Saccharine Terrorism: Norman Vincent Peale, Guideposts, and the Politics of Positive Thinking

• Other Authors: Burnside, Timothy (author)
• Format: Others
• Language: English; English
• Published: Florida State University
• Subjects: Religion; History; Study and teaching
• Online Access: http://purl.flvc.org/fsu/fd/2018_Sp_Burnside_fsu_0071N_14564

This project elucidates how gendered notions of prosperity and labor within postwar Christianity provided highly saleable and successful modes, models, and technologies of self-production aimed at creating fiscal and emotional success within a late capitalist context. Looking primarily at Norman Vincent Peale’s Guideposts organization and print culture exposes a deeply pessimistic strain within contemporary positivism and prosperity Christianity centered on the inevitability of suffering, hardship, and labor. Locating success or failure within individual bodies rather than systemic structures fortified a godly ordained religious taxonomy that mapped onto America’s class taxonomy. Guideposts’ winding history and shifting demographics, from a failed muscular Christianity project aimed at building Cold Warriors ironically turned into successful sentimental women’s magazine written by and for suburban women, allows for nuanced looks at the gendered aspects of white prosperity Christianity. While many have critiqued such forms of Christianity as a saccharine turning away from the world’s evils, this thesis argues that Peale and Guideposts taught individuals to stare directly into the terrors of life, cultivate suffering, and emerge from strife as victors purged by fire. Through a unique soldering of conservative politics and liberal religious imagery, Cold War Christianity helped followers produce a certain mode of living — namely a white, heteronormative family structure — uniquely capable of acquiring desired wealth and emotional wellness. That is, what scholars have called privilege, prosperity Christians called blessings from God. This thesis aims to show the material realities that Guideposts produced, helping readers feel genuinely happy and successful, as well as the material structures of postwar business culture and gendered suburban contexts that allowed Guideposts to thrive. Reframing Peale’s therapeutic print culture in such contexts helps illuminate how positive thinking repositioned the material inequalities of upper- and middle-class white privilege as a religious system. === A Thesis submitted to the Department of Religion in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts. === Spring Semester 2018. === March 28, 2018. === American History, American Religious History, Guideposts, Norman Vincent Peale, Prosperity, Therapeutic Culture === Includes bibliographical references. === Amanda Porterfield, Professor Directing Thesis; Michael J. McVicar, Committee Member; John Corrigan, Committee Member; Jamil Drake, Committee Member.