faith and positive mental attitude

8/12/2019 Faith and Positive Mental Attitude

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Positive Mental Attitude (PMA) can be found:

Both in Christian circles & secular circles includ

Medical schools

Cults like mind science and Christian Science

The occult that moved into western esotericlike New Thought and Theosophy.

All of these sources believe that PMA can lead to

health and prosperity.

Introduction


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From the Holiness/Keswick/Higher Movements:

Joe McIntyre, E.W. Kenyon Dr. Paul King, Only Believe

Christian Circles

From the Faith-Idealist Christian Movement:

Rev. Percy Dearmer, Anglican Priest (1867-1936) Rev. John Banks, Anglican Priest, 1929 wrote - Redempt

the Body and Manual of Christian Healing

Rev. Alfred Price, Episcopal Rev. Robert B. H. Bell, Episcopal Priest Glen Clark Agnes Sanford


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Shocked into investigating the healing issue due to the srise of the Christian Science Church

Saw the heretical nature of the Christian Science Church cautioned gentleness in dealing with its believers

Understood that the Mind Cure and Christian Science growere exaggerating the truth

Also understood that the cause of so many defections byChristians to Christian Science was the traditional Churchabsence of healing power

Understood the concept of heresy as first hypothesis

Christian Circles: Rev. Percy Dearmer


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A religion that ignores the physical effects of the Spir

health, that is to say and the spiritual element of heaclearly not commensurate with the Christianity of Ch

It is defective...

It is beyond controversy that our Lord devoted a gre

of his ministry to healing the sick, that he sent forth hdisciples to carry out the same two-fold mission of pr

and healing... Our duty is to take him as our pattern a

be imitators of him.

Christian Circles: Rev. Percy Dearmer


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Dr. Herbert Benson, Biology of Belief

Dr. Harold Koenig, The Healing Connection:

The Relationship Between Faith and Healing

Secular teaching:

Often associated with the human potential

movement or mind science

Sometimes taking on an occult flavor

Secular Circles


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Tozer explained it this way: To be right, we must th

The Bible teaches a concept of positive mental attitis not the same as the secular concept, even thoughappear similar.

Examples of positive thinking in the Bible:

PMA in the Bible

Proverbs 23:7a

Proverbs 17:22

Romans 8:5-6

Philippians 4:8


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Norman Vincent Peales book, The Power of Positive Th

Robert Schullers concept of possibility thinking, whicrelates to the exercise of faith.

Kenneth Hagen teaches, What we believe is a result o

thinking. If we think wrong we will believe wrong.

2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Capps, the converse is true (Believe in good and good come. Believe in evil, and it will empower satan.) The you fear will come upon you.

Contemporary Faith Teaching


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Hunt and McMahon warn of PMA (Positive MeAttitude) being paganism in Christian dress.

McConnell considers the concepts as a type ofcharismatic humanism.

Criticism of Contemporary Faith Teach


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Classic Faith Teaching: A Spiritual State o

Contrary to the claims of contemporary faith criticconcept of a positive mental attitudes found throug

the writings of deeper life devotional writers.

1. 1651-1715 Fenelon was teaching the concept.

2. Thomas C. Upham was influenced by Fenelon

-The Life of Faith


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Mller

1. I saw more clearly than ever that the first great anbusiness to which I ought to attend every day was tsoul happy in the Lord.

2. He accomplished this by establishing a habit of walk

meditation on the Word of God before breakfast emorning.

3. Mller claimed this practice was also beneficial to t

own health.


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Simpson with regard to sickness and healing:

A flash of ill temper, a cloud of despondency, an impure tdesire can poison your blood, inflame your tissues, disturbnerves and interrupt the whole process of Gods life in yoOn the other hand, the spirit of joy, freedom from anxiousworry, a generous and loving heart, the sedative of peace,

uplifting influence of hope and confidence- these are bettpills, stimulants and sedatives, and the very nature of thingexercise the most benign influence over your physical funcmaking it true in a literal as well as spiritual sense, that thethe Lord is your strength.


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Simpson with regard to sickness and healing:

Joy is the great restorer and healer. Gladness of spirbring health to the bones and vitality to the nerves wother tonics fail, and all other sedatives cease to quiet

one, begin to rejoice in the Lord and your bones will like an herb, and your cheeks will glow with the bloohealth and freshness... Joy is a balm and a healing; and but rejoice, God will give power.


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S.D. Gordon

Right mental attitude in relation to health and heathan a positive mental attitude: thinking on Christ, no

circumstances.

The objective mind lays hold of Christs promises aunquestioningly the result already assured.

Also, The mental attitude [thinking on Christ] will vradically affect your body.


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Bosworth also used Gordons term right mental at

his book, Christ the Healer,to describe a criterion fo

Hudson Taylor advocated the mind dwelling on Chr

Thus the classic faith writers taught that a positive mattitude can affect ones health and outcome of life.

However, it is not by ones own mental effort, but bones thoughts dwell on Jesus and His Word.


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Classic Faith Teaching: Avoiding NegativeAttitudes of Fear, Doubt, and Anxiety

Classic faith leaders believed that negative attitudes result in negative effects.

Fenelton warned about the consequences of thenegative mind.

Hannah Whitall Smith expanded upon Feneltons thoOur mental conditions are far more powerful to afmaterial things than we know, and I believe that ther

a secret of enormous power, if human beings onceunderstood it.


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Classic Faith Teaching: Avoiding NegativeAttitudes of Fear, Doubt, and Anxiety

Spurgeon stated, Worry kills, but confidence in like healing medicine.

F.B. Meyer, a friend of Spurgeon, avowed that negthinking can even cause illness: The healthiest pnot think about their health; the weak induce dismorbid introspection.


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Classic Faith Teaching: Avoiding NegativeAttitudes of Fear, Doubt, and AnxietySimpson

Dont expect to have a spell of weariness and reaction,rather, just go calmly forward... expecting him to give yonecessary strength to carry you through.

Worry, fear, distrust, care -- all are poisonous!

Fear is dangerous. It turns into fact the things we fear. Ithe evil, just as faith creates the good. What I feared hasupon me (Job 3:25), is the solemn warning of Job. Let usbe afraid of our fears lest they should become our worsThe remedy for fear is faith and love.


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Reflections and Conclusions

King would agree with Hunt and McMahon;

William De Arteaga would not (cf. Forging a Renewedand Pauline Christianityforthcoming book 2012)

Visualization and imagination, and dreams and vision

of the long Christian mystical tradition within the hiChristianity. (Evelyn Underhill,Mysticism: A Study in NDevelopment of Spiritual Consciousness: Christian ClasEthereal Library, 1911)


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Reflections and ConclusionsDangers in Mystical Use of Visualization and Imagination

I would agree with Hunt and McMahon, yet I do alsoacknowledge that some legitimate biblical forms of th

techniques have been practiced throughout church hisparticularly among the mystics.

Hunt is logically and theologically inconsistent here foarguments against all mysticism, yet he himself has beeinfluenced by writers who have been deeply influence

mystics: John Calvin, William Law, and classic faith leadas Murray, Chambers, and Tozer.


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Reflections and Conclusions

Dangers in Mystical Use of Visualization and Imagination

Foster states against creating a visualization and consomething in the imagination: Quite the opposite...The ideas, the pictures, the words are of no avail unthey proceed for the Holy Spirit.

Tozer does warn (as Foster also does) against over-dependency upon or misuse of the imagination. HowHunt does not understand Tozer in context.


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Reflections and ConclusionsDangers in Mystical Use of Visualization and Imagination

Tozer also wrote positively about the value of a sanctifiimagination... The value of the cleansed imagination in

of religion lies in its power to perceive in natural things of things spiritual... A purified and Spirit-controlled imagihowever, quite another things, and it is this I have in mind

long to see the imagination released from its prison andits proper place among the sons of the new creation. Wtrying to describe here is the sacred gift of seeing, the abpeer beyond the veil and gaze with astonished wonder ubeauties and mysteries of things holy and eternal.


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Final Conclusions

Hunts concerns are valid to a small degree. Howeve

counterfeit presupposes the genuine. Hunt does notto acknowledge the genuine.

Additionally, though McConnell has legitimate questabout what contemporary faith leaders may teach a

PMA, his assertion that the concept of a positive or negative mindset comes from the metaphysical cultsbeen shown by reference to classic evangelical faith

to be erroneous.


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Final Conclusions

Additionally, though McConnell has legitimate quest

about what contemporary faith leaders may teach aPMA, his assertion that the concept of a positive or negative mindset comes from the metaphysical cultsbeen shown by reference to classic evangelical faith to be erroneous.


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Final Conclusions

Though the Christians who were committed to Faith Ideaare referred to as Christian New Thought did not submit

the orthodox Christian faith, they are distinguished from oat the same time or actually earlier developed a Faith-Ideato their influence in the Holiness movement and its underconfession-possession that had led to salvation and to sanand now could lead to healing because it is all in the cross

The Christian New Thought were Christians who were atto the healing they saw in the New Thought movement, dthe theological errors and worked through them, but founa reality.


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Final Conclusions

Faith critics should be careful not to brand everythin

has some similarities to cultic and heretical teachingactually originating in cultic ideas.

On the other hand, contemporary faith teachers necareful that their language, thought, and practice reg

PMA do not cross the line into cultic of heretical cobut stay within the bounds of orthodoxy and orthop


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Final Conclusions

However, we must come to realize that the modernsaduceeism of theological liberalism, and modern da

phariseeism of cessationism are both heretical inthemselves for they too deny the faith that was onc

given to the saints. It does so by denying the ministworking of the Holy Spirit, ignoring many passages o

and Paul that is incumbent for biblical discipleship, ethe great commission, and ignores the centrality of teaching regarding the Kingdom of God as now andyet, putting off the Kingdom completely into the Mi

faith and positive mental attitude

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