Norman Vincent Peale

The incoming President's favorite pastor was Norman Vincent Peale, the author of The Power of Positive Thinking (1952, but still in print). Today Jake Meador writes about "The Perils of Positive Thinking":

[F]or Peale the Christian message isn’t a message about the nature of reality, the reasons that mankind suffers and does evil, or the way that we might be saved from those things by something that exists outside of ourselves. It is not a story of God taking on flesh and entering the world as a rescuer, and the renewer of all things. Rather, Christianity—and really it’s just Christian words for Peale—is a technique for people in advanced industrial societies to achieve their dreams. It represents a kind of baptism of egocentrism for the wealthy and the powerful. Indeed, virtually every personal anecdote Peale shares involves well-to-do people. You will find many business owners, civic leaders, and men about town in The Power of Positive Thinking. What you won’t find are janitors or plumbers.

When Peale cites Scripture, it is invariably out of context and applied in ways that would have been quite shocking to the original authors. The point of one of Peale’s favorite texts—if God is for us, who can be against us?—is not that...people should pursue their personal kingdoms with confidence and positivity because God is on their side. It is, if anything, almost the opposite: The quite extensive witness of Scripture is that the sorts of people Peale constantly cites in his book are precisely the people least likely to enter the Kingdom of Heaven unless they repent of the very avarice and self-centered ambition that Peale’s work encourages.

The results of this confusion on Peale’s part in which he seeks to use Christian language to advance wealthy Western individualist goals are sometimes hilarious. In one passage, he explains that one can harness “prayer power” to achieve one’s goals, but only if one understands the rules and formulas required to pray “scientifically.” ....

According to the wisdom of Scripture and mother church, prayer is a way of laying our fears and concerns before God. But it is not a self-help technique or a kind of celestial snack machine we visit whenever we are hungry. Prayer is a way through which human creatures enjoy communion with their creator and through which they are renewed and restored to what they were made to be. .... Often prayers seem to go unanswered, not due to using the improper technique but, as the Scriptures tell us, because God’s ways are inscrutable to us, and the work of prayer is not so much to yield the results we want, but to align our fallen and imperfect will with God’s will so that we might be caught up in closer relationship with him.

All of this complexity, which one must speak Christian to understand, falls away in Peale’s work. It is almost as if he doesn’t even recognize such complexity as being part of the human experience, let alone the Christian experience. Prayer is simply a technique one practices in order to improve one’s daily material life, to help one’s mood, or, quite crassly, to grow one’s bank account. .... (more)

Jake Meador, "The Perils of Positive Thinking," The Dispatch, Jan. 19, 2025.

A New Years' prayer

Samuel Johnson on New Year's Eve, 1749/50:

ALMIGHTY GOD, by whose will I was created, and by whose Providence I have been sustained, by whose mercy I have been called to the knowledge of my Redeemer, and by whose Grace whatever I have thought or acted acceptable to Thee has been inspired and directed, grant, O Lord, that in reviewing my past life, I may recollect Thy mercies to my preservation, in whatever state Thou preparest for me, that in affliction I may remember how often I have been succoured, and in Prosperity may know and confess from whose hand the blessing is received. Let me, O Lord, so remember my sins, that I may abolish them by true repentance, and so improve the Year to which Thou hast graciously extended my life, and all the years which Thou shalt yet allow me, that I may hourly become purer in Thy sight; so that I may live in Thy fear, and die in Thy favour, and find mercy at the last day, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Someone came to find us

Advent began this past weekend. Walter Russell Mead reflected on the meaning of Advent in "The Coming":

.... If there is no Christmas, there is no Cross, no answer to the problems of sin, separation, failure and pain. Advent is a time to think about what life would be like if we didn’t have faith in a Redeemer, a Savior who was ready, willing and able to complete the broken arc of our lives, forgive what is past and walk with us step by step to help us build something better in the time that is left.

Advent is a time to remember that we need something more than what we can summon with our own resources to make our lives work. It’s a time to remember how lost we would be if Someone hadn’t come to find us. .... The preparation for Christmas begins by reflecting on what kind of world this would be, and what kind of lives we would have, if Christmas had never come.

There are worse ways to start your preparation for Christmas than by using this prayer from the old Episcopal Church Book of Common Prayer:

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

The Coming | Via Meadia

All Saints

From a few years ago, a few thoughts about the significance of All Saints' Day:

For over a thousand years, many Christians have celebrated November 1 as All Saints’ Day. In America, the day is best known for the preceding day: All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween. On Halloween we try to scare each other and dress up as what we are not. On All Saints’ Day, we encourage each other by remembering who we are. ....

Like any holiday, All Saints’ Day means various things to various people. Holidays are like that. They carry many meanings. As I see it, All Saints’ Day has three themes: (1) the union of all Christians, living and dead, in one organism, the body of Christ, (2) the inspiring example of other Christians, especially those who have died, and (3) remembering those who are no longer physically with us. ....

For me, there are two essentials for worship on All Saints’: the collect (or opening prayer) for All Saints’ Day and singing six or more stanzas (to Ralph Vaughn Williams’s tune) of William How’s hymn “For All the Saints.” ....

Almighty God, you have knit together your elect in one communion and fellowship in the mystical body of your Son Christ our Lord: Give us grace so to follow your blessed saints in all virtuous and godly living, that we may come to those ineffable joys that you have prepared for those who truly love you; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

.... All Saints’ Day is a day when we remember that we are by God’s grace one body in Christ Jesus, united with Christians around the world and in heaven in praising and serving God. .... (more)

David Bains, "All Saints’ Day: Three Themes," Samford University, Oct. 28, 2020.

Despair not

Jeremy Taylor (1613-1667) in The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living:

If your case be brought to the last extremity, at the pit's brink, even the very margin of the grave, yet then despair not. Remember that whatsoever final accident takes away all hope from you, bear it sweetly, it will also take away all despair too. For when you enter into the regions of death you rest from all your labours and your fears.

Let them who are tempted to despair consider how much Christ suffered to redeem us from sin, and he must needs believe that the desires which God had to save us were not less than infinite.

Let no man despair of God's mercies to forgive him, unless he be sure that his sins are greater than God's mercies.

Consider that God, who knows all the events of men, calls them to be His own, gives them blessings, arguments of mercy and instances of fear to call them off from death, and to call them home to life; and in all this shows no despair of happiness to them; and therefore much less should any man despair for himself.

Remember that despair belongs only to passionate fools or villains such as were Achitopel and Judas, or to devils and damned persons; and as the hope of salvation is a good disposition towards it, so is despair a certain consignation to eternal ruin. A man may be damned for despairing to be saved. Despair is the proper passion of damnation. 'God hath placed truth and felicity in heaven, curiosity and repentance upon earth, but misery and despair are the portions of hell'. (Venerable Bede).

And a prayer "to be said in any affliction, in a sad and disconsolate spirit, and in temptations to despair":

O eternal God, Father of mercies, and God of all comfort, with much mercy look upon the sadness and sorrows of Thy servant. The waters are gone over me, and my miseries are without comfort. Lord, pity me! Let Thy grace refresh my spirit! Let Thy comforts support me, Thy mercy pardon me, and never let my portion be amongst hopeless spirits. I can need no relief so great as Thy mercy is; for Thou art infinitely more merciful that I can be miserable; and Thy mercy far above my misery. Dearest Jesus, let me trust in Thee forever and let me never be confounded. Amen

Jeremy Taylor, The Rule and Exercises of Holy Living, Harper & Row, 1970.

"Be our strength..."

1 Father, hear the prayer we offer:     not for ease that prayer shall be, but for strength that we may ever live our lives courageously.	3 Not forever by still waters would we idly rest and stay; but would smite the living fountains from the rocks along our way.
2 Not forever in green pastures do we ask our way to be; but the steep and rugged pathway may we tread rejoicingly.	4 Be our strength in hours of weakness, in our wanderings be our guide; through endeavour, failure, danger, Father, be Thou at our side.

A Christian funeral

A post from a few years ago:

I've been thinking about Christian funerals recently, and especially the "celebration of the life" of the deceased in a Christian context. Obviously a funeral or memorial service for a Christian will spend some time remembering the life, the character, the faith, and the contributions — the achievements — of that person. But it seems to me that should not be the primary focus. Of course for a dead  non-believer that may be all that can be said. For a believer the emphasis should be on the Hope we have.

The Book of Common Prayer has a section titled "The Order for The Burial of the Dead," and like every section of that book it rests very heavily on Scripture. The prayers are good, too. I chose readings from this section for my mother's funeral and was somewhat surprised afterwards to be complimented for the choices. I thought they would be familiar to anyone who had attended a funeral. They should be.

The service begins with these words:

I AM the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.

I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth: and though this body be destroyed, yet shall I see God: whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not as a stranger.

We brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. The LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.

More, later in the service:

JESUS said, Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. And whither I go ye know, and the way ye know. Thomas saith unto him, Lord, we know not whither thou goest; and how can we know the way? Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.

I HEARD a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write, From henceforth blessed are the dead who die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit; for they rest from their labours.

O LORD Jesus Christ, who by thy death didst take away the sting of death; Grant unto us thy servants so to follow in faith where thou hast led the way, that we may at length fall asleep peacefully in thee, and awake up after thy likeness; through thy mercy, who livest with the Father and the Holy Ghost, one God, world without end. Amen.

I AM the resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me, shall never die.

With grateful hearts

A prayer for Memorial Day:

O King and Judge of the nations: We remember before you with grateful hearts the men and women of our armed forces, who in the day of decision ventured much for the liberties we now enjoy; grant that we may not rest until all the people of this land share the benefits of true freedom and gladly accept its disciplines; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, now and forever. Amen. 

You can run, but you can’t hide

ALMIGHTY God, unto whom all hearts are open, all desires known, and from whom no secrets are hid; Cleanse the thoughts of our hearts by the inspiration of thy Holy Spirit, that we may perfectly love Thee, and worthily magnify Thy holy Name; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Philip Jenkins on that prayer:

In its present form, it goes back to the brilliant English scholar Alcuin, who worked with Charlemagne in the late eighth century to create a Christian civilization in Western Europe. Let’s say around 790. There is some doubt as to whether the prayer has older origins, perhaps back to Gregory the Great, around 600. ....

In the 1540s, Anglican reformer Thomas Cranmer took this Collect – as he did so much else from the medieval service books – and incorporated it into the regular liturgy of Common Prayer....

Several things come to mind about this collect, but above all the sense of rigorous and absolutely honest self-examination. It comes close to creating the mood of final judgment: whatever fronts or false faces you put up, God sees behind them. Or if you like melodrama, you can run, but you can’t hide. ....

It is a near-perfect prayer for any and all Christian denominations. That is partly because it is so rooted in the Biblical tradition, and specifically the Psalms. See Psalm 139:

You have searched me, Lord,

   and you know me.

You know when I sit and when I rise;

   you perceive my thoughts from afar…

Psalm 51 has also left its echoes. ....

Jenkins on how the prayer illustrates the usefulness of liturgy: 

• Like the best parts of any liturgy, the Collect takes essential points about the Christian approach to life, and puts them in simple and memorable form.
• It says these things better, more comprehensively, and more concisely than we could ever do ourselves.
• By saying the words repeatedly, week by week, we learn and internalize them, and learn how to approach our own mental processes. ....
• And as we say the words, we are aware of a tradition that takes us back well over a millennium, and perhaps far longer. We say them together with Thomas Cranmer and Alcuin.
• We see and understand the chain of continuity, and place ourselves within that continuity.

Philip Jenkins, "From You No Secrets Are Hid," Anxious Bench, March 5, 2024.

"Strengthen me, O Lord, in good purposes"

Samuel Johnson, New Year's Day, 1772:

ALMIGHTY GOD, who hast permitted me to see the beginning of another year, enable me so to receive Thy mercy, as that it may raise in me stronger desires of pleasing Thee by purity of mind and holiness of Life. Strengthen me, O Lord, in good purposes, and reasonable meditations. Look with pity upon all my disorders of mind, and infirmities of body. Grant that the residue of my life may enjoy such degrees of health as may permit me to be useful, and that I may live to Thy Glory; and O merciful Lord when it shall please Thee to call me from the present state, enable me to die in confidence of Thy mercy, and receive me to everlasting happiness, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"Lo, He comes..."

Advent is a time about the "already but not yet": the time between the coming of Messiah and the time when He comes again. Three prayers composed for this season:

ALMIGHTY God, give us grace that we may cast away the works of darkness, and put upon us the armour of light, now in the time of this mortal life, in which Thy Son Jesus Christ came to visit us in great humility; that in the last day, when He shall come again in his glorious majesty to judge both the quick and the dead, we may rise to the life immortal, through Him who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, now and ever. Amen.

O LORD, raise up, we pray Thee, Thy power, and come among us, and with great might succour us; that whereas, through our sins and wickedness, we are sore let and hindered in running the race that is set before us, Thy bountiful grace and mercy may speedily help and deliver us; through Jesus Christ our Lord, to whom, with Thee and the Holy Ghost, be honour and glory, world without end. Amen.

ALMIGHTY God, we beseech Thee, grant unto Thy people grace that they may wait with vigilance for the advent of Thy Son our Lord, that when He shall arise from Thy right hand to visit the earth in righteousness and Thy people with salvation, He may not find us sleeping in sin, but diligent in Thy service, and rejoicing in Thy praises, that so we may enter in with Him unto the marriage of the Lamb; through His merits, who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

Thoughts which mislead

O Lord, my maker and protector, who hast graciously sent me into this world to work out my salvation, enable me to drive from me all such unquiet and perplexing thoughts as may mislead or hinder me in the practice of those duties which Thou hast required. When I behold the works of Thy hands and consider the course of Thy providence, give me grace always to remember that Thy thoughts are not my thoughts, nor Thy ways my ways. And while it shall please Thee to continue me in this world where much is to be done and little to be known, teach me by Thy Holy Spirit to withdraw my mind from unprofitable and dangerous enquiries, from difficulties vainly curious and doubts impossible to be solved. Let me rejoice in the light which Thou hast imparted, let me serve Thee with active zeal and humble confidence, and wait with patient expectation for the time in which the soul which Thou receivest shall be satisfied with knowledge. Grant this, O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake, Amen.

Samuel Johnson, 1709-84

Suffer not our trust in Thee to fail...

From The Book of Common Prayer (1928), a good prayer for Independence Day:

ALMIGHTY God, who hast given us this good land for our heritage; We humbly beseech Thee that we may always prove ourselves a people mindful of Thy favour and glad to do Thy will. Bless our land with honourable industry, sound learning, and pure manners. Save us from violence, discord, and confusion; from pride and arrogancy, and from every evil way. Defend our liberties, and fashion into one united people the multitudes brought hither out of many kindreds and tongues. Endue with the spirit of wisdom those to whom in Thy Name we entrust the authority of government, that there may be justice and peace at home, and that, through obedience to Thy law, we may show forth Thy praise among the nations of the earth. In the time of prosperity, fill our hearts with thankfulness, and in the day of trouble, suffer not our trust in Thee to fail; all which we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

A manual of spiritual disipline

Alan Jacobs referred today to this interesting post by a Church of England vicar:

The Book of Common Prayer is enjoying a revival in the Church of England, despite the best efforts of some modernists to mothball it. Over the past two years, more and more churchgoers have asked me about a return to Thomas Cranmer’s exquisite language, essentially unaltered since 1662, for church services and private devotions. Other vicars tell me they have had a similar increase in interest. ....

What’s interesting is that the C of E’s Book of Common Prayer revival is overwhelmingly led by millennials. What the 1960s ecclesiastical revolutionaries wrote off, a younger generation is embracing. Brandon LeTourneau, 27, a convert from Judaism and soon to be ordained ministry intern, is hardly a young fogey. He wears Dr Martens and is covered in tattoos. He jokes that from what he can see no one under 40 is joining a church that doesn’t focus on tradition and rigour. ‘Why should I bother with a church that doesn’t challenge me spiritually or a liturgy that doesn’t demand more of me?’ Though he started his Christian life being baptised in a Californian megachurch swimming pool, he found himself longing for something more exacting. ....

It would be a mistake to misinterpret renewed interest in the Prayer Book as a purely aesthetic enterprise, a sort of religious Classic FM. What is clear is that the appeal is not just about Shakespearean language, beautiful though it evidently is. The Prayer Book is theology at its best. It is a manual of spiritual discipline that is as far removed from modern, cringe-inducing ‘wellness’ gobbledygook as can be. Its uncompromising opening, ‘We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts’, is a brick through the window to many facets of modern living including narcissism, egotism and the crocodile tears of identity politics. ....

I have a few editions of The Book of Common Prayer. One of the most interesting, the one I've gone to most often recently, is The 1662 Book of Common Prayer: International Edition published by InterVarsity Press ($24.49 at Amazon).

Daniel French, "Why millennial men are turning to the Book of Common Prayer," The Spectator, May 2, 2023.

This day and all our days

An Easter prayer:

Brightness of God's glory and exact image of God's person, whom death could not conquer nor the tomb imprison, as you have shared our frailty in human flesh, help us to share your immortality in the Spirit. Let no shadow of the grave terrify us and no fear of darkness turn our hearts from you. Reveal yourself to us this day and all our days, as the first and the last, the living one, our immortal Savior and Lord. Amen.

A petition for forgiveness

From the Book of Common Prayer (1662):

ALMIGHTY and everlasting God, who hatest nothing that Thou hast made, and dost forgive the sins of all those who are penitent: Create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, worthily lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness, may obtain of Thee, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Through a glass darkly

Paul Johnson, author of Modern Times: From the Twenties to the Nineties, and some forty other books, has died at the age of 94. Steven Hayward writes that he wrote "analytical narrative." I've enjoyed reading his books and essays. From one of the essays at The Spectator, "Why I Believe in God":

...[I]n prayer, however insignificant and lowly a creature we may be, we address privately but directly and intimately the most powerful creature in existence, the architect of the entire universe. Prayer, I believe — and this is what I practise — is a direct contact with God, which makes all the spine-tingling immensities of space completely irrelevant. We can talk to God, directly, secretly and whenever we wish, and on whatever topic which causes us concern. We can use whatever words or tone of voice we choose, but we do not need words at all, merely to articulate or just convey our thoughts. This ability to communicate with God is a reflection of the fact, and to me it is a fact, that in some indefinable but definite way we are created in his image, and thus can share our concerns with him. We know that he hears, registers and records, and that what we say in prayer has consequences, even though we do not, strictly speaking, conduct a dialogue with God, for we are more in the nature of petitioners than interlocutors. For God to speak to us is exceptional, though by no means unknown. ....

What deters most sensitive and intelligent people from believing in God, or undermines the faith of those who once did, is their inability to vindicate the notion of divine providence in a world full of evil. An innocent child dying in agony is a potent argument for atheism. Life teems with triumphant monsters, unpunished crimes crying to heaven, cynical success stories. .... My own humble answer is that none of us, with our enormous, rapidly expanding but still minute knowledge measured against the mysteries of the universe, can have the temerity to question God’s wisdom. Divine providence is a colossal fact which is indefinable, immeasurable, and beyond our powers even to conceive in its potency. We cannot set our puny selves against it. We accept countless complexities of nature, and the increasing achievements of mechanistic science, having learned to trust human wisdom and its power constructs up to a point. Why, then, should we distrust divine wisdom, which is so infinitely more profound? I am content to go to my grave with many mysteries unsolved. Indeed I am not unhappy with mysteries, confident we now see through a glass darkly but ultimately will be face to face with the truth of all things. The most valuable of virtues, I increasingly feel, is patience. ....

Paul Johnson, "Why I believe in God," The Spectator, Dec., 2012.

A prayer on New Year's Eve

Samuel Johnson on New Year's Eve, 1749/50:

ALMIGHTY GOD, by whose will I was created, and by whose Providence I have been sustained, by whose mercy I have been called to the knowledge of my Redeemer, and by whose Grace whatever I have thought or acted acceptable to Thee has been inspired and directed, grant, O Lord, that in reviewing my past life, I may recollect Thy mercies to my preservation, in whatever state Thou preparest for me, that in affliction I may remember how often I have been succoured, and in Prosperity may know and confess from whose hand the blessing is received. Let me, O Lord, so remember my sins, that I may abolish them by true repentance, and so improve the Year to which Thou hast graciously extended my life, and all the years which Thou shalt yet allow me, that I may hourly become purer in Thy sight; so that I may live in Thy fear, and die in Thy favour, and find mercy at the last day, for the sake of Jesus Christ. Amen.

"To proud to pray"

President Abraham Lincoln on March 30, 1863:

[W]hereas it is the duty of nations as well as of men, to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions, in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in the Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations only are blessed whose God is the Lord.

And, insomuch as we know that, by His divine law, nations like individuals are subjected to punishments and chastisements in this world, may we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war, which now desolates the land, may be but a punishment, inflicted upon us, for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole People? We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of Heaven. We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity. We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace, and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us!

It behooves us then, to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness. ....

Abraham Lincoln, "Proclamation Appointing a National Day of Fasting and Prayer," March 30, 1863.

"Count your blessings"

I have thus far had a comfortable life. An important reminder:

“Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (Matt 6:27).

What is accomplished by worrying? Gray hair and ulcers! Oh, and telling God you don’t trust him.

What should we do instead of worry? “Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matt 6:33). How do we do that? By doing everything he’s taught before this — shine your light so that God is glorified, practice real righteousness, love your enemy, and do your acts of piety for God’s approval rather than man’s. Do these things and trust God to take care of the more mundane things.

That’s what Jesus wants us to do, but will that necessarily keep us from worrying? No, worry will still be a temptation. So what do we do when we’re tempted to worry? Paul gives us an excellent action plan:

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God” (Phil 4:6).

Take your requests to God "with thanksgiving." That last part is the key. Don’t just pray for what you need but take the time to thank God for all the ways he’s already provided, for all he’s already done. ....

"Don't Worry, Be Thankful," Homeward Bound, Sept 28, 2022.