But they are not the good news.
The Power of Positive Thinking was authored and championed by Norman Vincent Peale, a Christian minister in New York City, who taught that our personal attitudes were not only important to a happy and prosperous life, but were in large measure the engine of such things - hence, the "power" of positive thinking.
To understand the appeal of this idea, think about the times in which it emerged. In 1952, World War II was a recent memory, and the Korean War was bogged down. We were scared to death of nuclear war and suspicious of the spread of communism. The young adults of 1952 would have grown up, and the middle-aged would have come of age, during the Depression. At the same time, living standards were improving. Thanks to the G.I. Bill, more young men and women were getting college educations than ever before. The American Dream was alive and well, but it was buttressed by two seemingly opposite realities: prosperity and upward mobility were within reach of many Americans, and yet the world could end. At any time.
Now think about today's reality, and it explains why ideas like the power of positive thinking have timeless appeal. Today's world finds itself caught between outcomes that are emotionally packed and apparently equally plausible. Affluence is back, six years after the Great Recession. We take great vacations. We amuse ourselves with technology that wasn't even dreamed of a generation ago. Large, flat-screen TVs, movies on-demand, wifi and iEverything devices are standard in most everyone's home. Life is good. And yet life is also filled with terrifying realities: ISIS. Ebola. Identity Theft. Sexual Predators. Underemployment. Corporate downsizing. Global Warming. Will life work out? Who knows?
It's this very uncertainty, along with a deep desire for inner peace and strength (which is almost a cry to "Make it all go away!"), that drives the appeal of the Power of Positive Thinking. Peale began his book this way:
This book is written to suggest techniques and to give examples which demonstrate that you do not need to be defeated by anything, that you can have peace of mind, improved health, and a never-ceasing flow of energy. In short, that your life can be full of joy and satisfaction.Others have taken Peale's thesis and made millions of dollars off of it. If you run into any book or system that suggests you train your mind as a means of coping with life's challenges, chances are it's rooted in the ideas of Norman Vincent Peale. "If you can dream it, do it" or "I you believe it, you can achieve it!"- standard 1980s motivational faire - came out of this movement. If you suspect that the self-esteem movement and this one are linked, you're right - it's all about feeling good about yourself, in spite of any evidence indicating otherwise.
What's wrong with that? Why is that not the good news?
For one thing, sometimes we need to confront hard truths about ourselves, not wish them away. Sometimes our misery is of our own making. And sometimes it's imposed on us by others. In either case, it needs to be confronted, not recast as something that's "not really that bad" or "nothing I can't handle."
The deeper problem is how the ideals of positive thinking keep us from attacking the very real problems that are outside ourselves - problems of injustice, war, racism, poverty. Strictly applied, the positive thinking prescription would have every individual simply "deal with it", not letting it master them. So I, as a middle-class American living in a safe, affluent community, would endeavor not to let worries about epidemics or abuse of children or exploitation of workers get me down. And those who live under those conditions would either A. make the best of a bad situation, or B. visualize themselves rising above and create their own destiny. Neither option allows for C., which is that the very problems besieging you get confronted and fixed.
"Oh, but he couldn't have been saying that! He's not blaming victims of human trafficking for their own misery, or child laborers for working in dangerous conditions, or starving people for not migrating elsewhere. Surely he was talking to us - regular Americans and everyday problems we face." Right. And that's just the problem. When it comes to religious solutions (because Peale claimed the Power of Positive Thinking was firmly rooted in the Christian tradition), if it isn't universally true and universally applicable, it isn't true at all.
Which leaves Positive Thinking as a remedy available only to middle- and upper-class Americans, whose lives are largely untouched by some of the most serious threats to human existence, threats which are experienced regularly by much of the rest of the world.
As I wrote a couple of weeks ago, the world is filled with tremendous challenges that call for courageous kids to grow into courageous adults who will confront those problems. What we don't need is merely compliant kids who grow into kind adults who grimace at the world's troubles and then distract themselves.
The Power of Positive Thinking casts you as the main character in the human drama. It assures us that we're all in this together - because life threatens to bum everyone out - but then lays the responsibility for overcoming at the feet of each individual. And all that's really overcome are perceptions. Looming debt, marital problems, my own inadequacies, interpersonal conflict - these are only solved insofar as I stop thinking of them as debilitating problems.
Jesus said, "In this world you will have trouble..." which sounds like a preamble for the rationale for positive thinking. But he goes on to say, "But take heart - I have overcome the world." He conquered. He overcame. Jesus' counsel to the suffering was never, "Look on the bright side" or "Tell yourself it'll get better" or "Get over it". It was to mess with and grandly re-order a human system that was fatally flawed by sin. That he actually accomplished it - that's the good news. Resigning ourselves to suffering and hardship and "bucking up" to "get through" could be admirable determination, but it's not what we as Christians are called to. Our responsibility demands us to harness positivity not as a refuge, but in service of a greater hope - the hope of redemption.
