Should Christians Follow or Ignore “The Law of Attraction”?

Posted by Timothy

June 9, 2009

Trick question.

But I think it is one that Christian leadership ignores.

The stock-ready answer is, "Of course Christians should ignore it. It gives men the power instead of God and encourages self-centeredness."

Good, stock answer to make a Christian proud.

But what is missingis peeling back and meeting people where they are. Why are they looking at the Law of Attraction? We’ve painted ALL of them as simply mindless consumers who want a BMW. And they need to just stop pursuing this "heretical thought" and make God the center of their lives.

I’m sorry, but that is often a huge jump which leaves a vaccuum that is being filled by lies, while we stand idly by literally condemning and judging those who are seeking to fill an emptiness in their lives. Yes, you could say that emptiness is consumerist, but in a consumer-driven society, why should we expect any differently? When the human condition is to be like a "sheep," why do we choose to run rather than shepherd?

Over the past 12 months, where has search for "the law of attraction" on mighty Google been highest relative to other searches in that region? In Beverly Hills? In Silicon Valley?

No.

It’s Kenya.

In 1996, ranked as the 17th poorest country. 45% of the population is Protestant.

I don’t know how accurate Google’s data is on this search term, or what does it mean, other than people are seeking this stuff out because it is hitting them where they hurt. Oprah, The Secret, the Law of Attraction, MLM — all of these things are tapping into real needs and desires, and I believe that if we don’t meet them and form a bridge to what true Abundant Living is through the truth of the gospel in a way that doesn’t require them to be understand complete doctrine from the beginning, then we have failed.

The data from Google has been normalized, which means that because Kenya ranks ‘100′ in searching for ‘law of attraction’ is 3 times as many as people searching on it relative to other terms in the United States which has a rank of ‘37.’

Shouldn’t we be offering a true alternative? The truth in the Bible gives a handbook and a call to live an "abundant life" — I think we’d be remiss to fail to win the mindshare and allow these other half-truths to prevail.

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