Positive Thinking
Over
the last decade or so a host of best-selling books have urged people to take a
"positive" attitude to life. Some of these have been written from an
explicitly Christian perspective, but the majority have been clearly secular.
Titles such as Robert Ringer's Looking Out for No. 1 (1978), David Schwartz's
The Magic of Self-Direction (1975), and Wayne Dyer's Pulling Your Own Strings
(1978) are typical of this genre of literature in its secular guise. The most
popular religious writer in the new wave of positive thinkers is Robert
Schuller with books such as Move Ahead with Possiblity Thinking (1967) and his
numerous seminars for church leaders and members.
Norman
Vincent Peale represents the best of the older tradition of religiously
motivated positive thinkers. Although he published several books in the 1930s,
his first success was A Guide to Confident Living (1948), which was followed by
his even more successful the Power of Positive Thinking (1952).
All
can be summed up by this, We cannot think our way into happiness or
Heaven. No matter how positively we
think! In order to be truly happy, we
must be converted, sanctified, we must be abiding in Jesus Christ.