Norman Vincent Peale
Norman Vincent Peale (May 31, 1898 – December 24, 1993) was an American minister and author who is best known for his work in popularizing the concept of positive thinking, especially through his best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking. He served as the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church, New York, from 1932 until 1984,[1] leading a Reformed Church in America congregation.
Peale was a personal friend of President Richard Nixon and has influenced other US presidents as well.
His ideas and techniques received criticism from church figures and from psychiatric professionals.[2]
Peale was born in Bowersville, Ohio, the eldest of three sons of Charles and Anna (née Delaney) Peale. He graduated from Bellefontaine High School, Bellefontaine, Ohio. He earned degrees at Ohio Wesleyan University (where he became a brother of the Fraternity of Phi Gamma Delta). He also enrolled at Boston University School of Theology.[3]
Raised as a Methodist and ordained as a Methodist minister in 1922, Peale changed his religious affiliation to the Reformed Church in America in 1932 and began a 52-year tenure as pastor of Marble Collegiate Church in New York City.[3]
Peale and Smiley Blanton, a psychoanalyst, established a religio-psychiatric outpatient clinic next door to the church. The two men wrote books together, notably Faith Is the Answer: A Psychiatrist and a Pastor Discuss Your Problems (1940). The book was written in alternating chapters, with Blanton writing one chapter, then Peale. Blanton espoused no particular religious point of view in his chapters. In 1951 this clinic of psychotherapy and religion grew into the American Foundation of Religion and Psychiatry, with Peale serving as president and Blanton as executive director.[4] Blanton handled difficult psychiatric cases and Peale, who had no mental health credentials, handled religious issues.[5]
When Peale came under heavy criticism from the mental health community for his controversial book The Power of Positive Thinking (1952), Blanton distanced himself from Peale and refused to publicly endorse the book. Blanton did not allow Peale to use his name in The Power of Positive Thinking and declined to defend Peale publicly when he came under criticism. As scholar Donald Meyer describes it: “Peale evidently imagined that he marched with Blanton in their joint labors in the Religio-psychiatric Institute. This was not exactly so.”[5]:266 Meyer notes that Blanton’s own book, Love or Perish (1956), “contrasted so distinctly at so many points with the Peale evangel” of “positive thinking” that these works had virtually nothing in common.[5]:273
In 1935, Peale started a radio program, The Art of Living, which lasted for 54 years. Under sponsorship of the National Council of Churches he moved into television when the new medium arrived. In the meantime he had begun to edit the magazine Guideposts and to write books. His sermons were mailed monthly.[6] During the Great Depression, Peale teamed with James Cash Penney, founder of J.C. Penney & Co.; Arthur Godfrey, the radio and TV personality; and Thomas J. Watson, President and Founder of IBM, to form the first board of 40Plus, an organization that helps unemployed managers and executives.[citation needed]
Peale was for a time the acting Chairman and Secretary, of the National Committee to Uphold Constitutional Government, a right wing pressure group which opposed Franklin Roosevelt’s policies. As a result, in 1938, he was brought before a Senate Committee Investigating Lobbying Activities, and questioned concerning the committee’s activities.[7] On October 30, 1938, Peale appeared with Elizabeth Dilling, the Reverend Edward Lodge Curran, Francisco Franco, and other far right wing figures at a “Mass Meeting and Pro-American Rally” at the Commodore Hotel in New York, later described by Arthur Derounian, aka John Roy Carlson in his 1943 book Under Cover. Curran was a vocal supporter of the infamous anti-semite Father Charles Coughlin (whose demagoguery Peale had harshly criticised in 1935). Peale claimed to have been distressed by Carlson’s book, claiming he’d been badgered into giving the convocation (a pre-meeting prayer) by a parishioner and had no idea of the nature of the rally. He claimed to be particularly distressed at the association with Dilling. He was advised that a defamation case against the publisher, Putnam’s, was not feasible as he had in fact delivered the convocation as described.[8] However, in 1943, after US entry into WW II, Peale preached a sermon denouncing antisemitism and demanding that the government and church take steps to “stamp it out.” At the same time, as late as 1944, Peale appears willing to be described as the Chairman of the Committee for Constitutional Government and have his signature appended to its publications.[9]
