Norman Vincent Peale

=== Theological critique ===
[[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopal Church]] theologian and future bishop, [[John McGill Krumm|John M. Krumm]], criticized Peale and the "heretical character" of his teaching on positive thinking. Krumm cites "the emphasis upon techniques such as the repetition of confident phrases... or the manipulation of certain mechanical devices", which he says "gives the impression of a thoroughly depersonalized religion. Very little is said about the sovereign mind and purpose of God; much is made of the things men can say to themselves and can do to bring about their ambitions and purposes." Krumm cautions that "The predominant use of impersonal symbols for God is a serious and dangerous invitation to regard man as the center of reality and the Divine Reality as an impersonal power, the use and purpose of which is determined by the man who takes hold of it and employs it as he thinks best."<ref>{{cite book|first=John M.|last=Krumm|author-link=John McGill Krumm|title=Modern Heresies|publisher=Seabury Press|location=San Francisco, California|date=1961|asin=B009NNUHOY|page=35}}</ref>

Theologian [[Reinhold Niebuhr]], professor of applied Christianity at the Union Theological Seminary, reported similar concerns about positive thinking. "This new cult is dangerous. Anything which corrupts the gospel hurts Christianity. And it hurts people too. It helps them to feel good while they are evading the real issues of life."<ref name=Peters>{{cite magazine|first=William|last=Peters|title=The Case against Easy Religion|magazine=[[Redbook]]|date=September 1955|pages=22–23, 92–94}}</ref>

[[Liston Pope]], Dean of Yale Divinity School, agreed with Neibuhr. "There is nothing humble or pious in the view this cult takes of God. God becomes sort of a master psychiatrist who will help you get out of your difficulties. The formulas and the constant reiteration of such themes as "You and God can do anything" are very nearly blasphemous."<ref>Ibid</ref>

[[Garfield Bromley Oxnam|G. Bromley Oxnam]], a Methodist bishop in Washington D.C., also weighed in with his concerns. "When you are told that if you follow seven easy rules you will become president of your company, you are being kidded. There just aren't that many openings. This kind of preaching is making Christianity a cult of success."<ref>Ibid</ref>

A. Powell Davies, pastor of All Souls' Unitarian Church, Washington D.C., added his view:

<blockquote>It has sort of a drug effect on people to be told they need not worry. They keep coming back for more. It keeps their minds on a superficial level and encourages emotional dependency. It is an escape from reality. People under stress do one of two things; seek shelter or respond to harsh reality by a deeper recognition of what they are up against. The people who flock to the 'peace of mind' preachers are seeking shelter. They don't want to face reality.<ref>Ibid, p.&nbsp;94</ref></blockquote>

[[William Lee Miller]], professor in religious studies at the University of Virginia, expressed similar concerns: "The absolute power that Dr. Peale's followers insist on granting to their Positive Thinking may betray, however, a note of desperation. The optimism is no longer the healthy-minded kind, looking at life whole and seeing it good, but an optimism arranged by a very careful and very anxious selection of the particular bits and pieces of reality one is willing to acknowledge. It is not the response of an expanding epoch when failure, loneliness, death, war, taxes, and the limitations and fragmentariness of all human striving are naturally far from consciousness, but of an anxious time when they are all too present in consciousness and must be thrust aside with slogans and "formulas," assaulted with clenched fists and gritted teeth, and battered down with the insistence on the power of Positive Thinking. The success striving is different, too. The Horatio Alger type seems to have had a simple, clear confidence in getting ahead by mastering a craft, by inventing something out in the barn, or by doing an outstanding job as office boy. The Peale fan has no such confidence and trusts less in such solid realities as ability and work and talent than in the ritual repetition of spirit lifters and thought conditioners written on cards and on the determined refusal to think gloomy thoughts.<ref>Miller, "Some Negative Thinking About Norman Vincent Peale."</ref>

In spite of the attacks, Peale did not resign from his church, though he threatened that he would repeatedly. He also never challenged or rebutted his critics directly. Meanwhile, his book ''The Power of Positive Thinking'' had stopped selling by 1958.<ref name="Fuller">{{cite magazine|first=Edmund|last=Fuller|author-link=Edmund Fuller|title=Pitchmen in the Pulpit|magazine=[[Saturday Review (U.S. magazine)|Saturday Review]]|date=March 19, 1957|pages=28–30}}</ref> As Donald Meyer noted,

{{blockquote|It was evident that Peale had managed to tap wide audiences formed by prolonged changes in the tone and morale of American society, for whom the coherence of [[Protestantism]] even as late as the early twentieth century was not enough. His attackers did not fall short of declaring his Protestantism non-existent. Peale survived. As he himself recounted it, he found himself stunned by the attacks. Troubled, even considering the virtues of resigning his post, he entered his season of withdrawal. There he found his answer. His father assured him he must go on. Was he not, after all, helping millions? Besides, it was unheard of in a democratic society for a man to believe his lonely critics when millions had approved. And so he returned. How to Stay Alive Your Whole Life, Peale entitled his next book; what else was George Beard's neurasthenia but a form of half-living? Finally, in consistent exemplification of the logic of the new religion, Peale proved he was right as well by publishing the testimonies of those declaring that for them positive thinking had indeed worked. There was no particular reason to doubt them.<ref>Meyer, 1965, p. 265</ref>}}

Religious scholars, however, warned the public not to believe Peale just because he was a minister. They said the Peale message was not only false factually but also misrepresented Christianity. Reinhold Niebuhr told the public the Peale message was "a partial picture of Christianity, a sort of half-truth", and added "The basic sin of this cult is its egocentricity. It puts 'self' instead of the cross at the center of the picture".<ref name=Peters/> [[Edmund Fuller]], novelist, book critic, and book review editor of the Episcopal Churchnews took it a step further. "The Peale products and their like are equated blatantly with Christian teaching and preaching. They are represented as a revival or response in Christianity with which they have no valid connection. They influence, mislead and often disillusion sick, maladjusted, unhappy or ill-constructed people, obscuring for them the Christian realities. They offer easy comforts, easy solutions to problems and mysteries that sometimes perhaps, have no comforts or solutions at all, in glib, worldly terms. They offer a cheap 'happiness' in lieu of the joy Christianity can offer, sometimes in the midst of suffering. The panacea of positive thinking has been called by qualified people a positive hazard to the delicate marginal areas of mental health".<ref name="Fuller"/>

Meyer noted Peale's influence over his followers began when "Peale had 'discovered' the power of suggestion over the human mind, and therewith, had caught up with [[Henry Wood]], [[Charles Fillmore (Unity Church)|Charles Fillmore]], and [[Emmett Fox]], sixty forty and twenty years before him. He was teaching Mental Photography all over again. Thoughts were things".<ref>Ibid. p.&nbsp;264</ref> Meyer described Peale's religion: "Peale's aim in preaching positive thinking was not that of inducing contemplative states of Oneness nor of advancing self-insight nor of strengthening conscious will, let alone sensitizing people to their world. The clue lay here in Peale's reiterated concern that the operation of his positive thoughts and thought conditioners become 'automatic', that the individual truly become 'conditioned ...' But was the automated power of positive thinking liberty or just one more form of mind-cure hypnotism? Was this new power really health or simply further weakness disguised?"<ref>Ibid. p.&nbsp;268</ref> After considering all points of view, Meyer answered his own questions, and concluded positive thinking was a religion of "weakness". "Peale's phenomenal popularity represented a culture in impasse. The psychology for which the cult was also religion culminated the treatment of weakness by weakness".<ref>Ibid., p.&nbsp;258</ref>