The Negative Power of Positive Thinking

February 17th, 2011

The Road to Hell is Paved With Happy Thoughts

It is an interesting week.

Our President is hostile to Israel. No fair-minded person could deny that. But now his hostility is becoming overt. This week, the United States agreed to join in a Security Council vote rebuking Israel for putting settlements in “occupied” land. The land God gave Abraham and his descendants, FOREVER.

Most Christians don’t understand how much God cares about Israel. Here’s some scriptural stuff to consider. Speaking through one of the prophets, God identified Jesus himself with Israel. And the Bible says the Jews are the apple of God’s eye.

Perry Stone made a somewhat sensational claim in one of his recent messages. He said someone had written a book showing that American betrayals of Israel were closely followed by American disasters. Floods and hurricanes and so on. Naturally, I want to see if this is correct. So I’m going to keep my eyes open for the next ten days or so, to see if anything unfortunate happens.

You have to test people who make claims about God, or else you never learn the truth. Luke commended the Berean Christians for tearing into the Bible to compare teachings with scripture. I’m stocking up on food because Perry Stone says he had a vision of floods, and I don’t want to waste my time if he says things that are just nutty and wrong. If we have a good crop year, I will think less of his predictions in the future. If what he said about the book turns out to be wrong, again, I will have reason to doubt him.

So far, I have never had any reason to break with Perry Stone. He gets carried away every once in a while and says something a little silly, but I can’t think of an example that had any bearing on the central issues of his messages.

It’s frustrating dealing with charlatans. I once saw a traveling “prophet” touch people, claiming God had given him an “anointing” to take 21 years off of people’s lives. People went up and got the touch. If God made them younger, he did it in a clever way that left them looking exactly the same. People will say just about anything to get a dollar; they may even make themselves believe their nonsense first (lawyers do that all the time). Christians are conditioned to believe, and they are conditioned to trust their pastors and leaders to refrain from putting dubious characters before them, so they are easy marks. I believe the only real defense is direct guidance from the Holy Spirit, and I think the Holy Spirit is with me on the 21-year guy. Call me an apostate.

Hey, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe one day all of these people will show up looking like teenagers. I would be a LITTLE surprised.

Christianity is in a bad state. The old churches bar the Holy Spirit at the door, they deny the power of God, they endorse all sorts of sin, they persecute Israel, and they have major problems with idolatry. Many new churches try to turn God into our fairy godmother, are obsessed with wealth and earthly success, and imply that nothing bad should ever happen to us. What can you do? I go where the Holy Spirit is welcome, and I persevere.

And I try not to offend anyone, but I guess I still do.

Speaking of offense, the new churches have an insidious weakness these days. There is a phobia of criticism. We keep hearing the word “positive” all the time, as if Christianity had more to do with Tony Robbins than Jesus. When we criticize, we risk being compared to the ten spies who told Moses going into Israel was a bad idea.

The problem, obviously, is that without criticism, there is no growth. Correction cannot happen without negativity. It’s impossible. Jesus was extremely negative. So was Paul. So were most of the prophets. John the Baptist…don’t get me started. Read the stuff he said. In the Revelation, Jesus started out by criticizing seven churches. Much of what he said was not positive. It was vital and helpful, but it wasn’t positive.

One of the terrible aspects of totalitarianism is the prohibition of criticism. Totalitarian regimes always limit it. The Nazis and Communists made it a crime. So do the Islamists. The British crown made it a crime, and this is the sole reason we have the First Amendment. It was drafted in order to permit criticism.

In Soviet Russia, people used to come forward all the time and point out the horrible, dangerous problems with the state. And they got shipped off to gulags, and things in Russia got worse and worse. This is the direction in which the church is headed, if we don’t wake up and learn to take a punch. One of the distinguishing characteristics of cults is the suppression of honest criticism. Look at what happens to mouthy Scientologists.

When I hear people complain about criticism, I often think of Ahab. He was about to go to war alongside Jehosaphat, and Jehosaphat insisted on hearing from a prophet. So they rounded up a bunch of lying Baal-worshiping goofballs, and the goofballs all prophesied victory. I guarantee you, these guys were very popular, Ahab paid them well, and people thought they would be remembered as saints.

Jehosaphat made an insane suggestion: how about bringing a prophet of Jehovah in? This must be where Ahab called for his Maalox. The only real prophet available was Micaiah. They dragged him in, and he made a sarcastic prophecy of victory. When Ahab threatened him, he admitted God planned to crush Ahab like a bug.

And of course, Micaiah was beaten and put in jail.

This is another fine consequence of the negativity phobia: we punish people who criticize, and we make them less likely to tell us the truth, so we lack vital information, and the result is chastisement and defeat.

I guess Satan is using the positivity craze to set the church up to persecute its prophets. Christians think they’re immune to that kind of thing, and that only the narrow-minded, non-holy Jews are susceptible, and of course, we are wrong. Human nature is universal, and so is Satan’s influence. Christians torment God’s messengers all the time.

At some point in the future, brave souls will start standing up in Spirit-filled churches and saying disturbing things. God doesn’t want every Christian to be a millionaire. God will not let us win every single battle, all the time. God still gives some people diseases. God still kills people. Some of our biggest Christian stars are revolting fakes. And if the positivity fad is still red hot, the people saying these things will be driven out into the street, with God’s inspired words still on their lips.

It’s a balancing act, and it’s easy to screw up. You have to be subject to authority, and you should not spread division without good reason. You should not complain just for the sake of complaining. You should believe God’s promises. You should try to build up the people above you. But you shouldn’t swallow every bit of nonsense every itinerant idiot pours in your congregation’s ear, and you should not be afraid to warn people when there are serious problems.

I’ve seen Tony Robbins and other positivity gurus at work. They are just plain better at it than the Christian imitators. They make many times the money the imitators make. They have polished, proven methods. They won’t tell you the Holy Spirit told them you need to give them your savings. If you want positivity, go to the pros. Buy a set of Tony Robbins CDs. Why settle for an imitation?

God’s punishment is better than Satan’s kindness. The Bible says, “Let the righteous smite me; it shall be a kindness, and let him reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil which shall not break my head.” I would rather have healthy criticism than poisonous positivity, any time.

11 Responses to “The Negative Power of Positive Thinking”

  1. Ruth H Says:

    I think that Christians who expect God to make them rich, take away their years, (imagine that if he really took away 21 years they would probably lose some very blessed events in their lives!) and hand them just every little thing they would ask for are no better than the Cargo Cult liberals who expect the government to do it all for them. I cannot judge their hearts as Christians but I can judge their actions.

  2. Jim Says:

    Steve, this is a legitimate request for an extended blogpost on the topic.

    In Maoist communism, one of the most common phenomenon is “self criticism”, most often accomplished in groups of one’s neighborhood’s fellow commies, seated in a circle. (sounds an awful lot like what happens in some folks “thereapy”, but I digress…….)

    You’ll notice that the “self-criticism” never criticizes the state. Ever. Good way to go off to the re-education farms, never to be heard from again.

    But, just as there is a pseudo-positivism movement in the chuch vs. the “new age” Robbins, et al versions, I’m curious.

    What is your take on the “self criticism” aspect? One major denomination is rather well known for always talking themselves down as “i’m unworthy, just a sinner saved by grace” forms of non-positivisms. As opposed to Ephesians and Galatians forms of identity as powerfully saved in the Risen Christ.

    As usual, the extremes on either end of that number line tend to be outliers. But I really don’t have the nuts n’ bolts all tightened down on the spread, and I know that whatever you write on the subject will surely be of great value in my process of evaluation.

    Just let me know if m query isn’t quite clear enough, and I’ll do my best to help bring it up out of the Dektol.

    Jim
    Sunk New Dawn
    Galveston, TX

  3. greg zywicki Says:

    The other thing to learn from Micaiah: Don’t expect to be loved for telling the truth. He was faithful and followed his calling anyway.

  4. Steve H. Says:

    RE the gratitude I can expect: “And of course, Micaiah was beaten and put in jail.”
    .
    There is no law against reading an entire blog post before commenting.

  5. Steve H. Says:

    Jim, my current belief is that I should forgive everyone except myself. I don’t believe in wallowing in self-hatred, but if I forget my own failings, it will be hard for me to be humble, and the Bible is packed with references to God’s love of humility.
    .
    I see no way to reconcile the modern cult of self-love with the Bible’s cautions about arrogance. We are told God disapproves of people who are lovers of themselves, and that God resists the proud and helps the humble.
    .
    I think it’s possible to make overt self-criticism a substitute for inner change, as well as a method of grandstanding. So I guess there are hazards on either side of the road.

  6. Andrea Harris Says:

    The communist “self-criticism” sessions are parodies of the Christian directive to acknowledge one’s own sin, just as Communism is a parody of Christianity. That’s how so many people can be fooled into thinking Communism is great: “Oh look, it’s got all that neat-o brotherhood stuff and I can call unbelievers sinners… uh… Anyway, there isn’t any of that superstitious ‘God’ stuff, just the cool stuff!” And it replaces God with a “scientific” structure — the State, or the dialectic, or whatever. Communism is the half-baked mutant offspring of fake science and neglected religious upbringing. (If I had a dollar for every Catholic kid I knew who had a story about being punched by a priest for asking a snarky question instead of at least getting talked to like a person I’d… have a few dollars.)

  7. greg zywicki Says:

    “RE the gratitude I can expect: “And of course, Micaiah was beaten and put in jail.”
    .
    There is no law against reading an entire blog post before commenting.”
    .
    Sure – but your theme seemed to be about Negativity Phobia; Micaiah seemed to be there as an OT example. My point is that Our Duty isn’t always easy or fun. Let’s say I was amplifying what you already implied.

  8. Milo Says:

    I have long held the opinion that America should have given the Israelis Arizona back in 1946,,,

  9. Ed Bonderenka Says:

    The emperor doesn’t always want to hear about his lack of clothes.
    Some pastors don’t either.

  10. Virgil Says:

    I keep changing the subject in the comments because I don’t want to wait for you to read your e-mail Steve…regarding cleaning up the shop have you seen these compressed air vacuum generators which work with your fancy air compressor to pick up the chips and flakes and other small stuff laying around the garage floor and on other surfaces?

    http://www.exair.com/en-US/Primary%20Navigation/Products/Industrial%20Housekeeping/Chip%20Vacs/Pages/Chip%20Vac%20Home.aspx

  11. Heather Says:

    Tried to send you a prayer request but it bounced back.