Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, December 26, 1993 TAG: 9312260062
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: the Los Angeles Times
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Peale died in his sleep at his farm north of New York City, according to the Peale Center for Christian Living. He had suffered a mild stroke about two weeks ago.
Peale, the Ohio-born son of a circuit-riding Methodist preacher, was known as "the minister to millions." His compelling, folksy preaching and motivational lectures, prolific writing, and innovative integration of psychology and religion earned him a place as one of the best-known ministers.
He wrote more than 40 books. His seminal work, "The Power of Positive Thinking," was translated into 42 languages and is is one of the all-time best-selling books of nonfiction. Written when he was 54, the book became an immediate hit. It became the model for self-help and motivational books and remains so four decades later.
Peale and his wife, Ruth Stafford Peale, co-founded the Peale Center for Christian Living and were co-publishers of Guideposts, the inspirational magazine that had 4.6 million paid subscribers - the nation's 12th-largest magazine.
Vigorous into his 90s, Peale reluctantly stepped down as pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in New York at 86. He then devoted Peale his time to writing and lecturing.
Packed audiences across the land revered Peale as he traveled an average of 200,000 miles a year to spread his positive-thinking principles. Many of the rich and famous were close friends and admirers.
When he was 93, Peale delivered the invocation at the Eisenhower Centennial Salute in New York. He recently wrote two books: "The Power of Positive Living" and "This Incredible Century," a review of his first nine decades.
The man known for his folksy humor and preaching gusto (he preached entirely without notes and with many gestures) fought a life-long battle against shyness and feelings of inferiority.
He was fond of telling audiences about his student days at Ohio Wesleyan University, where as a sophomore he was "shy, bashful and reticent . . . a scared rabbit, just scared of everyone."
His economics professor, Ben Arneson, asked Peale to stay after class one day. "You are so terribly shy, so embarrassed when I call upon you, that you get tongue-tied, red in the face, and your inferiority feelings stick out all over," Arneson told him. "No wonder students snicker. Don't you know that shyness is actually a form of egotism and extreme self-awareness? In the name of heaven, be a man!"
Peale prayed earnestly and said he felt "strangely peaceful." Soon, other professors steered him toward classic "possibility thinkers" - and he avidly read the works of William James, Ralph Waldo Emerson and Marcus Aurelius, the Roman emperor and philosopher.
His struggle to conquer his own negativism was the grain of sand that eventually produced the pearl that made him a truly international - and controversial - figure: "The Power of Positive Thinking."
After attempting several revisions, Peale threw the unpublished manuscript in a wastebasket. Ruth Peale rescued it, however, and personally delivered it to the publisher.
In Peale parlance, positive thinking is simply faith in the power of God. But some charged that he attempted to apply sugar-coated panaceas to complex problems. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr accused Peale of "trying to make a success story out of Christianity" by seeking a largely white, middle-class audience. And many psychologists wrote off his book as simplistic poppycock.
But legions of followers testified that Peale's message changed their lives for the better and represented the best combination of faith and pragmatism.
"This is an awful world, just frightening, and we're stuck with it," Peale said in 1968. "But people are deserving of some help so they can live in this world and make the best of it. I plead guilty, gladly and happily, to helping people accommodate to living in this awful world."
Together with a psychiatrist, Dr. Smiley Blanton, Peale in 1937 founded the American Foundation for Religion and Psychiatry - now the Blanton-Peale Institutes of Health - in his church basement. As an outgrowth of the institute, more than 100 pastoral counseling centers were established in major U.S. cities.
His life was not always serene. In 1960, a flap over opposition to John F. Kennedy as a presidential candidate caused Peale such anguish that he tendered his resignation as pastor.
Peale had joined 150 other clergy in a statement that voiced concern that Kennedy might be unduly influenced by the Vatican in conducting foreign policy.
After graduating from Ohio Wesleyan University, Peale took a job at the Detroit Journal newspaper. Covering a fire in a six-story building, reporter Peale saw a young girl high above trying to muster the courage to cross from the blazing building to safety on a foot-wide plank.
Peale shouted encouragement: "Honey, do you believe in God? Do you believe that God is up there with you, that he loves you and will take care of you? . . . Then look straight ahead, see him, and he will lead you across to safety in no time."
She followed his pleas. Afterward, a policeman told Peale he sounded like a preacher.
"I'm no preacher," Peale protested.
"The hell you are not," the cop retorted.
After a good deal of soul-searching, Peale enrolled at Boston University School of Theology in 1921, and was ordained a minister in what is now the United Methodist Church a year later.
Besides his wife, he is survived by two daughters and a son, John, professor of philosophy at Longwood College in Farmville, Va.
by CNB