Prosperity gospel and the American dream
6/23/202615 min
A lot of our everyday lives are shaped by the idea that if we really believe in something, it will happen. But where does that idea come from? And what does it have to do with the American dream? Today on the show, how the prosperity gospel has blended self-improvement, religion and capitalism into an everyday recipe for success – one that any of us can try.
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First 90 secondsSpeaker 10:00
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Rund Abdelfatah· Host0:15
[instrumental music] This is America in Pursuit, a limited run series from NPR and Throughline. I'm Rund Abdelfatah. Each week we bring you stories about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the US that began 250 years ago.
Norman Vincent Peale· Soundbite0:35
[singing] This is Norman Vincent Peale. [instrumental music] Uh, what I have in mind to do is to give a little discussion on the subject, how to make positive thinking work for you.
Chris Lehmann· Guest0:59
Norman Vincent Peale is a bit of a theological outlier. Like a lot of these modern spiritual entrepreneurs, he, he kind of floundered around a bit.
Anthea Butler· Guest1:10
Born at the end of the 19th century and comes into the 20th. He's meeting all of these, you know, big automakers, oil people. So he's right there in the middle of this sort of capitalist kind of thing.
Norman Vincent Peale· Soundbite1:22
What is positive thinking?
Anthea Butler· Guest1:25
When he writes this book, The Power of Positive Thinking, which you can still