Release Date: October 2009.
Ehrenreich, Barbara. Bright-Sided: How the Relentless Promotion of Positive Thinking has Undermined America. Metropolitan Books, 2009. ISBN: 978-0-8050-8749-4.
Meet the Author
Barbara Ehrenreich earned a Ph.D. in cell biology then decided to pursue a career of activism and writing. She has written articles for many respected publications including Time, New York Times, Mother Jones, The Atlantic Monthly. Additionally, she has written 17 books including bestsellers Nickel and Dimed and Bait and Switch. In 2006, she founded United Professionals , a nonprofit, nonpartisan advocacy organization for white collar workers, regardless of profession or employment status. For more information visit her website or blog.
About the Book
The quest for happiness has become a part of the American culture. Despite all our efforts to become happy, Americans rank as the 23rd happiest nation (p. 3). Beginning with her own experience with cancer, Ehrenreich explores the pervasive nature of the expectation for happiness that she believes has undermined us as a nation. Her effort to debunk positive thinking is thorough and thoughtful tracing the historical development and its modern day manifestations in business, religion, psychology and medicine. Rather than continue the ineffective quest for so-called happiness via positive thinking, Ehrenreich suggests the solution is not pessimism but rather vigilant realism.
So What?
I requested an advance copy of this book with the intent to use some material from her fifth chapter, God Wants You to Be Rich, in an upcoming class. While the chapter was my focus, I found it more meaningful within the larger context of the positive thinking movement.
Included in her chapter on religion are mentions of Norman Vincent Peale, Robert Schuller, Will Bowen, Kenneth Hagin, Joyce Myer, Creflo Dollar, Benny Hinn, Fred Price and Kenneth and Gloria Copeland among others. Joel Osteen receives the most attention along with his Lakewood Church. She notes Osteen’s success in writing happy books with no real content, mentions her experience as a visitor to one of Lakewood’s worship services, Osteen’s small victories (getting out of a speeding ticket, finding a good parking spot, and getting seated quickly in a restaurant), and a bit about his troubling and anemic theology.
Any who seek to preach or serve in teaching ministries in the church today as well as those responsible for calling and managing such persons must struggle with Ehrenreich’s assestion: “By any quantative measure, the most successful preachers today are the positive thinkers, who no longer mention sin . . . Gone is the threat of hell and the promise of salvation, along with the grim story of Jesus’ torment on the cross . . .” (p. 124).
Further, it is necessary to consider the charge that large churches and those aspiring to achieve that status “needed a substitute for the more demanding core of Christian teachings, and that has been, for the most part, positive thinking – not because it is biblically ‘true’ or supported by Scripture but because it produces satisfied ‘customers’. . .” (p. 140).
- How is your Christian worldview informed/misinformed by the American culture of positive thinking?
- Do you or does your church ever avoid certain core Christian teachings because they don’t sell?
- Is Ehrenreich’s concept of living with vigilant realism a helpful and appropriate alternative?