Positive Thinking and the Cure of the Souls

2019 ◽  
pp. 123-154
Author(s):  
Carol V. R. George
Keyword(s):  
Positive Thinking ◽  
American Religion ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
New Thought ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Revitalization Effort ◽  
Religious Revitalization

This chapter examines how Norman Vincent Peale’s gospel of positive thinking catapulted him to fame, mainly through his 1952 book, “The Power of Positive Thinking,” and contributed to the revival of American religion at the time. It first considers how the overwhelming reception accorded “The Power of Positive Thinking” made Peale a “minister to millions” and how his popularity coincided with the religious revitalization effort before discussing Peale’s interpretation of New Thought. It then looks at the criticisms hurled against “The Power of Positive Thinking,” including the accusation that Pealeism represented the worst aspects of the revival of populist religion, and the role played by Peale in the religious revival of the 1950s. Finally, it describes how the Foundation for Christian Living emerged as the nerve center of Peale’s independent ministry during the decade of the 1950s.

The 1950s: Part Two

2019 ◽  
pp. 195-248
Author(s):  
Steven K. Green
Keyword(s):  
Red Scare ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Billy Graham ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Congressional Investigations ◽  
The Church

This chapter continues with the examination of the church–state events of the 1950s. It begins with the Protestant–Catholic tensions associated with the Red Scare and the congressional investigations into communism, particularly the controversy surrounding Catholic support for the activities of Senator Joseph McCarthy. It continues with an examination of a thawing of religious tensions brought about by the religious revival of the 1950s and the growth of ecumenism and religious cooperation. This section focuses on the impact of three religious figures: Bishop Fulton Sheen, Billy Graham, and Norman Vincent Peale. The chapter concludes with an examination of the Protestant opposition to the candidacy of John F. Kennedy for U.S. president, an effort that was led by Graham, Peale, and POAU.

Mysticism, Mesmerism, Mind Cure

Mind Cure ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 18-36
Author(s):  
Wakoh Shannon Hickey
Keyword(s):  
Nineteenth Century ◽  
Physical Health ◽  
New England ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Religion And Medicine ◽  
Religious Movements ◽  
American Religion ◽  
New Thought ◽  
Hypnotic Suggestion ◽  
Emanuel Swedenborg

This chapter explores the far-reaching influences in American religion and medicine of Emanuel Swedenborg, a Swedish scientist and mystic, and Franz Anton Mesmer, who developed Mesmerism, the forerunner of hypnosis. Swedenborg’s theology filtered into homeopathy and the religious movements of Shakerism, Transcendentalism, Unitarianism, Mormonism, modernist Buddhism, Theosophy, Spiritualism, and New Thought. Mesmer’s theories about illness contributed to the development of osteopathy, chiropractic, and hypnotherapy. Before the development of chemical anesthesia, some nineteenth-century doctors performed complex and successful surgeries on patients who were sedated only by hypnotic suggestion. Ideas and practices derived from Mesmer and Swedenborg converged in the nineteenth-century mental-healing practice of Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, a New England clockmaker and the first American to discover that beliefs and mental states can affect one’s physical health.

Healing the Self to Heal the World

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Monica M. Emerich
Keyword(s):  
Personal Development ◽  
New Age ◽  
Positive Thinking ◽  
Self Healing ◽  
New Thought ◽  
Goods And Services ◽  
Self Development ◽  
The World ◽  
Spiritual Self ◽  
The Mind

This chapter examines how LOHAS salvages its “New Age” focus on self-development or actualization. It examines the Mind Cure, New Thought, and New Age movements in terms of their relationship to capitalism to show how LOHAS extends and expands these movements through the LOHAS category of Personal Development (also referred to as the Mind/Body/Spirit market). In Personal Development goods and services, physical and spiritual self-healing reflects a moral pragmatism by linking self-healing work with that of healing the world. Threaded through the LOHAS discourse is a popular American theme—the power of positive thinking—and this healing modality is put to use in so-called the quantum spiritualities, the latest incarnation of the American therapeutic tradition. The end of the chapter shows how the LOHAS texts use examples of healed selves as testimonials to show that it is indeed possible for individuals to transform themselves to social warriors.

“God’s Spirit Lives in Me”

2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-33
Author(s):  
Vaughn A. Booker
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
African American ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Daily Practice ◽  
Positive Thinking ◽  
Negative Attitudes ◽  
New Thought ◽  
Financial Wealth

This article explores the work of the Rev. Charleszetta “Mother” Waddles (1912–2001), an independent African American Christian minister who operated the Perpetual Mission for Saving Souls of All Nations in Detroit, Michigan. It argues that Mother Waddles sought to reshape and repurpose the spiritual rhetoric of New Thought theology—especially the concept of “positive thinking”—for her daily practice as a home missionary and for others living in similar circumstances. Mother Waddles was distinct from other twentieth-century, African American New Thought messengers because she sought to speak to and change the lives and mindsets of other impoverished African Americans without making a theological case for their divine entitlement to material prosperity or by encouraging their desire for financial wealth. Her undated, self-published book, Attributes and Attitudes, offered twelve divine virtues that every potential home (urban) missionary worker should embody—as well as twelve negative attitudes they must reject—in order to serve others.

The Third Disestablishment

2019 ◽  
pp. 208-229
Author(s):  
Carol V. R. George
Keyword(s):  
New Age ◽  
Holistic Medicine ◽  
Positive Thinking ◽  
New Thought ◽  
Conservative Politics ◽  
The Third

This chapter examines how Norman Vincent Peale’s personal ministry grew during the time of what is known as the “third disestablishment” of Protestantism. From 1960 until his 1984 retirement from Marble Collegiate Church, Peale focused primarily on enlarging the ministry of the Foundation for Christian Living. His hybrid message of conservative politics and harmonial New Thought theology was ideally positioned to win supporters on the New Age left and the evangelical right. The chapter first considers Peale’s crisis theology and how he integrated his concept of positive thinking with holistic medicine before discussing his self-appointed ministry to America’s businessmen, his work as “God’s Salesman,” his message of practical Christianity, what he thought of the clergy, and his life after retiring from Marble Church.

New Thought and the Inner Child in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy

2018 ◽  
Vol 73 (3) ◽  
pp. 326-352
Author(s):  
Anne Stiles
Keyword(s):  
First Century ◽  
Religious Movement ◽  
Positive Thinking ◽  
Domestic Sphere ◽  
True Self ◽  
New Thought ◽  
Frances Hodgson Burnett ◽  
Self Help ◽  
Inner Child ◽  
Popular Psychology

Anne Stiles, “New Thought and the Inner Child in Frances Hodgson Burnett’s Little Lord Fauntleroy” (pp. 326–352) In twenty-first-century popular psychology and self-help literature, the “inner child” refers to an original or true self that serves as a repository of wisdom and creativity for its adult counterpart. This essay traces the modern inner child back to the nineteenth-century new religious movement known as New Thought, which emphasized positive thinking as a means to health and prosperity. Emma Curtis Hopkins, the leading New Thought teacher of the 1880s and 1890s, described an idealized “Man Child” within each adult woman who could lead her to spiritual serenity and worldly success. Frances Hodgson Burnett fictionalized this figure in her blockbuster novel Little Lord Fauntleroy (1886), whose eponymous child hero helps his mother achieve undreamed-of wealth and status. He also serves as her proxy outside of the domestic sphere, allowing her to reach personal goals without appearing selfish or inappropriately ambitious. The novel’s enormous popularity may have had something to do with this symbiotic relationship between mother and son. Then as now, the inner child helped women reconcile social pressures to be selfless and giving with career pursuits and self-indulgent behavior. The persistence of the inner child suggests that contemporary feminism still has work to do in enabling women to embrace opportunities without guilt.

The “Christianization” of Israel and Jews in 1950s America

2004 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 109-146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michelle Mart
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle East ◽  
Religious Identity ◽  
Middle Eastern ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
The World ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Christian Family ◽  
Bible Stories

AbstractIn the 1950s, the United States experienced a domestic religious revival that offered postwar Americans a framework to interpret the world and its unsettling international political problems. Moreover, the religious message of the cold war that saw the God-fearing West against atheistic communists encouraged an unprecedented ecumenism in American history. Jews, formerly objects of indifference if not disdain and hatred in the United States, were swept up in the ecumenical tide of “Judeo-Christian” values and identity and, essentially, “Christianized” in popular and political culture. Not surprisingly, these cultural trends affected images of the recently formed State of Israel. In the popular and political imagination, Israel was formed by the “Chosen People” and populated by prophets, warriors, and simple folk like those in Bible stories. The popular celebration of Israel also romanticized its people at the expense of their Arab (mainly Muslim) neighbors. Battling foes outside of the Judeo-Christian family, Israelis seemed just like Americans. Americans treated the political problems of the Middle East differently than those in other parts of the world because of the religious significance of the “Holy Land.” A man such as Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, who combined views of hard-nosed “realpolitik” with religious piety, acknowledged the special status of the Middle East by virtue of the religions based there. Judaism, part of the “Judeo-Christian civilization,” benefitted from this religious consciousness, while Islam remained a religion and a culture apart. This article examines how the American image of Jews, Israelis, and Middle Eastern politics was re-framed in the early 1950s to reflect popular ideas of religious identity. These images were found in fiction, the press, and the speeches and writings of social critics and policymakers. The article explores the role of the 1950s religious revival in the identification of Americans with Jews and Israelis and discusses the rise of the popular understanding that “Judeo-Christian” values shaped American culture and politics.

Reviving Religion

2021 ◽  
pp. 15-43
Author(s):  
Uta A. Balbier
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Planning Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Altar Call ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The Cold War

This book uses Graham’s crusades in London, Berlin, and New York as a prism through which to explore the powerful dynamics of the transatlantic revival of the 1950s. It was a movement that affected political discourses, theological debates, and ordinary faith, and witnessed a tremendous exchange of ideas and issues, hopes and fears, people and practices. It produced intense national debates about the future of faith under the threat of secularization. It was shaped by transnational ideological frameworks such as the Cold War and consumerism, and it strengthened the international awareness of German, British, and American Christians within and beyond the evangelical community. These were the dynamics, changes, and processes that came together during Graham’s altar call in Europe. This first chapter embeds Billy Graham’s revival meetings in the religious landscapes of the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany in the 1950s, a time characterized by secularization fears and hopes for a religious revival. It introduces the planning process behind Graham’s revival meetings, which was marked by lively transnational exchanges between American, British, and German organizers. In the wake of World War II, the so-called crusades provided a focus for contemporary debates among church officials, theologians, and ordinary Christians about faith, politics and society, and a possible modernization of religious life. The chapter shows how the endorsement and criticism developing around Graham split congregations and denominations, meanwhile allowing an ecumenical community of Graham supporters to emerge. Graham’s revival style challenged the evangelical communities in particular to embrace a more worldly faith.

Conclusion—Periodizing Secularization

2019 ◽  
pp. 245-278
Author(s):  
Clive D. Field
Keyword(s):  
Performance Indicators ◽  
Religious Socialization ◽  
Religious Revival ◽  
The Third ◽  
The World ◽  
Six Dimensions ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Religious Crisis

Since most chapters contain individual summaries, they are not reproduced in the conclusion. Rather, there is a holistic overview of religious allegiance and churchgoing across seven micro-periods between 1880 and 1980, with reference to a hybrid measure of adult ‘active church adherence’ relative to population. This declined continuously and gradually, undermining arguments for ‘revolutionary’ secularization in the 1960s. A second section considers six dimensions of ‘diffusive religion’, a basket of alternative performance indicators cited by some scholars who contend religion has not declined but simply changed, moving away from institutional expressions. Such claims are not judged evidentially strong. The third section updates secularization’s historiography, critiquing previous work on the alleged religious crisis of 1890–1914, the religious impact of the world wars, and the so-called religious revival of the 1950s and crisis of the 1960s. The causation of secularization is discussed, and weakening Sabbatarianism and religious socialization of children are emphasized.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document