Bright-Sided: How Positive Thinking Is Undermining America by Barbara Ehrenreich

Author:Barbara Ehrenreich [Ehrenreich, Barbara]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Self-Help, Sociology, Social Science, General, Non-fiction, Personal Growth, Psychology, Customs & Traditions, american culture, Motivational & Inspirational, Self-confidence, Success in business, Optimism, Anthropology, Cultural, pop culture, Self-deception, Self-Esteem, Happiness
ISBN: 9780312658854
Publisher: Picador
Published: 2010-08-03T03:19:24+00:00

FIVE

God Wants You

to Be Rich

The most eye-catching religious development of the late twentieth century was the revival of fire-and-brimstone Calvinism known as the Christian right. But while its foremost representatives, televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, hurled denunciations at “sinners” like gays and feminists and predicted the imminent end of the world, a friendlier approach was steadily gaining ground—positive thinking, disguised now as Christianity. Calvinism and positive thinking had last squared off in the nineteenth century, when positive thinking was still known as New Thought, and they did so again near the turn of the twenty-first century, not in public clashes but in a quiet fight for market share—television audiences, book sales, and ever-growing congregations. Promulgated from the pulpit, the message of positive thinking reached white-collar suburbanites who had so far encountered it only at work, as well as millions of low-wage and blue-collar people who had not yet encountered it at all.

By any quantitative measure, the most successful preachers today are the positive thinkers, who no longer mention sin and usually have little to say about those standard whipping boys of the Christian right, abortion and homosexuality. Gone is the threat of hell and the promise of salvation, along with the grim story of Jesus’s torment on the cross; in fact, the cross has been all but banished from the largest and most popular temples of the new evangelism, the megachurches. Between 2001 and 2006, the number of megachurches—defined as having a weekly attendance of two thousand or more—doubled to 1,210, giving them a combined congregation of nearly 4.4 million. 1

Instead of harsh judgments and harrowing tales of suffering and redemption, the new positive theology offered at megachurches (and many smaller churches) offers promises of wealth, success, and health in this life now, or at least very soon. You can have that new car or house or necklace, because God wants to “prosper you.” In a 2006 Time poll, 17 percent of all American Christians, of whatever denomination or church size, said they consider themselves to be part of a “prosperity gospel” movement and a full 61 percent agreed with the statement that “God wants people to be prosperous.” 2 How do you get prosperity to “manifest” in your life? Not through the ancient technique of prayer but through positive thinking. As one reporter observes of the megachurch message:

Often resembling motivational speeches, the sermons are generally about how to live a successful life—or, “Jesus meets the power of positive thinking.” They are encouraging, upbeat and usually follow on the heels of a music and video presentation. (After this, the last thing those in attendance want to hear is a sermon about “doom and gloom.”) One will often hear phrases such as “Keep a good attitude,” “Don’t get negative or bitter,” “Be determined” and “Shake it off and step up.” 3

Televangelist Joyce Meyer writes that “I believe that more than any other thing, our attitude is what determines the kind of life we are going to have”—not our piety or faith but our attitude.

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