Norman Vincent Peale and the Church Growth movement

Norman Vincent Peale’s practical Christianity is often credited with being the forerunner of the of the modern Church Growth movement. The popularization of his philosophy and methods was left to a later generation. Peale’s philosophy and methods grew out of his wholehearted belief in the humanistic concept of the perfectibility of man.[1] As seen in the previous two chapters, Peale’s theology was heavily imbued with his belief that through his own efforts man could improve his life and overcome life’s obstacles either through self-realization or through getting in touch with the god within. Although he believed in the perfectibility of man, Peale’s ministry was focused on discipling rather than perfecting members. He believed that people should be brought into membership “in anticipation that education would subsequently reveal to them the fuller implications of a richer, more self-conscious faith.”[2]

The major focus of Peale’s ministry was winning members. This involved door-to-door canvasing, use of various advertising techniques, weekly radio broadcasts of his sermons, rented auditoriums for special services, and adoption of other business techniques to further church development. Sunday services were planned to perfection. His messages were upbeat, theologically liberal, inspirational, and sprinkled with references to Emerson and the social environment. Although altar calls gradually disappeared, the message continued to point to the transforming result of a personal relationship with Jesus and the church.[3] For Peale, it is apparent that his listeners were to find that personal relationship, “a richer, more self-conscious faith,” through education as opposed to repentance and forgiveness of sin at an altar.

Church Growth movement and the mission of the church

Christ said at the time of his ascension forty days after His resurrection, “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them all that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always to the close of the age.” [Matthew 28:19-20. RSV] There are three parts: evangelism, baptism, and teaching. Evangelism is making disciples through preaching (and witnessing) the gospel of Christ. Baptism is a public statement that one accepted Christ as his savior and has surrendered his life to Christ. Teaching is follow-up which is accomplished by preaching, teaching, and worship.

Disciples are not made by the effort of evangelism but by the Word of God. Evangelism is the tool or means of delivering the life transforming message (good news) of Jesus Christ. But at some point in the mid-twentieth century there arose a belief that the original biblical concept of evangelism could be improved upon. New methodologies and strategies were developed to sharpen the tool of evangelism in making disciples for Christ. This came to be known as the Church Growth movement. It is not a single group, organization or denomination but a set of ideologies that have been adopted by the majority of evangelical churches in America.[4] This ecumenicalism is possible because the churches and ministers who subscribed to the Church Growth movement are interested in methodologies and strategies for accomplishing the mission of the church as opposed to doctrine. Their message is that a church can adopt Church Growth methods and practices to grow their individual churches while keeping their doctrines. This sounds good, but a closer look reveals the devil is in the details.

Paul told the Corinthians that it was the gospel by which they were saved (See 1 Corinthians 15:1-2). But when the Church Growth movement attempted to sharpen the tool of evangelism, it fundamentally changed its focus from delivering the transforming power of the Word to growing the church through human efforts.[5] This resulted in a major change in definition of the mission of the church from making disciples to growing the church.

Defenders of the Church Growth methods and strategies may claim this distinction is merely a matter of semantics—that the end result of growing the church is the same as making disciples. This is not so. Recall what happened to the early church in the fourth century (See Chapter 3). Christianity was legalized in the Roman Empire and became the professed religion of Emperor Constantine. Christianity was now seen as the avenue to material, military, political, and social success. Thousands joined the church, but many were Christians in name only as the narrow gate was made wide which allowed a flood of corruptions to flow into the church.[6]

A second defense by the advocates of the Church Growth movement is that their methods are effective in attracting people to their churches so that the gospel can be delivered and people can be saved, baptized, and taught. They cite impressive numbers with regard to membership, attendance, and participation in various church activities to prove the effectiveness of their methods and strategies. But in the final accounting of a person’s life, it is not their church attendance, membership, or participation that determines their eternal destiny.

The problem with many churches using Church Growth methods and strategies is that it is often accompanied by preaching that is watered-down, incomplete, or inaccurate. Christ’s call to a death to self and sin at the foot of the cross is often masked by feel-good messages of love and forgiveness with little or no cost and without a call to holiness. As a result, the lives and lifestyles of many Church Growth “converts” bear little evidence of change or conformance to the teachings of Christ. Many seekers falling into the all-inclusive nets of churches following the Church Growth model resemble the unregenerate second generation Puritans of the late 1600s. These Puritans were not in full communion but remained members in a halfway covenant which resulted in a mixed membership that had lost the purity of a separated regenerate church.[7]

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with many of the Church Growth methods and activities in themselves. Christian fellowship, breaking of bread, and concern for the needs of one’s fellow brothers and sisters in Christ is normal and biblical. Some of the Church Growth activities and methods have been used by traditional churches for decades and were not intended to be the high-powered generators of church growth in themselves. To be successful, Church Growth practitioners must add a large measure of accommodation of the spirit of the world that injects subtle but fundamental changes to the preaching, teaching, and doctrines of the New Testament.

The culture-driven church

The Church Growth movement continually attempts to find better ways to accomplish the redefined mission of the church—church growth rather than making disciples. Church Growth advocates say churches must use the right bait to attract and capture members. As the tastes and interests of a culture change over time, the church must change the bait to match the new tastes and interests of both its current members (consumers) and target audience outside the church. Hence, the focus and message of the church is dictated by the prevailing culture as opposed to the timeless prescriptions of the Bible. As culture changes, the membership-oriented church must change in order to accommodate and stay relevant to the culture. Over time the parade of changes accumulate to such an extent that the church loses its Christian identity and becomes a powerless, syncretic form of Christian paganism.[8] In his letter to Timothy, the Apostle Paul wrote of the coming apostasy in the last days in which men and women who once knew Christ would reject or abandon their faith. Paul described these Christians-in-name-only of the last days as “holding the form of religion but denying the power of it…” [2 Timothy 3:5. RSV]

The therapeutic gospel

In the last chapter we examined the beginnings of the therapeutic gospel through Norman Vincent Peale’s blending of psychology and New Age practices into a religious mix aimed at healing the soul through self-help and the works of men. Here we look deeper into the meaning and workings of the therapeutic gospel as it has grown within the evangelical church over the last seven decades.

The American psyche has been branded with the humanistic concept of the perfectibility of man and anything less than personal perfection is thought unacceptable. As a result, billions of dollars are spent annually on psychological techniques and therapies of self-help and counseling. Once thought of as help for physical problems, therapy is now applied to a host issues that are now considered psychological problems which range from personal relationships and self-esteem to the ultimate purpose and meaning of life. This concern for psychological problems has inevitably become a large part of religious thinking and concern within the contemporary church as a result of the philosophy and growing influence of the Church Growth movement.[9]

Craig Gay writing in The way of the (modern) world called this preoccupation with psychological problems very disturbing because the focus of therapy is upon “immediate relief and rehabilitation,” and the only acceptable measure of relief is “the subjective experience of well-being.” [emphasis in original] However, the therapeutic approach “provides no serious discipline for the soul.” Therapy as a means of dealing with the stresses of life often stands at odds with the formation of character and one’s duty to God and his fellow man. The therapeutic use of religion and religious faith are not the same. In the therapeutic use of religion, the individual is essentially in charge of his or her journey to a sense of well-being within. But the Christian faith focuses the believer on obedience to God and the Bible as opposed to pleasing the self. Gay summarizes the difference by quoting Philip Rieff, “Religious man was born to be saved. Psychological man is born to be pleased.”[10]

Christians may vehemently deny the humanists’ belief that this life is all there is so one ought to be happy, grab all the pleasure that one can, and live as if there is no tomorrow. However, many Christians’ affirmation of the afterlife often do not match their actions as they reach for a therapeutic fix to ease the pain of the moment when what they may really need is obedience to God and His higher purposes. Many modern Christians have acceded to the cultural wave of humanism and are preoccupied with the present experience and a quest for comfort instead of accepting the pain of self-denial and obedience to God which is linked to their eternal destiny.

It is a deception when Christian concepts and terms are employed to justify therapeutic “feel good” measures as a substitute for obedience to the Christian faith in matters of healing and rehabilitation. Gay wrote, “Faith in God through Jesus Christ and by the power of the Spirit is not a means, but is, along with hope and love, the end purpose of human existence.” [emphasis added] However, Gay cautions that the problem does not lie in therapy as such. Specific therapies are often of real benefit, but the difficulty arises when therapy is viewed as a means of dealing with the problems caused by the human condition.[11] Put another way, man is a fallen creature, and although religious therapy may make him feel better about himself for the moment, it will not change his eternal destination.

New Paradigm churches v. traditional churches

We’ve talked about the origins of the Church Growth movement and its philosophies, methods, and techniques. We’ve also described the culture-driven therapeutic gospel. But how does all of this look when it comes together in a Church Growth-oriented evangelical church in the twenty-first century?

New paradigm churches are growth-oriented, culture-driven, and therapeutic in outlook. These churches have a philosophy of ministry intentionally focused on numerical growth through the use of demographic studies from which well-defined market strategies are crafted and then implemented by modern business techniques.[12] Being market-driven, their first step is to study the demographics of the market to determine what the consumer wants as opposed to the traditional evangelical church that is soul-oriented, biblically driven, and eternal in outlook.

In “Choosing My Religion” published in 1999 by Advertising Age, Richard Cimino described the factors Americans consider when seeking a church. Cimino’s observations on the desires of consumer-minded Christians had been discovered decades earlier by Church Growth leaders. What Cimino and earlier church leaders found was that mainstream Americans had begun shopping for a God to fit their humanistic beliefs and lifestyles. As a result, their preferences had shifted from “religion” to “spirituality.”[13]

Behind this shift is the search for an experiential faith, a religion of the heart, not of the head. It’s a religious expression that downplays doctrine and dogma, and revels in direct experience of the divine—whether it’s called the “holy spirit” or “cosmic consciousness” or the “true self.” It is practical and personal, more about stress reduction than salvation, more therapeutic than theological. It’s about feeling good, not being good. It’s as much about the body as the soul…This being the United States, where consumerism is the closest thing we have to state religion, it’s very much about marketing, packaging, and promotion.

Today…religion and spirituality have become just another product in the broader marketplace of goods and services; congregants care as much about a church’s childcare as its doctrinal purity, pay more attention to the style of music than the pastor’s theological training.

Church leaders across the nation are using computerized demographic studies and other sophisticated marketing techniques to fill their pews. “Mainline churches don’t have to die,” says church marketing consultant Richard Southern. “Baby boomers think of churches like they think of supermarkets…They want options, choices, and convenience. You don’t have to change your theology or your political stance.”[14]

This shift from religion to spirituality has occurred because of the rise and eventual dominance of the humanistic worldview in all facets of American culture during the last half of the twentieth century. Whereas the dominant Christian religion in America through the end of the nineteenth century meant relationship with and obedience to a loving God, the humanistic worldview denies God’s existence and replaces Him with the god of self and its quest for happiness. However, humanism is a false philosophy and its prescriptions fail to answer the haunting questions of life. It is man’s natural inclination to seek God to find order, meaning, and purpose to life, and it is through religion he seeks to find Him. But through the seductions of secular humanism, Americans have become saturated with the consumer mentality and the belief that customer is always right. In vain, they seek a do-it-yourself, designer religion that will supply a sense of temporal well-being instead of eternal truth that only comes from the God of the Bible.

The God of the Bible demands that men die to self in order to live the life eternal. This is not a message that can be scientifically packaged and promoted by new paradigm churches focused on attracting members instead of winning the lost.

Decades ago, A. W. Tozer foresaw the eventual outcome of popular evangelism we now call a new paradigm.

If I see aright, the cross of popular evangelicalism is not the cross of the New Testament. It is, rather, a new bright ornament upon the bosom of a self-assured and carnal Christianity. The old cross slew men; the new cross entertains them. The old cross condemned; the new cross amuses. The old cross destroyed confidence in the flesh; the new cross encourages it.[15]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Arthur Gordon, One Man’s Way, (Pawling, New York: Foundation for Christian Living, (1972, 1958), p. 143.
[2] Carol V. R. George, God’s Salesman – Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 56.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Stephen Parker, Church Growth Crisis – The Decline of Christianity in America, (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Forever Family Publications, 2011), p. 13.
[5] Ibid., p. 32.
[6] B. K. Kuiper, The Church in History, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1951, 1964), p. 27.
[7] Eddy, p. 55.
[8] Parker, p. 39.
[9] Craig M. Gay, The way of the (modern) world, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1998), p. 185.
[10] Ibid., p. 186.
[11] Ibid., pp. 187-189.
[12] Gary E. Gilley, This Little Church Went to Market, (www.xulonpress.com: Xulon Press, 2002), p. 20.
[13] Richard Cimino, “Choosing My Religion,” Advertising Age, April 1, 1999.
http://adage.com/article/american-demographics/choosing-religion/42364/ (accessed October 23, 2015).
[14] Gilley, This Little Church Went to Market, p. 59.

Satan was a rebel against God’s crown and glory and a fallen creature before God created man. Matthew Henry wrote that Satan “…knew he could not destroy man but by debauching him. The game therefore which Satan had to play was to draw our first parents to sin, and so to separate them and their God. The whole race of mankind had here, as it were, but one neck, and at that Satan struck.”[1] The strike would be through man’s freewill. One of the deceptions Satan crafted through the ages was spiritual humanism to which man’s freewill was particularly susceptible. As Satan had once diverted Eve’s gaze from God to self, so Satan continues to divert man from God and His plan of redemption to self by substituting spiritual humanism’s counterfeit solutions drawn from pantheistic religions, ancient traditions, pagan cultures, and modern-day psychology (see Chapter 16).

The New Age in Christian clothing

To make spiritual humanism culturally relevant in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, Satan painted a modern face on it, dressed it new clothes to fit the modern spirit of the age, and called it the New Age. But spiritual humanism’s beliefs, objectives, deceptions, traits, and characteristics remain the same, and its ancestry traces directly back to Eastern and other pagan religions.

An examination of African traditional religions presents a summary of those traits and characteristics shared by substantially all pagan religions, elements of which have seeped into some modern evangelical churches.

• Very pragmatic and oriented to providing for the temporal needs and wishes of their followers.
• Not based on consistently applied and understandable doctrines, rules and regulations.
These religions depend largely on existence, experience and feelings.
• Polytheistic, impersonal mystical powers, hierarchy of spiritual beings and powers.
• Religion based on power.
• May incorporate elements of Christianity as part of their religions.
• God is manipulated (as opposed to being praised in Christianity).
• Words have innate power in themselves (curses, chants, incantations, etc.).
• Use magic to manipulate the spirits and world around them.[2]

In pantheistic Eastern religions, there is no personal and loving God (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism). The impersonal, uncaring god of the pantheists does not love mankind or care about their sufferings so man is left to his own devices to find answers to life’s questions and find peace on this earth. For pantheists, these answers and peace can only be found by being reunited with the impersonal universal spiritual essence/force from which they believe man is an insoluble part.[3] Notice that most characteristics of pagan religions from the above list focus on the efforts of man: first, internally through mental exercises, and second, externally through power and manipulation. Since these religions seek and serve a non-loving God, it is only natural that the marks of their faith are centered on the self as opposed to Christianity’s focus on other-directed loving relationships with humans and a personal, loving God.

In the absence of help from a non-caring, impersonal God, New Age teachers and practitioners offer a plethora of solutions and assistance in becoming reunited with the impersonal universal spiritual essence/force to which man is an insoluble part. One of those solutions is purported to be found in New Thought.

The New Thought movement

The New Thought movement began in the late 1860s and is essentially pantheistic. It teaches that man is divine and has unlimited potential. The movement developed from the teachings of Phineas Quimby.[4] He believed that the thoughts of the human mind determined whether the body was healthy or sick.

Physical diseases are caused by wrong thinking or false beliefs. Disease is merely an “error” created “not by God, but by man.” Eliminate false beliefs, Quimby taught, and the chief culprit for disease is thereby removed, yielding a healthy body.[5]

The New Thought movement expanded Quimby’s teachings to include a belief that humans can use their thoughts to determine the conditions of their lives and thereby experience not only good health but success and a full life. This occurs because of the “law of attraction” which is the concept that one’s thoughts attract the things a person wants and expects. From this movement several “mind” science religions were founded including Mary Baker Eddy’s Christian Science.[6]

According to the law of attraction, a person’s life and circumstances are a physical expression or indicator of his thought life. In other words, whatever a person thinks he attracts. But the question arises as to how a person can control and direct his thought life. People have many thousands of thoughts every day that supposedly determine what they attract. One cannot corral, examine, and mold each of those thoughts to assure that he attracts only the good. According to the law of attraction a person’s feelings are a filter by which one can know what he is thinking and attracting to his life. Therefore, a person must get in touch with their feelings because good feelings create a good future, and bad feelings create a bad future. By practicing the law of attraction, a person can receive their desired future by simply seeing themselves in that future and believing it will happen. The law of attraction assures that it will come about.[7] The law of attraction is deeply rooted in humanism’s exaltation of self and accounts for the great emphasis placed on having a good self-esteem (feeling good about one’s self).

Peale and New Thought

By the end of the 1950s, Billy Graham and Norman Vincent Peale each headed one of the two distinct branches of evangelical Christianity. Graham remained true to the five fundamental doctrines held by the populist evangelical churches since the early 1700s which were expressed in a series of books published in 1910 titled The Fundamentals: A Testimony to the Truth (see Chapter 14). Unlike the fundamental and unchanging doctrines of Christianity preached by Graham, Peale’s practical Christian living was designed to be a “new Christian emphasis…attuned to the inner life…[and] was a better solution to the needs of modern Americans.”[8] As has been the case throughout the history of Christianity and the church, the contest for the soul of American evangelicalism once again centered on the age-old quest for truth and doctrinal purity.

But Peale’s claims of a “new Christian emphasis” were not new but based on spiritual humanism’s false and failed answers to the basic questions of life. Peale’s answers were uncomplicated and based individual initiative. If people’s troubles lay within themselves, then the answers were there too. They merely had to tap the divine energy stored within the unconscious. The essence of Peale’s work is based on “the belief that through the mind and subconscious, utilizing techniques of positive thinking and affirmative prayer, one can achieve spiritual harmony and personal power.”[9]

Peale began reading literature about New Thought and mental sciences about 1928, but these philosophies did not became the most important and recognizable part of his public message until the late 1940s.[10] With the publication of The Power of Positive Thinking in 1952, Peale fully incorporated New Thought concepts into his message and ministry.

The Power of Positive Thinking was Peale’s master work and described the essence of practical Christian living. In reality, Peale’s practical Christianity was a modernized and Christianized version of New Thought in which the human mind has extraordinary potential through mental and spiritual realities to shape material or physical events. In other words, physical realities experienced by man originate in the mental and metaphysical (beyond what is perceptible to the senses). Through prayer and positive thinking, one can see the spark of divinity in one’s self and bring it into alignment with God (the divine spirit of the universe) which makes possible healing and worldly wealth.[11]

The origins and teachings of New Thought are indisputably New Age. Although there has been some controversy regarding the sources Peale used in his New Thought writings, it is also indisputable that Peale introduced, championed, and popularized these New Age practices throughout the American evangelical church.

Florence Scovel Shinn (1871-1940) was a New Thought teacher and writer.[12] The first of four books she published was The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925) and the second was Your Word is Your Wand (1928). Her third book, The Secret Door to Success, was published in 1940, the year of her death. The Power of the Spoken Word was her fourth book published posthumously in 1945.[13] Shinn’s The Game of Life and How to Play It was reissued in 1986, and Peale wrote a glowing endorsement printed on the front and back covers of the book.

The Game of Life is filled with wisdom and creative insights. That its teachings will work I know to be fact, for I’ve long used them myself.

By studying and practicing the principles laid down in this book one may find prosperity, solve problems, have better health, achieve good personal relations-in a word, win the game of life.[14]

In 1995, nine years after his endorsement of the book, Peale was accused of plagiarizing some of Shinn’s work in his famous book The Power of Positive Thinking. An article in one publication spoke of startling similarities with the writings of Shinn, “an obscure teacher of Occult science.” Shinn drew upon material of earlier occult writers and religions dating as far back as the ancient Egyptian philosopher Hermes Trismegistus.[15] In most of these New Age writings of whatever era, there tends to be certain words, phrases, and terms that are commonly if not universally used. Peale certainly admits to having read Shinn’s work, and he may have done so as far back as 1928. But it is doubtful that Peale had consciously plagiarized Shinn’s work or would have needed to, given his extensive reading and research on the subject. If Peale had concerns about plagiarism, it is also unlikely that he would have endorsed the book only nine years earlier. Both Peale’s and Shinn’s books had been available for decades.

The New Age heresy that men must evolve mentally and spiritually by awakening the god who sleeps deep within each human is a false philosophy which the Bible explicitly condemns. “…Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the Lord…The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately corrupt; who can understand it?” [Jeremiah 17:5, 9. RSV] In Acts we find that Jesus is the only source of our salvation, “And there is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” [Acts 4:12. RSV]

Psychologized religion

Beginning about 1900, mainline liberal pastors and churches began to experiment with the use of psychotherapeutic theories and techniques in pastoral care and counseling. From the very beginning of his ministry at Marble Church, Peale devoted eight to ten hours each week to counseling individuals. Eventually, the burden became too great, and the church hired Dr. Stanley Blanton, a Freudian-trained psychiatrist, to assist Peale. In 1937, Marble Collegiate Church Clinic was established in the basement of the church. By 1940, Peale withdrew from day-to-day operations and work in the clinic because of an increase in speaking engagements. Blanton became director of the clinic and other church staff worked in the clinic along with part-time psychologists and psychiatrists.[16]

After Peale’s departure from active involvement, Marble Church sustained the clinic while its identity attained more of a “religio-psychiatric” orientation. The new professionals embraced psychological theories from the works of neo-Freudians (Jung, Alfred Adler, and Erich Fromm) and later post-Freudians (Harry Stack Sullivan, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May, and Carl Rogers). In 1951, the clinic became the American Foundation for Religion and Psychiatry, an independent and fully licensed clinic in its own right with a new location and organization.[17]

Christian Smith credits the acceptance of psychology within mainline, liberal Protestant churches during the 1920s as one of the six major contributors of the secular revolution that transformed American culture.

The secular revolution transformed the basic cultural understanding of the human self and its care, displacing the established spirituality and morality framed Protestant conception of the “care of souls” (over which the church and its agencies held jurisdiction), and establishing instead a naturalistic, psychologized model of human personhood (over which therapists and psychologists are the authorities.)[18]

In the 1920s, a psychological concept known as “self-realization” began to be taught in mainline Protestant churches and seminaries. Self-realization occurs when the entity of self achieves fulfillment and full potentiation. Because of the importance placed on self-realization, the supreme goal of the spiritual life is to be fulfilled and reach one’s full potential. George Albert Coe was a professor at Union Theological Seminary and pioneered the self-realization movement by introducing psychology into pastoral care and counseling, seminaries, and Sunday school classes. As a result pastoral care and counseling sought to help people adjust and adapt in service of the self by focusing on a person’s interests, preferences, and yearnings for self-realization.[19]

Proponents of traditional American Protestantism and the early psychologists were competing for cultural authority in the early twentieth century. Feeling incapable of defending the faith of their ancestors in the age of Darwinian scientific progress, the mainline Protestant establishment chose to accept psychology as a means of explaining God, man, and the religious experience.[20] Out of this abandonment of traditional Christian theology, the therapeutic gospel was born.
______

Norman Vincent Peale’s practical Christianity was unique in that it blended humanistic psychology with the occult beliefs and practices of the New Age. Both were intended to heal the soul of man—one through self-realization and the other through getting in touch with the god within. To these ministrations, Peale added a third ingredient to his practical Christianity—the introduction of church growth methodologies and practices focused on “…‘discipling’ rather than ‘perfecting’ members—that is, bringing them in in the anticipation that education would subsequently reveal to them the fuller implications of a richer, more self-conscious faith.”[21] All of the ingredients in Peale’s practical Christianity served the god of “self” and have been adopted by many American evangelical churches in the twenty-first century.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1961), P. 8.
[2] Gary E. Gilley with Jay Wegter, This little church had none, (Carlisle, Pennsylvania: EP Books, 2009), p. 71-72.
[3] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), p. 148.
[4] Gilley and Wegter, p. 73.
[5] Ibid., quoting Ron Rhodes, The Challenge of the Cults and New Religions, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001), pp. 104-105.
[6] Ibid., pp. 73-74.
[7] Ibid., pp. 65-66.
[8] Carol V. R. George, God’s Salesman – Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 85.
[9] Ibid., pp. viii, 6.
[10] Ibid., p.134.
[11] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion – How We Became a Nation of Heretics, (New York: Free Press, 2012), P. 184.
[12] “Works of Florence Scovel Shinn,” Internet Sacred Text Archive. http://www.sacred-
texts.com/nth/shinn/index.htm (accessed October 13, 2015).
[13] Florence Scovel Shinn, The Complete Works – Florence Scovel Shinn, (Mineola, New York: Dover Publications, Inc., 2010).
[14] Warren B. Smith, A Wonderful Deception, (Magalia, California: Mountain Stream Press, 2012), p. 41.
[15] Ibid., pp. 40-41.
[16] George, pp. 89-91.
[17] Ibid., pp. 91-92.
[18] Christian Smith, “Introduction: Rethinking the Secularization of American Public Life,” The Secular Revolution, ed. Christian Smith, (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 3, 27.
[19] Keith G. Meador, “My Own Salvation,” The Secular Revolution, ed. Christian Smith, (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 295-296.
[20] Ibid., p. 272.
[21] George, pp. 56-57.

There were three major voices that stoked the fires that led to the reemergence of American evangelicalism in the late 1940s and 1950s. Two were of the preaching-revivalist tradition and principally concerned with the eternal destination of their listeners: Baptist evangelist Billy Graham and Catholic Bishop Fulton Sheen. The third was Norman Vincent Peale. Although he called himself an evangelist that adhered to evangelism’s implicit call for conversion, Peale’s educational and theological development eventually led him to embrace a “new Christian emphasis.” In later years he called it practical Christian living which was “…attuned to the inner life…[and] was presumed to be a better solution to the needs of modern Americans.”[1] Out of Peale’s theology centered on practical Christian living arose the therapeutic gospel that was adopted by many evangelical ministers and churches over the last half of the twentieth century and dominates American evangelicalism in the first decades of the twenty-first century.

Peale occupied a unique position on America’s religious landscape during the two decades following World War II. Peale was politically conservative and therefore perpetually at odds with the liberal establishment, both political and theological. Yet, by his own admission he was theologically liberal. Peale was not enamored by the liberal social gospel as well as their neglect of the practical work of the ministry. Even though personally a theological liberal, in 1924 he critiqued his seminary education and said the school had failed to adequately link the scripture with “the knowledge of the present…to enable me to go out and preach—to strengthen and amplify the message which I feel I have.” Although he claimed to champion the “old-fashioned gospel story,” he significantly altered its message with humanistic principles and practices, both secular and spiritual. When issues or conflicts arose within the church, his theological perspective was consistently revealed as he sided with the liberals rather than fundamentalists.[2]

Norman Vincent Peale was born in 1898 to a minister father and his wife in Bowersville, Ohio. Clifford Peale had been a successful physician and at one time was the health minister for Milwaukee. Having once felt the call to the ministry, he ignored it for a while, but his health broke and required an operation that left him near death. Peale survived and believed the Lord had spared him. Encouraged by his mother, Peale left the practice of medicine and became a Methodist minister. He served in a number of pastorates in small Ohio towns and moved to Cincinnati in 1902 when Norman was four. In 1913, the Peale his family moved from the Cincinnati suburb of Greenville to the small town of Bellefontaine, Ohio, where Norman graduated from High school in 1916. In the fall his parents took him to Ohio Wesleyan University, a Methodist college in the small town of Delaware.[3] Norman Peale received his B.A. degree in June 1920. Following fifteen months working as a reporter for the Detroit Journal, Peale enrolled at Boston University, and upon feeling an affirmation of his call to the ministry, he soon switched his enrollment to the university’s seminary.[4]

As a child Norman was very sensitive and painfully shy. To help their son overcome his extreme bashfulness, Norman was often asked to recite poems for family gatherings or groups of friends. But his extreme shyness caused Norman to frequently hide in the attic when he saw visitors arriving at the Peale home.[5]

Peale’s shyness continued to plague him in high school and followed him to Ohio Wesleyan. One professor approached Peale about his shyness and told him to ask Jesus to help him overcome his shyness and to also read the works of well-known psychologist William James. Another professor suggested that he read the works of Ralph Waldo Emerson. One biographer wrote that Peale’s discovery of James and Emerson “…eventually became part of his mental equipment and then a lifetime fascination…[They] remained lasting intellectual companions because they counted for something in Peale’s own life,” and he often sought validation for his own ministry in their views.[6]

Emerson’s Transcendentalism and its spiritual humanism was a comfortable fit with Peale’s practical Christianity. Emerson outlined Transcendentalism in Nature, published in 1836 and was credited as being America’s first native-born philosophy. Historian Paul Johnson described Transcendentalism as “a Yankee form of neo-platonism, mystical, a bit irrational, very vague, and cloudy.”[7] The philosophical message of Transcendentalism links the source of all knowledge to the inner self of intuition and imagination.

People, men and women equally, have knowledge about themselves and the world around them that “transcends” or goes beyond what they can see, hear, taste, touch or feel. This knowledge comes through intuition and imagination, not through logic or the senses. People can trust themselves to be their own authority on what is right.[8]

Peale linked Emerson’s belief that knowledge about man and his world comes from the mystical intuition and imagination found within man to James’s secular humanism which promoted the practical and experiential science of psychology. James is known as the father of American Psychology and wrote its seminal text in 1890, The Principles of Psychology. Eventually, James, his colleagues, and his students at Harvard developed American psychology as a science which emphasized the self as opposed to the soul. It was a pragmatic and experiential science of the mind that could be channeled along therapeutic lines to benefit mankind. The Christian concept of habits is the particular ways of living that define man in relation God. However, through psychology James redefined habits “as a process of personal and social growth toward an ever-better, ill-defined, integrated personality.”[9]

Through the work of James and his fellow psychologists, psychology infiltrated and eventually overwhelmed mainline Protestantism. Keith Meador described this development as a baptism of Protestantism in psychological rationalism and practicality.

In the 1920s, mainline Protestant seminaries began teaching the concept of “self-realization,” which conceived of the self as an entity whose fulfillment and full potentiation were paramount within the spiritual life. As a result, helping people “adjust” and “adapt” in service of the self became the goal of pastoral counseling. Through continual adjustment and adaptation, people would grow in their perceptions and come closer to the ultimate goal of self-realization.[10]

Although Peale did not wholly embrace James’s or Emerson’s views, those views became important reference points for Peale’s practical Christianity and its therapeutic gospel message expressed through his ministry of preaching, teaching, lectures, speeches, magazines, and books.[11]

While at seminary, Peale’s shyness, fear of speaking before classmates, and feelings of inferiority continued to haunt him. Yet, away from seminary, Peal expressed great joy on weekends when preaching as a student to “a church full of dedicated people.” But when he returned to seminary on Sunday nights, he wrote that, “My conflicts returned, my inferiority reasserted itself and I froze up until the next Friday I went happily off to my church again.”[12]

While still at Boston University’s seminary, Peale became a student pastor at a church in Berkeley, Rhode Island in 1922. Upon graduation from seminary in the spring of 1924, Peale was called to St. Mark’s Church in Brooklyn which was later relocated and renamed King’s Highway Methodist Church. In April 1927 Peale was invited to University Avenue Methodist Church in Syracuse, New York. There he met and married Ruth Stafford who would be his wife for sixty years. In March 1932, Norman and Ruth made their final move to the Marble Collegiate Church, a Reformed Church in America congregation with a history dating back to 1628. Located on New York City’s prestigious Fifth Avenue, the imposing and elegant 1500-seat church surrounded by skyscrapers had declined to only 200 regular attendees but had a huge endowment. The move to Marble Church necessitated that Peale make a theological shift from Methodist Arminianism to the hard determinism of Calvin within the Reformed Church. In her biography of Peale, Carol George wrote that Peale never truly left his Methodist roots but created and perfected a unique ministry and syncretic message that cut across many denominational lines.[13]

With a handsome salary, lifetime tenure, three-month annual vacation, and duties that required only preaching three times each week and service as the senior administrator, Peale saw Marble Church as an opportunity to create a personalized ministry. This included two small books written by Peale in 1937 and 1938 (The Art of Living and You Can Win) which were products of his immersion in the literature and beliefs of metaphysical spirituality (religious science).[14]

Beginning in 1942, while still serving as senior pastor of Marble Church, the pace of Peale’s life increased dramatically as he was continually called to speak before various religious, political, business, and industry gatherings around the nation. Peale founded Guideposts magazine in 1944 which became the most influential transmitter of Peale’s message, an “organ for a great, positive Christian movement” which summarized his ideals of “Americanism, free enterprise, and practical Christianity.” In 1950, the Foundation of Christian Living became the center of the Norman and Ruth Peale’s religious empire.[15]

By the 1950s, the painfully shy little boy born in 1898 in the small Ohio town of Bowersville had become a nationally celebrated churchman, social commentator, self-help guru, author, and spokesman for a vast constituency of Americans. It was Peale’s 1952 book The Power of Positive Thinking that propelled him to the pinnacle of his already amazing career. The book was perfectly timed to capture the uplifting wave of Christianity in America during the late 1940s and 1950s. The book emphasized self-empowerment and peace of mind which was especially appealing to generations attempting to “catch up” with life following almost two decades of turmoil caused by the Great Depression and World War II.[16]

The Power of Positive Thinking resonated with a vast and diverse audience of businessmen, middle-aged women, and the unchurched. Carol George summarized one reviewer’s favorable opinion of the book, “It was friendly, unpretentious, and concerned about the misery cause by spiritual poverty. In its ebullient, upbeat tone, it belonged more to the success genre of New Thought literature than the inspirational variety…” The book provided a remedy for many people who believed they were sick and in need of care. Believing they could not be fully productive contributors to society, they willingly embraced Peale’s practical Christianity and its therapeutic message of positive thinking.[17] Peale’s book landed on the New York Times bestseller list in 1952, the year of its publication, and stayed there for 180 weeks.[18]

By 1957, Peale was reaching an estimated thirty million people through his preaching, syndicated newspaper column, weekly radio program, Guideposts magazine, three published sermons monthly, and his book sales.[19] Peale’s thirty million was the same number as the weekly television audience reached by Bishop Fulton Sheen’s at the show’s height during the late 1950s.[20]

While Sheen was reaching the millions through the medium of television, Peale and Billy Graham were using an array of media to reach their millions. Graham, the neo-fundamentalist, had little in common with Peale, the neo-modernist. The one thing they had in common was that both were preaching to a much wider audience than just their professed denominational adherents. Although having a wide and somewhat overlapping audience, their respective platforms were seemingly at opposite ends of the field. Graham was an unrepentant premillennialist, political conservative, and fundamentalist who believed in the authority of the scriptures, Christ’s virgin birth, the atoning death of Christ, His bodily resurrection, His second coming, and salvation by faith through grace. Peale’s theology was far closer to modernism. Peale was initially suspicious of the younger evangelist but had a change of attitude following their first meeting in Switzerland in 1955. Peale became a supporter of Graham’s Manhattan crusade planned for 1957 and served on the blue-ribbon committee with other clergy and prominent citizens that helped organize the crusade which lasted sixteen weeks (see Chapter 15). Peale was delighted with the results of the crusade as were most of the participating clergy.[21]

A fascinating incident happened during one of the nights of the crusade. At the end of the service, Peale joined hundreds of others as they moved toward the platform in response to Graham’s invitation to make another “commitment” to Christ. Peale later called his renewed commitment that night as a “second blessing” in which he “went deeper” into the faith.[22] This was reminiscent of a similar commitment made twenty-four years earlier when Peale and his wife were vacationing in England. Peale had completed two years at Marble Church and was exceptionally discouraged. While sitting in a lovely hotel garden in Keswick, Norman felt himself a failure and expressed to Ruth his doubts about continuing his ministry at Marble Church. He felt his message was not “getting through” to the congregation and despaired at his lack of results in the church’s growth. Ruth Peale waited a few moments before she spoke. When she began talking to her husband, she did not coddle or sympathize with him but spoke words of encouragement that he so often had spoken to thousands of others. Peale listened to his wife, was encouraged, and agreed that he should stay at Marble Church. He called his renewed commitment at Keswick a “rededication” and often fondly remembered that moment as one of the most profound and rewarding experiences of his life.[23]

Peale retired from Marble Church in 1984 after fifty-two years of service and fifty years after he almost quit while at that small hotel garden in Keswick.[24] He died on Christmas Eve in 1993 at the age of 95.

Norman Vincent Peale appears to have been a good and decent man. He cared deeply for his fellowman and accomplished much that was good. However, his theological perspectives and prescriptions were flawed because they were fundamentally opposed to the doctrines and teachings of the Bible. As will be seen in the next two chapters, Peale’s practical Christianity left a dual legacy to the evangelical church of New Age spiritual humanism and the therapeutic gospel of the Church Growth movement.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Carol V. R. George, God’s Salesman – Norman Vincent Peale and The Power of Positive Thinking, (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 85.
[2] Ibid., viii, ix., 46, 49, 50-51.
[3] Arthur Gordon, One Man’s Way, (Pawling, New York: Foundation for Christian Living, 1958, 1972), pp. 4, 9-10, 19, 33, 39, 45.
[4] George, pp. 39, 40-41.
[5] Gordon, p. 21.
[6] George, pp. 33, 36-37.
[7] Paul Johnson, A History of the American People, (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1997), p. 405.
[8] “Transcendentalism, an American Philosophy,” U.S. History. http://www.ushistory.org/us/26f.asp (accessed October 9, 2015).
[9] Keith G. Meador, “My Own Salvation,” The Secular Revolution, Christian Smith, ed., (Berkeley, California: University of California Press, 2003), pp. 271, 283, 294.
[10] Ibid., p. 295.
[11] George, p. 37.
[12] Ibid., p. 52.
[13] Ibid., pp. 54-56, 58, 66, 68-69, 76.
[14] Ibid., pp. 75, 86.
[15] Ibid., pp. 103-104.
[16] Ibid., pp. 128-129.
[17] Ibid., p. 137.
[18] Ross Douthat, Bad Religion – How We Became a Nation of Heretics, (New York: Free Press, 2012), p. 52.
[19] George, p. 131.
[20] Douthat, p. 41.
[21] George, pp. 147-148.
[22] Ibid., p. 148.
[23] Gordon, pp. 172-176.
[24] George, p. 238.

Positive confession and prosperity gospel

Since the middle of the twentieth century a great many Eastern religions and New Age practices and beliefs have been absorbed into Western society. Almost simultaneously, preaching and teaching that emphasizes health, prosperity, and happiness are available to all Christians have infiltrated many evangelical churches. These churches are usually found under the banner of the Word of Faith movement and tend to be independent or have a loose affiliation with other churches with a similar message. The closeness to which individuals and churches adhere to the doctrines and practices of the positive confession movement (or prosperity gospel as some have called it) spans a broad spectrum ranging from those with marginal associations with the movement to those who fully embrace and center their lives on the Word of Faith message and its tenets. Therefore, one must use care and look beneath the Word of Faith label to determine the biblical soundness of their respective teachings and practices. Many preach a faith message that is doctrinally sound.

The acknowledged founder of the Word of Faith movement was Kenneth Hagin who had a spiritual vision during the 1950s that he described in How To Write Your Own Ticket With God. Hagin wrote that Christ had revealed certain things to him during vision, and this revelation became the foundation for the teachings and practices of positive confession.

…you can receive anything in the present tense, such as salvation, the baptism in the Holy Spirit, healing for your body, spiritual victory, or finances. Anything the Bible promises you now, you can receive now by taking these four steps…

Step 1: Say it…In my vision, Jesus said, “Positive or negative, it is up to the individual. According to what the individual says, that shall he receive.”…

Step 2: Do it…Jesus dictated to me during my vision. “Your action defeats you or puts you over. According to your action, you receive or you are kept from receiving.”…

Step 3: Receive it…It is like plugging into an electrical outlet. If we can learn to plug into this supernatural power, we can put it to work for us, and we can be healed…

Step 4: Tell it…Jesus said to me, “Tell it so others may believe.”…

…You said if anybody anywhere would take these four steps, they would receive from you anything they wanted.[1] [emphasis in original]

The principal teachings of positive confession are that there are both positive and negative aspects to confession. It is believed that the pleasant circumstances of life can be enjoyed through expressing positive statements that align with specific scriptures. The unpleasant is avoided by refraining from negative statements. Effectively, what a person says is the determinant of what he will receive and what he will become. Therefore, positive confession is a tool with which one can banish poverty, disease, sickness, and other afflictions of life.[2] The growth and success of churches in the positive confession movement have occurred because it is very appealing to most people in modern America’s prevailing culture and fits well with its humanistic emphasis on self-esteem, self-improvement, success, and materialism.

However, positive confession is doctrinal deviation and fails to align with a proper and complete biblical understanding of faith at several levels. Advocates of positive confession effectively treat God (and His Word) as a mechanical dispensing machine. They may soften the message, but it is essentially saying that one need only to select the right scripture verse, speak the right confession, act upon it, and receive you request.

Teach the entire gospel

Proper interpretation of the Bible requires that we consider each scripture in light of all other scriptures relating to a specific matter. Paul was very specific when he gave this instruction to the Corinthian church.

Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. [1 Corinthians 2:12-13. KJV] [emphasis added]

In other words, the best support and understanding of a particular scripture occurs when comparing it with other applicable scriptures—comparing spiritual things with spiritual things. Matthew Henry described the alternative when he wrote, “…if the principles of human art and science are to be made a test of revelation, we shall certainly judge amiss concerning it.”[3] Advocates of positive confession are in great error when they teach that the words spoken by Christians can somehow serve as mechanical triggers to release positive or negative outcomes in their lives. Sound doctrine cannot be built on isolated portions of scripture taken out of context but must be built on the total teaching of God’s Word.

One must ask how the adherents to the teachings of positive confession would have fared during the first three hundred years of the persecuted Christian church scattered throughout the Roman Empire. How do believers in positive confession reconcile the disconnection between what they teach and the lives of the apostles? All the apostles were greatly persecuted and eventually executed except John who was exiled to Patmos. Paul was beaten, stoned, shipwrecked, and imprisoned numerous times and eventually beheaded. He died with the thorn still in his flesh which he had asked God to remove three times.

And lest I should be exalted above measure through the abundance of the revelations, there was given to me a thorn in the flesh, the messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I should be exalted above measure. For this thing I besought the Lord thrice, that it might depart from me. And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. [2 Corinthians 12:7-9. KJV]

The truth of God’s word applies universally to all cultures and all ages. Nevertheless, positive confession appears to appeal to and find ready acceptance where people are already living in an affluent society. It is also apparent that positive confession’s teachings do not have the same acceptance in those parts of the world where faithful Bible-believing Christians continually face extreme poverty, persecution, and possible martyrdom.[4]

God’s will

God’s will must always be superior to a believer’s wants and desires. Yet, the positive confession doctrine states that the believer can have whatever he says. To decide which of these two irreconcilable positions is correct or must be amended, we look to the scriptures. We have already mentioned Paul’s thorn in the flesh. In that situation, God’s will was higher than Paul’s need for the removal of the thorn. Paul received two things because he accepted God’s will above his own—pride was crushed and the power of Christ rested upon him. Even as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane the night prior to his crucifixion that the cup might be removed, His desire deferred to the will of the Father when he said, “Nevertheless, not my will but thine, be done.” [Luke 22:42. KJV]

The desires of the believer’s heart are important to God, and He may bless accordingly. However, as we pray for our desires, we must also seek to know His will regarding those desires. James said, “Ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.” [James 4:15. KJV] But there are occasions when believers may not know what to pray for. In those situations the believer needs to continue to pray and recognize the Holy Spirit makes intercession for him according to the will of God. Here we must heed Paul’s words for he said that when we do not know what we should pray for “…the Spirit himself intercedes for us with sighs too deep for words. And he who searches the hearts of men knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” [Romans 8:26b-27. RSV]

Pride and self are difficult adversaries and firmly rooted in the free will of man. The seductive doctrine of positive confession, unchecked by seeking the will of God, adds considerable fuel to the quest for desires and pleasures burning in the heart of man.

Positive confession v. importunate prayer

In one sense, positive confession distances the believer from the Father. Over time it often becomes easy for practitioners of positive confession to slip into a mode of prayerlessness through repetitious quoting of scriptures and confessions as opposed to seeking God’s desire for their lives. Too often we see Christians (not just positive confession adherents) approach God the way many children approach their parents. “Hey, Dad. I need several things. Here’s my list, and make it quick, will you? I have plans and won’t be around for a while. We’ll talk later.”

Importunity has many synonyms including several that have undesirable connotations: demanding, persistence, supplication, entreaty, appeal, petition, plea, insistence. Yet, Jesus emphasized the importance of importunate prayer. Its importance is revealed in Christ’s parable of the persistent friend who came asking for bread at midnight. Christ summarized his teaching in a single verse, “And I tell you, Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” [Luke 11:9]. In Luke 18:1-8 we see the parable of widow who constantly sought justice from an unjust judge. Christ’s teaching in this parable was that the believer ought always pray and not lose heart.

The believer may not understand the “why” of unanswered prayers, and God’s reasons for not answering may never be known. Yet, Jesus encouraged importunate prayer. It is not a sign of a believer’s doubt or impatience with God. When we approach God with humility, love, and deference to His yet-to-be-revealed will, importunate prayer is a reflection of the believer’s obedience and faith.

Positive confession in a fallen world

Advocates of positive confession imply that its adherents will reign as kings in this life. Kings dominate, and the implication is that believers practicing positive confession are not be dominated by circumstances such as poverty and sickness. Although perhaps unconsciously, the kings of this world have become the role models for many in the positive confession movement. As a consequence, their desires naturally tend to focus on the things that worldly kings value and seek.[5]

The primary role model of the Christian should be no other than Christ. And the life of Christ incarnate was far from the trouble-free life of those Christians seeking dominion on this earth. “…The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected by the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” [Luke 9:22. RSV] Christ makes clear that the way of His followers must be the way of the cross, and the way of the cross requires death to self.

But pain, suffering, and death to self appear to be foreign concepts to many in the modern church and especially to those caught up in the positive confession message. Although we live in a fallen world, many try to use the Bible as a “get out of pain and suffering free” card to be used as needed and which gives the believer an aura of self-sufficiency. But self-sufficiency is the deadly enemy of the surrender of self to God. As C. S. Lewis wrote in The Problem of Pain, “This full acting out of the self’s surrender to God therefore demands pain: this action, to be perfect, must be done from the pure will to obey, in the absence, or in the teeth, of inclination. How impossible it is to enact the surrender of the self by doing what we like…”[6]

Positive confession v. the sovereignty of God

A favorite verse of positive confession adherents is found in John’s gospel, “Whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” [John 14:13. KJV] Taken alone, it seems to imply that God has abdicated his sovereignty. But it has been noted above that Paul admonished Christians to compare spiritual things with spiritual things. Therefore, what John wrote in Chapter 14 must be tempered and understood by what he said in Chapter 5. “This is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask anything according to his will, he heareth us: and if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him.” [John 5:14, 15. KJV] [emphasis added] Therefore, a request must be within God’s sovereign will. God’s will limits the authority of the believer. However, the positive confession movement focuses on commanding or compelling God and little time or thought is devoted to discovering His will regarding a request.[7]

Positive confession – Enemy of contentment

Another favorite verse of positive confession adherents is found in Paul’s letter to the Philippians. “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.” [Philippians 4:13. KJV] But Paul was not talking about “doing or commanding circumstances to change” but “being.” Paul had learned to be content in whatever situation he found himself. Whether in abundant prosperity or extreme need, he had learned to be content through Christ’s strength. But, for many in the positive confession movement, contentment is not an option when life deals them a season of hardship, sickness, financial reverses, or other trials. Yes, these needs should be matters of prayer. We should ask and believe, but we do not demand or command. And if the answers don’t come, we must not berate ourselves for our supposed failure to believe, utter the right commands, or pull the right levers to operate our mechanical God. Like Paul, we must be content knowing Christ’s strength will lead us through the valley.
______

In the first chapter of this series it was stated that the diminution and/or abandonment of the Bible as the infallible and inerrant truth of God is occurring in varying degrees in many evangelical denominations, churches, fellowships, and organizations across America. In this chapter we have examined the Word of Faith movement that arose in evangelical churches during the 1950s.

Many of the Word of Faith ministers and members are highly valued and much loved brothers and sisters in Christ. As is the case in all evangelical churches, others in the movement are Christian in name only and have brought great harm and reproach to the church of Jesus Christ through the positive confession gospel’s false beliefs and doctrines.

No man has a perfect understanding of the mind of Christ and His Word. However, we are charged to study God’s Word to show ourselves approved. Upon sober reflection following a holistic study of the scriptures, many Christians who hold to the view that the Bible is the inspired, inerrant, and infallible Word of God have found the beliefs and teachings of the positive confession movement violate the biblical rules of interpretation.

Although many in evangelical churches may hold varying interpretations of numerous doctrinal issues, most differences have minimal eternal consequences. However, the beliefs and teachings of positive confession mirror anti-biblical elements of the New Age and Eastern religions. In many instances these beliefs and teachings have caused great harm and reproach to the Kingdom as some believers have lost out with God or have drawn away the great truths of God’s word.[8]

Whatever the failings and errors of the positive confession and prosperity gospel, we must reiterate that the Bible is a message of faith and contains many great truths which affirm that in our day God does heal our bodies, provides for our needs, that believers are given authority, and that a disciplined mind is important for victorious living. But all biblical truths must be examined, understood, and followed in light of the total teaching of scripture.[9]

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Kenneth E. Hagin, How To Write Your Own Ticket With God, Kindle Cloud Reader, (Tulsa, Oklahoma: Rhema Bible Church aka Kenneth Hagin Ministries, 1979).
[2] “The Believer and Positive Confession,” The General Council of the Assemblies of God, August 19, 1980, p. 2. http://ag.org/top/Beliefs/Position_Papers/pp_downloads/pp_4183_ confession.pdf (accessed October 6, 2015).
[3] Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan Publishing House, 1960), p. 1805.
[4] “The Believer and Positive Confession,” The General Council of the Assemblies of God, p. 8.
[5] Ibid., p. 6.
[6] C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain from The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, ( New York: Harper One, 2002), pp. 607-608.
[7] “The Believer and Positive Confession,” The General Council of the Assemblies of God, p. 7.
[8] Ibid., p. 9.
[9] Ibid.

The great contest between God and Satan is for the allegiance of men and women. At stake are their eternal relationships with God. Mankind is fallen and lives in a fallen world. In order to restore a right relationship with God and live eternally with Him, man must accept the atoning sacrifice made by God’s Son on the cross at Calvary. But Satan does not sit idly by and let that happen. The earth is Satan’s lair and reflects his spirit. The spirit of the world has plagued mankind since Satan tempted Eve in the Garden. It has been Satan’s tool of choice by which he attempts to prevent or destroy man’s relationship with God. In Chapter 1 it was said that the spirit of the world is Satan’s chameleon—always refining its outward allure to match the demands and desires of the present culture, but however it transforms itself to please man, it remains unchangeably corrupt within. Whatever the outward manifestations of the spirit of the world are in any age, at its core we find humanism—the ultimate deception by which Satan attempts to displace God in the heart of man and his affairs.

In the course of human history the spirit of the world has predominantly presented itself in two forms: spiritual humanism and secular humanism. Both promote an exaltation of self. For the last three hundred years in Western civilization, the humanistic spirit of the world has shown its secular face, and it was secular humanism that presented the greatest challenge to the American church (See Chapter 10). According to Enlightenment thinkers and philosophers of the late seventeenth and all of the eighteenth century, the ideal society was to be achieved through the never-ending progress of man and society. The tools of progress were science and reason which are used in an attempt to destroy faith in a supernatural God. But secular humanists failed to understand the true nature of man which Alexis de Tocqueville described over 180 years ago.

…the imperfect joys of this world will never satisfy his heart. Man alone of all created beings shows a natural disgust for existence and an immense longing to exist; he despises life and fears annihilation. These different feelings constantly drive his soul toward the contemplation of another world and religion it is which directs him there. Religion is thus one particular form of hope as natural to the human heart as hope itself. Men cannot detach themselves from religious beliefs except by some wrong-headed thinking and by a sort of moral violence inflicted upon their true nature; they are drawn back by an irresistible inclination. Unbelief is an accident; faith is the only permanent state of mankind.[1]

This natural inclination of man to religion and the hope that it offers presented a problem for the secular humanists. Therefore, Satan did what he always does when challenged by the truth. He resurrected a counterfeit called spiritual humanism to satisfy man’s irresistible yearning to know God.

In the twentieth century secular humanism’s promises died in the ashes of two world wars and the Great Depression. In the 1960s there was a growing alienation and restlessness, particularly among the young. Although man’s faith in progress and reason still dominates the leadership and institutions of Western civilization, many became disillusioned and sought elsewhere for answers to the basic questions of life. For those disheartened by the religious barrenness of secular humanism, Satan resurrected spiritual humanism, painted a modern face on this ages-old spirit of the world, and dressed it new clothes to fit the spirit of the age. Out of spiritual humanism was born the New Age movement.[2]

Just as secular humanism touches every institution and facet of modern life, spiritual humanism endeavors to conform every aspect of human experience and society to its counterfeit solutions which draw upon various pagan cultures, ancient traditions, Eastern religions, and modern-day psychology. To implement these solutions which claim to address the ills of modern man, New Agers promote the tenets of spiritual humanism in their “…desire to create a better society, a ‘new age’ in which humanity lives in harmony with itself, nature, and the cosmos.”[3]

The New Age movement is multifaceted and often appears contradictory, but there are common elements that connect the highly diverse array of New Age organizations and their agendas. The fundamental underlying goal is the complete revolution of society in the United States and ultimately the entire world to create a one-world federation and “planetary citizenship in the global village.”[4]

To properly describe spiritual humanism (and the New Age movement) as it attempts to entice men and infiltrate the evangelical church, we must look at the common elements of its philosophy and beliefs in comparison with the Christian worldview. To make this comparison we must examine how well the two worldviews identify and align with truth in answering the basic questions of life. These questions fall into three categories: Creation – Every worldview must begin with its ultimate origins. Where did the world come from? Who are we? How did we get to the present day? Fall – How does the worldview explain evil and suffering? What has gone wrong? Redemption – If life is to have meaning, purpose, and hope, it must address the consequences of the fall. How does each of these worldviews propose to reverse the fall, that is, to set the world right again? Without consistent answers to these questions, a worldview can offer no hope for redemption.[5]

Creation

Few men or women have more clearly or succinctly contrasted Christianity and humanistic philosophies of all varieties than C. S. Lewis, one of the greatest Christian writers and apologists of the twentieth century. He began by dividing humanity into two groups: one that believes in some kind of God (theists) and the other that does not (atheists and agnostics). The next division separates those that believe in God by the type of God they believe in. Lewis separates this group into two categories. The first group believes their god(s) (typically polytheistic) is beyond good and evil. This system of beliefs is called pantheism which is compatible in varying degrees with the beliefs of most Eastern religions. The second group believes their God (usually monotheistic) is “definitely ‘good’ or ‘righteous’, a God who takes sides, who loves love and hates hatred, who wants us to behave in one way and not another.”[6] Christianity resides in this second group.

In the Christian worldview, God existed before the universe was created, and then God created the universe and all that is within including the laws that govern that creation. God did not create man out of need. Rather, it was a will to love, an expression of the very character of God, to share the inner life of the Trinity (i.e., relationship). Man’s chief end is to glorify God (worship, reverence) through love and obedience (devotion, Godliness) while communing with God forever. Unlike all of the other elements of His creation, man was created with a free will. But creating man with a free will meant the possibility of rejection of God and His love. In other words free will carried with it the potential for rejection of God, but free will was necessary for the possibility of love.

Monism of the Eastern religions differs from creationism of Christianity. Monism’s view is that there is only one kind of ultimate substance and that reality is one unitary organic whole with no independent parts.[7] With monism as its foundation, Eastern religions teach the doctrine of pantheism in which humans progress through multiple reincarnations in their journey toward their divinity and ultimate oneness–a state in which one is oblivious to care, pain, or external reality.

In pantheistic Eastern religions, there is no personal and loving God (e.g., Hinduism, Buddhism) but a Divinity that is attributed to “…a nonpersonal, non-cognitive spiritual force field.” Ultimate pantheistic reality (truth) is a “unified mind or spiritual essence pervading all things.” The supreme goal of Eastern religions centers on a reprieve from the burden of self by losing the individual spirit as it unified with the pantheistic One. Again, the pantheistic God is not a personal Being (no consciousness or desires) but a nonpersonal spiritual essence of which everyone and everything is a part.[8] Pantheists believe God animates the universe and that the universe is almost God. If the universe did not exist, then God would not exist. Therefore, everything in the universe is a part of God.

In summary, pantheism teaches that God is everything and everyone. Therefore, everything and everyone is God. They attempt to use the Bible as support for their belief and point to David’s words in Psalms. “Whither shall I go from thy Spirit? or whither shall I flee from thy presence? If I ascend up unto heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there.” [Psalm 193:7-8. KJV] But David is speaking of God’s omnipresence. God is everywhere but he is not everything or in everything. If pantheism were true, everything is God (including man) and worthy of worship. But things worshiped apart from God are idols, and the Bible clearly and frequently warns against idolatry.

Fall

In the Christian worldview, mankind’s free will allowed man to think and act in ways that are contrary to God’s will and plan for His creation. When man violated God’s laws (truths) through disobedience, it was called sin, and as a result decay and death entered and affected not only man but all of God’s creation. The problem of evil and suffering results from man’s rebellion and subsequent separation from God.

In pantheistic Eastern religions, sin and separation arise because “…we don’t know we are a part of god. We think we’re individuals with separate existences and identities. This is what gives birth to greed and selfishness, conflict and warfare.”[9] In other words, the individual is separated from the One, that nonpersonal spiritual essence, and sin and suffering result because the person has not merged himself into or been absorbed by this godly essence or substance. However, in the Christian worldview, sin and suffering arise because of man’s rebellion which causes a broken relationship and separation from God, not because he fails to see himself as a part of God.

Redemption

Man’s rejection was not a surprise to an omniscient God. He knew that man would sin before He created him. God still loves man but was separated from him by sin because God is just and holy. Justice requires man to atone for his sin, but he was incapable of righting the wrongs of his rebellion. Because God is a loving God, He created a way through His son, Jesus Christ, which allows man to bring order to the chaos caused by his separation. Therefore, Christ’s substitutionary death on the cross made possible man’s redemption and return to a right relationship with God. But man continues to have free will and must choose to accept or reject Christ’s work of salvation.

Since Eastern religion pantheists believe that man and all of creation are part of god, their solution to the problem of evil and suffering in the world is reunite the individual with the god within. The impersonal, uncaring god of the pantheists does not love mankind or care about their sufferings. Help must come from the Eastern religions and New Agers who offer seekers assistance in being reunited with the impersonal universal spiritual essence/force which they believe we are an insoluble part.[10]

One practitioner has described New Age spirituality as an internal experience through which one answers the inner call of his or her Spirit—the god within. The internal experience is achieved through a combination of humanistic psychology, mystical and esoteric traditions, and Eastern religions.

The inner calling is your Spirit. Your Spirit is the part of you that is connected to and is a part of God. Your Spirit is the part of you that calls for you to take action and claim your joy, your bliss, and your abundance. It is the real you and your Spirit demands to be heard. This is what your journey is about. It’s finding that inner calling, answering it, and releasing the authentic YOU into the world![11] [emphasis in original]

To answer the call of one’s spirit and be reunified with the god within, Eastern religions and New Age pantheists offer an amazing variety of tools, practices, and techniques to help people recover a sense that they are all gods: spells, chants, transcendental meditation, crystals, centering, tarot cards, diets, self-esteem, guided imagery, positive thinking, yoga, visualization, and many more. Unfortunately, the distance between these practices and some of the things that occur in some American evangelical churches are not that far apart as we shall see in the chapters to follow.[12]

New Age movement

Following years of studying Eastern mystic religions, Randall Baer became a professional New Age teacher, holistic health practitioner, and activist. Before age 30 he had written two widely acclaimed books published by a mainstream publisher, developed a large teaching and research facility, and was a headliner on the New Age lecture circuit. Following a horrifying New Age experience with devouring darkness and demons, Baer was able to recover from the encounter, extricate himself from the New Age movement, and become a Christian. In his Inside the New Age Nightmare, Baer defines and describes its seductions.[13]

Baer labels the New Age movement as a product of spiritual humanism whose cornerstone is the belief that “…man is divine in nature, and is therefore essentially “God” or an enlightened “God-man.” Secular humanism displaces God with “…scientific rationalism, self-generated truth, and self-generated destiny” whereas spiritual humanism “…assigns man to a throne that spans the heavens and the earth in a divine heritage of universal lordship, omnipotence, and self-created glory.” While secular humanism denies Deity and proposes that man can find true meaning in life through exalting his own intellectual, creative, and moral powers, spiritual humanism affirms Deity in which man is deemed a race of cosmic gods with god-like powers.[14] However, both branches of humanism rely on man, through his own abilities and nature, to ascend and occupy the throne of self that is built on a foundation of either reason and science or self-proclaimed divinity from where he proposes to rule over a self-created heaven on earth.

Secular and spiritual humanism are two faces of Satan’s spirit of the world which work hand-in-hand to subvert man’s relationship with God. During the years 1870-1930, the American church surrendered to secular humanists much of its power and authority to direct and influence culture. Beginning in the 1960s, the culture was eventually conquered by secular humanists and faith was substantially driven from the public square and confined within the churches and the muffled voices of its members. Subsequently, Satan has intensified his attack from within American evangelical churches. As evangelical churches have accommodated the world as a means of survival, a measure of spiritual humanism has infiltrated many of these American churches. Therefore, it is imperative that evangelical Christians identify and understand the beliefs and practices of spiritual humanism and the New Age movement if they are to effectively combat those forces.

Larry G. Johnson

Sources:

[1] Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, trans. Gerald E. Bevan, (New York: Penguin Books, 2003), pp. 346-347.
[2] Charles Colson and Nancy Pearcey, How Now Shall We Live? (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1999), p. 263.
[3] Randall N. Baer, Inside the New Age Nightmare, (Lafayette, Louisiana: Huntington House, Inc., 1989), pp. 87-89.
[4] Ibid., pp. 82-83.
[5] Nancy Pearcey, Total Truth, (Wheaton, Illinois: Crossway, 2004, 2005), p. 134
[6] C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, from The Complete C. S. Lewis Signature Classics, (New York: Harper One, 2002), pp. 39-40.
[7] “monism,” Webster’s Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary, (Springfield, Massachusetts: G. & C. Merriam Company, 1963), p. 547.
[8] Pearcey, Total Truth, p. 147.
[9] Ibid., p. 148.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Mignon V. Supnet, Spirit 101, (Self-published, 2012, 2013), p. 18.
[12] Pearcey, Total Truth, p. 148.
[13] Baer, pp. v, 55, 63.
[14] Ibid., p. 84.