Norman Vincent Peale facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Norman Vincent Peale
Peale in 1966
Born	(1898-05-31)May 31, 1898 Bowersville, Ohio
Died	December 24, 1993(1993-12-24) (aged 95) Pawling, New York
Occupation	Author, speaker, Reformed Church in America minister
Nationality	American
Genre	Motivational
Subject	Positive thinking
Spouse	Ruth Stafford ​ (m. 1930)​

Norman Vincent Peale (May 31, 1898 – December 24, 1993) was an American Protestant clergyman, and an author best known for popularizing the concept of positive thinking, especially through his best-selling book The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). He served as the pastor of Marble Collegiate Church, New York, from 1932, leading this Reformed Church in America congregation for more than a half century until his retirement in 1984. Alongside his pulpit ministry, he had an extensive career of writing and editing, and radio and television presentations. Despite arguing at times against involvement of clergy in politics, he nevertheless had some controversial affiliations with politically active organizations in the late 1930s, and engaged with national political candidates and their campaigns, having influence on some, including a personal friendship with President Richard Nixon.

Peale led a group opposing the election of John F. Kennedy for president, saying, "Faced with the election of a Catholic, our culture is at stake." Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr responded that Peale was motivated by "blind prejudice," and facing intense public criticism, Peale retracted his statement. He also opposed Adlai Stevenson's candidacy for president because he was divorced, which led Stevenson to famously quip, "I find Saint Paul appealing and Saint Peale appalling."

Following the publication of Peale's 1952 best seller, his ideas became the focus of criticism from several psychiatric professionals, church theologians and leaders. Peale was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor in the United States, on March 26, 1984, by President Ronald Reagan. He died at age 95, following a stroke, on December 24, 1993, in Pawling, New York. He was survived by Ruth Stafford, his wife of 63 years, who had influenced him with regard to the publication of The Power in 1952, and with whom he had founded Guideposts in 1945; Ruth died on February 6, 2008, at the age of 101.

Early life and education

Peale's World War I draft card

Peale was born in Bowersville, Ohio on May 31, 1898, the eldest of three sons of Charles and Anna (née Delaney) Peale. Charles was a physician-turned-Methodist minister in southern Ohio, and as such, his three sons were raised as Methodists.

Peale graduated from Bellefontaine High School, Bellefontaine, Ohio in 1916. He attended and earned a degree at Ohio Wesleyan University, where he became a brother at the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. He also began to attend Boston University School of Theology.

Career

Beginnings

Serving as a pulpit replacement in a subsequent summer break (for an Ohio church pastor that had fallen ill), the Boston theology trainee was persuaded by his father to abandon the formal preaching style of his training for one of simplicity, which led Peale to talk about "Jesus Christ... relat[ing him] to the simplicities of human lives," and which led, he would later recollect, to a "good reception" and "look[s] of gratitude and goodness" on the faces of congregants. Leaving school thereafter to earn needed funds, Peale would work in journalism at The Detroit Journal, after a year of reporting in Findlay, Ohio at The Morning Republican. Leaving journalism, Peale returned his focus to ministry, and in 1922 was ordained a pastor in the Methodist Episcopal Church. After a first assignment in Rhode Island, at an unknown church in Berkeley, he accepted a call to Brooklyn, where, in 1924, his work from the pulpit, and in general, boosted its membership more than twenty-fold within a year, leading the small congregation to build a new church.

He received a call to Syracuse, New York and in 1927 took the pulpit at the University Methodist Church; it was also while there that he became one of the first American clergymen to bring his sermons to the emerging commercial technology of radio, a media decision that added to his general popularity, and that he would later extend in the same way to television. During the Depression, Peale teamed up with J.C. Penney & Co. founder James Cash Penney, radio personality Arthur Godfrey, and IBM founder and President Thomas J. Watson, forming (and sitting the first board of) 40Plus, an organization aimed at helping unemployed managers and executives. On June 20, 1930, Peale married Loretta Ruth Stafford.

In 1932 or 1933 he was called to the Marble Collegiate Church in New York City, a call which required that he "switch his denomination"—for a clergyman, transfer his ordination—to the Reformed Church in America, "a transfer made... with no apparent problem for him". His tenure at Marble Collegiate Church, which dated to 1628 and was "said to be the oldest continuous Protestant congregation in the country", began with an attendance at service of 200, but which would grow to thousands, as a result of his "spirited sermons". Peale would remain at Marble until his retirement from pastoral work, in 1984.

His theology was controversial, and prominent theologians such as Ronald Niebuhr and William Miller spoke out publicly against it. They contended that Peale's theology falsely represented Christianity and that Peale's writings and sermons were factually false as well. Niebuhr said "This new cult is dangerous. Anything which corrupts the Gospel hurts Christianity. And it hurts people too." William Miller Wrote that Peale's theology is "hard on the truth," full of undocumented claims, and after reviewing Peale's entire library of books, said "the later ones are worse."

Early association with psychiatry

Following the 1929 market crash, and being presented with congregants with "complex problems" (as Peale would later recount), his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale, counseled him to "fin[d] a psychiatrist who could help parish members," which he did through consultation with his physician, Clarence W. Lieb. Peale was introduced to a Freudian who had trained in psychiatry in Vienna, Smiley Blanton, who Peale later recalled as saying, "I've been praying for years that some minister would see that psychiatry and religion... should work together" (in response to being asked about his believing in the "power of prayer").

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. Blanton handled difficult psychiatric cases and Peale, who had no mental health credentials, handled religious issues.

When Peale came under heavy criticism from the mental health community for his 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.": 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.: 273

Radio and publishing

In the same period, Peale returned to the radio work that he began in Syracuse, as a means to deal with what he termed a personal obsession, "reach[ing] as many people as I could with the message of Jesus Christ." His first programs in New York City began in 1935, an effort which led to the National Council of Churches sponsoring a program on the NBC Radio Network entitled The Art of Living, which would grow to reach millions.

This title then became the same as first of his books from New York City, in 1937, from Abingdon Press, which spoke of a power that individuals had within themselves that they could "tap" through "applied Christianity". With the advent of war in 1939, his second book appeared from Abingdon, "You Can Win, which spoke of the tensions of life, the possibility of self-mastery, and ones being one unconquerable with God. Despite a clear and apparent philosophy and message, the books did not "advis[e] people how to apply [the ideas] to their lives," and they did not sell well. (Some of his other works include The Tough-Minded Optimist, and Inspiring Messages for Daily Living.) By the end of World War II in 1945, Peale, his wife Ruth, and Raymond Thornburg (a businessman from Pawling, New York), had founded Guideposts magazine, a non-denominational forum that presented inspirational stories.

With the end of the war—which was marked, in the words of George Vecsey, writing in The New York Times, by Americans having "some leeway to question what they believed and how they should live"—Peale achieved his first best seller, published with Prentice-Hall in 1948, a self-help book entitled A Guide for Confident Living that brought religion to bear on personal problems. This was followed soon thereafter by the book for which he is most widely known, The Power of Positive Thinking; as Vecsey describes it, it arose from a draft book that Ruth Peale "sent to [an] editor without her husband's knowledge", and this usurpation led to a book that would remain on best seller lists for more than three years, which "rank[ed] it... behind the Bible... as one of the highest-selling spiritual books in history".

Vecsey was careful to categorize Peale's book as a best seller in the narrow "spiritual books" category rather than comparing it to the much larger sales figures of the non-fiction or self-help categories. First published in 1952, it stayed on the New York Times bestseller list for 186 consecutive weeks, and according to the publisher, Simon and Schuster, the book has sold around 5 million copies. The fact that the book has sold 5 million copies is printed on the cover of the current edition in both paperback and hard cover, and directly contradicts exaggerated claims that the book has sold more than 20 million copies in 42 languages. The publisher also contradicts the translation claim, saying the book has been translated into only 15 languages. Nearly half of the sales of the book (2.1 mil.) occurred before 1958, and by 1963, the book had still only sold 2 million copies according to Peale. Since then, the book has sold less than 3 million copies over the past 60 years. Some of his other popular works include The Art of Living, A Guide to Confident Living, The Tough-Minded Optimist, and Inspiring Messages for Daily Living.

The Peale radio program, The Art of Living, was ongoing, and would continue for 54 years, and under the continued and evolving sponsorship of the National Council of Churches, he moved into television when the new medium arrived. In the meantime he continued to write books and to edit Guideposts magazine. As well, his sermons went out monthly to an extensive mailing list.

Organizations

In 1947 Peale and educator Kenneth Beebe co-founded The Horatio Alger Association, an organisation that aimed to recognize and honor Americans successful in spite of difficult circumstances. Other organizations founded by Peale include the Peale Center, the Positive Thinking Foundation, and Guideposts Publications, all of which aim to promote Peale's theories about positive thinking.

Personal life

Peale was close to President Richard Nixon's family, and officiated at the 1968 wedding of Julie Nixon and David Eisenhower. He continued calling at the White House throughout the Watergate crisis, and was quoted as saying "Christ didn't shy away from people in trouble."

Peale was a 33-degree Freemason of the Scottish Rite.

Later life

President Ronald Reagan awarded Peale the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest civilian honor in the United States) on March 26, 1984, for his contributions to the field of theology.

Peale died at age 95 following a stroke, on December 24, 1993, in Pawling, New York He was survived by his wife of 63 years, Ruth Stafford Peale, who had influenced him with regard to the publication of The Power in 1952, and with regard to his early interactions with psychiatry, and with whom he had founded Guideposts (of which she was chairman emeritus, and which had an annual readership of 8 million in 2008); she died on February 6, 2008, at the age of 101.

Influence

Five U.S., presidents (Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, and George H. W. Bush) spoke well of Peale in the documentary about his life, Positive Thinking: The Norman Vincent Peale Story.

The Reverend Billy Graham said at the National Council of Churches on June 12, 1966, that "I don't know of anyone who had done more for the kingdom of God than Norman and Ruth Peale or have meant any more in my life for the encouragement they have given me." Mary L. Trump in Too Much and Never Enough wrote that Donald Trump's father, Fred Trump, was heavily influenced by Peale, and that the Trump family regularly attended Peale's sermons during the 1950s.

As a child, Donald Trump attended Marble Collegiate Church with his parents, Fred and Mary. Both he and his two sisters, Maryanne and Elizabeth, were married there. Trump has repeatedly praised Peale and cited him as a formative influence.

Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert, says Peale's writing influenced him to achieve success.

At the invitation of Robert R. Spitzer, former under-secretary in the Ford administration, Peale, accompanied by his wife, Ruth, spoke several times to the student leaders at MSOE University prior to passing in 1993, influencing engineers, technical writers, managers, and architects for decades who today serve as executives in companies like GE, Nvidia, and many others.

Selected works

• The Positive Power of Jesus Christ (1980) ISBN: 0-8423-4875-1
• Stay Alive All Your Life (1957)
• Why Some Positive Thinkers Get Powerful Results (1987). ISBN: 0-449-21359-5
• The Power of Positive Thinking, Ballantine Books; Reissue edition (August 1, 1996). ISBN: 0-449-91147-0
• Guide to Confident Living, Ballantine Books; Reissue edition (September 1, 1996). ISBN: 0-449-91192-6
• Six Attitudes for Winners, Tyndale House Publishers; (May 1, 1990). ISBN: 0-8423-5906-0
• Positive Thinking Every Day : An Inspiration for Each Day of the Year, Fireside Books; (December 6, 1993). ISBN: 0-671-86891-8
• Positive Imaging, Ballantine Books; Reissue edition (September 1, 1996). ISBN: 0-449-91164-0
• You Can If You Think You Can, Fireside Books; (August 26, 1987). ISBN: 0-671-76591-4
• Thought Conditioners, Foundation for Christian; Reprint edition (December 1, 1989). ISBN: 99910-38-92-2
• In God We Trust: A Positive Faith for Troubled Times, Thomas Nelson Inc; Reprint edition (November 1, 1995). ISBN: 0-7852-7675-0
• Norman Vincent Peale's Treasury of Courage and Confidence, Doubleday; (June 1970). ISBN: 0-385-07062-4
• My Favorite Hymns and the Stories Behind Them, HarperCollins; 1st ed edition (September 1, 1994). ISBN: 0-06-066463-0
• The Power of Positive Thinking for Young People, Random House Children's Books (A Division of Random House Group); (December 31, 1955). ISBN: 0-437-95110-3
• The Amazing Results of Positive Thinking, Fireside; Fireside edition (March 12, 2003). ISBN: 0-7432-3483-9
• Stay Alive All Your Life, Fawcett Books; Reissue edition (August 1, 1996). ISBN: 0-449-91204-3
• You Can Have God's Help with Daily Problems, FCL Copyright 1956–1980 LOC card #7957646
• Faith Is the Answer: A Psychiatrist and a Pastor Discuss Your Problems, Smiley Blanton and Norman Vincent Peale, Kessinger Publishing (March 28, 2007), ISBN: 1-4325-7000-5 (10), ISBN: 978-1-4325-7000-2 (13)
• Power of the Plus Factor, A Fawcett Crest Book, Published by Ballantine Books, 1987, ISBN: 0-449-21600-4
• This Incredible Century, Peale Center for Christian Living, 1991, ISBN: 0-8423-4615-5

See also

In Spanish: Norman Vincent Peale para niños