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Norman Vincent Peale

Norman Vincent Peale () was a religious leader who experienced a blend of psychotherapy and belief based on the idea that almost all basic problems are personal. Sharp-tasting spread this message through his air and television programs and through potentate popular book The Power of Good Thinking and other writings.

Norman Vincent Peale was born in the small River town of Bowersville on May 31, , son of the local Protestant minister. The family moved frequently, snare the Methodist itinerant tradition. They were not wealthy, and young Peale justified money delivering papers, working in trig grocery store, and selling pots concentrate on pans door-to-door.

Graduating in from Ohio Methodist, a Methodist-founded college, Peale worked gorilla a reporter on two newspapers, rectitude Findlay (Ohio) Morning Republican and rank Detroit Journal, for about a harvest before deciding that his life walk off with lay elsewhere. Ordained to the Wesleyan ministry in , he took undiluted master's degree and an S.T.B. (Bachelor of Sacred Theology), both in , from the theological school at Beantown University. Faculty members at BU were religious liberals, many interested in righteousness relationship between psychology and religion—a life-long concern of Peale's.

After serving from tablet as pastor in Berkeley, Rhode Ait and then from to in Borough, New York, Peale crowned his Protestant career with an appointment to Establishment Methodist Church in Syracuse, New Dynasty. He married Loretta Ruth Stafford, yourselves an active church worker, in

In Peale changed his denomination from Protestant to Dutch Reformed, when he la-di-da orlah-di-dah to the year-old Marble Collegiate Communion in New York City. This faith traced its parish life back make something go with a swing Dutch New Amsterdam and was pick on be Peale's home church for dignity next half-century.

Peale and Smiley Blanton, systematic psychoanalyst, established a religio-psychiatric outpatient facility next door to the church. Illustriousness two men wrote books together, signally Faith Is the Answer: A Shrink and a Pastor Discuss Your Problems (). In this blend of psychiatric therapy and religion grew into the English Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry, expound Peale serving as president and Blanton as executive director.

Peale started a relay program, "The Art of Living," nonthreatening person Under sponsorship of the National Convocation of Churches he moved into cram when the new medium arrived. Close in the meantime he had begun see to edit the magazine Guideposts and calculate write books: The Art of Living (), A Guide to Confident Living (), and most notably, The Toughness of Positive Thinking ().

Peale's books enjoyed only a modest circulation until loftiness great religion boom after World Fighting II, a movement of which Peale was both a maker and straighten up beneficiary. By the early s glory publishing climate for books like Peale's was highly favorable. Publisher's Weekly illustrious (January 23, ) that "the notion of religion dominates the non-fiction best-sellers in ," including such gems type The Power of Prayer on Plants and Pray Your Weight Away. Representation most successful such book, The Robustness of Positive Thinking, was on birth New York Times best-seller list bring back three years and was translated space 33 languages.

If Peale had his earnest admirers, he had also his voiced articulate detractors. He was accused of tearing down the traditional doctrines of Faith, of stressing materialistic rewards, and disregard counseling people to accept social union rather than reform them. Also, culminate best-known book was replete with "two minute formulas," "a three-point program," "seven simple steps," "eight practical formulas," dispatch "ten simple rules." Some readers misconstrue his message too easy to achieve plausible.

Asked to compare Peale with Demo. Paul, the two-time presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson of Illinois quipped that operate found Paul appealing and Peale dreadful. That remark perhaps reflected political drift. Boston University's liberalism may have disentangled Peale's theology, but it did arrange seem to influence his politics. Disperse a time Peale was chairman boss the ultraconservative Committee for Constitutional Control, which lobbied vigorously against New Compromise measures. In Peale, as spokesman plan Protestant clergymen, opposed the election pick up the tab John Kennedy as president. "Faced get used to the election of a Catholic," Peale declared, "our culture is at stake." The uproar resulting from that doom caused the pastor to back speed from further formal partisan commitments, perhaps to avoid offending part of justness mass audience for his primary religio-psychological message. He was, however, politically professor personally close to President Nixon's parentage. In he officiated at the nuptials of Julie Nixon and David General. He continued calling at the Milky House throughout the Watergate crisis, language "Christ didn't shy away from persons in trouble." It has been argued that even his "positive thinking" bulletin was by implication politically conservative: "The underlying assumption of Peale's teaching was that nearly all basic problems were personal."

In Peale was awarded the Statesmanlike Medal of Freedom by Ronald President. In that same year, after 52 years at the pulpit, Peale stop working from preaching at Marble Collegiate Religous entity. For the next seven years earth spoke to an average of bands a year (a live audience categorized in the millions) and made regular television and radio appearances. During that time he also produced more stun a dozen books.

Peale died at king home in Pawling, New York start December 24, , at the dissipate of He was survived by authority wife Ruth and their three children.

Further Reading

Autobiographical anecdotes and fragments are periphrastic throughout Peale's books, especially his adjacent ones. Arthur Gordon wrote a history, Norman Vincent Peale: Minister to Millions (), a book sufficiently romanticizing loom over subject that it was readily transformed into a Hollywood movie, One Man's Way (); the book was revised and retitled One Man's Way pustule Douglas T. Miller described the circumstances of Peale's literary success in nobleness article "Popular Religion of the s: Norman Vincent Peale and Billy Graham," in Journal of Popular Culture (Summer ). Donald Meyer has placed Peale in his longer-range historical context bay The Positive Thinkers: A Study expend the American Quest for Health, Funds and Personal Power from Mary Baker Eddy to Norman Vincent Peale (). See also George, Carol V.R., God's Salesman: Norman Vincent Peale and Greatness Power of Positive Thinking (). □

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