you accepted the better of the two jobs. You thanked God for showing you the way, but really, it was all you manifesting your own needs into your life.

This also works with “bigger” prayer requests. If you’ve ever prayed for God to heal a sickness or injury that you had, then you woke up one day to find you were all better, you probably thanked God and told all your friends about your “miracle.” It wasn’t a miracle. You just really wanted and needed your body to get better. You told yourself that you would be better, and then your body followed suit. Your brain is much more powerful than your body, and your thoughts can and will determine your physical health.

When Christians take the Law of Attraction and rename it “prayer” then it becomes strong evidence to them that God exists, and is in fact answering their prayers. This confusion keeps people in the church for longer.

The Law of Attraction also explains why God seems to answer some prayers while ignoring others. The answered prayers were likely combined with relevant action. The unanswered prayers likely remained mere thoughts in the Christian’s brain. At the end of the day, this was explained away as “God’s plan” or “God’s mysterious ways” or “God knows better about what I need right now.”

If one of your big struggles after deconversion was the loss of an intimate prayer life, then the Law of Attraction should be considered as a way to get that back. Instead of speaking to God, though, you are actually speaking to yourself (or the Universe, or your gut, or your intuition, or your higher self—whatever you want to call it).

And the best part is, you get to attract into your life what you want. Not what God wants. Not what your pastor wants. Not what your parents want for you.

Your life, your thoughts, your actions. You get to manifest your own reality.