Positive Thinking

Over the last decade or so a host of best-selling books have urged people to take a "positive" attitude to life. Some of these have been written from an explicitly Christian perspective, but the majority have been clearly secular. Titles such as Robert Ringer's Looking Out for No. 1 (1978), David Schwartz's The Magic of Self-Direction (1975), and Wayne Dyer's Pulling Your Own Strings (1978) are typical of this genre of literature in its secular guise. The most popular religious writer in the new wave of positive thinkers is Robert Schuller with books such as Move Ahead with Possiblity Thinking (1967) and his numerous seminars for church leaders and members.

Still popular today and a classic of its type is Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People (1936). Here the secular brand of positive thinking is seen at its best. Norman Vincent Peale represents the best of the older tradition of religiously motivated positive thinkers. Although he published several books in the 1930s, his first success was A Guide to Confident Living (1948), which was followed by his even more successful the Power of Positive Thinking (1952). In the writing of these works Peale's mentor was the liberal theologian Harry Emerson Fosdick, whose On Being a Real Person (1943) expresses his mature thought on the subject.

The religious roots of positive thinking can be traced back to the revivalism of Charles G. Finney, whose emphasis on the human element in conversion and the ability of men to create revivals broke with the Calvinist heritage of New England. As the inventor of "high pressure revivalism" Finney psychologized conversion and in his Lectures on Revivals of Religion (1854) gave his readers techniques for success.

The secular roots of positive thinking are found in New England transcendentalism, especially the works of Henry David Thoreau. His now classic Walden or Life in the Woods (1854) develops a vision of faith as a psychological faculty which expresses a profound self-confidence in the ability of men and women to triumph in the ability of men and women to triumph against all odds.

This faith in the will found expression in New Thought and Frank Haddock's best seller, Power of will, published in 1906. Traces of it are also to be found in Christian Science and a host of other nineteenth century new religious movements.

Today the popularity of books like Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich, first published in 1937, shows the continuity of this tradition. At the same time a host of television evangelists and other preachers offer the public encouragement through books and cassette tapes that assure them of their self-worth and need to believe in themselves.

Several systems of counseling have developed along these lines, such as the Psycho-Cybernetics (1960) of Maxwell Maltz and various techniques of inner healing associated with the charismatic movement.

Psychologically, the need to think in positive ways has been severely criticized by Richard Lazarus in his book Psychological Stress and the Coping Process (1966). Sociologically, a telling critique of the trends found in positive thinking is presented in Christopher Lasch's The Culture of Narcissism (1979).

Theologically, positive thinking encourages a form of humanism that has often led to the development of heretical movements along the lines of New Though, Christian Science, and a variety of semi-Christian groups today. It overlooks biblical teachings about sin and the sovereignty of God to emphasize the essential goodness of humanity and the ability of people to solve their own problems through faith in their own abilities. In its Christianized form this self-faith is mediated through reference to Christian symbols, which upon closer examination are devoid of their original meaning.

I Hexham
(Elwell Evangelical Dictionary)

Bibliography
D. Meyer, The Positive Thinkers; P. C. Vitz, Psychology as Religion.