IS POSITIVE THINKING BIBLICAL?

   Steve Crain is pictured as he worked in the early 2000s at Gulistan Carpet, a now-closed carpet Aberdeen, NC, carpet manufacturing company. He wrote columns often published then in "The Pilot," a Southern Pines, NC, newspaper.

  To me, my dad appeared to be a negative thinker. Did his U.S. 84th Infantry duty in Germany during World War II make him that way? Mom said he was different after he returned in 1945.

Dad’s mother, a tall, thin lady, seemed sad and worried. She played a brown F-hole “B and J Serenader” guitar that I still have. She sang about hardship and lonesomeness as she strummed “Times Have Changed in Renfro Valley.”   

“Negative people center their focus on things they can’t control,” sources say. “They ruminate over past conversations, beat themselves up on past mistakes, and allow their fear of the future to stop them in their tracks today.”

Studies show that personality traits can shift over time, and personality changes affect how we see the world. I’ve benefited from Bible input over the years, and my melancholy tendencies have given way to a more positive outlook.

Depression is known to run in families, suggesting that genetic factors contribute to the risk of developing this disease. But research into the genetics of depression is in its early stages, and little is known for certain about the genetic basis of the disease.

About 25 percent of your positive expectations, or dispositional optimism, comes from your genes, sources say, adding, “At least half comes from your life experiences.”
 
  “THE NEGATIVITY BIAS”

The negativity bias, according to psychologists, is a tendency to have greater sensitivity to negative events than to positive events. Some researchers say that negative events “weigh” close to three times more than positive events.

According to researchers, a previously known gene variant can cause individuals to perceive emotional events — especially negative ones —more vividly than others. A study by a University of British Columbia researcher finds that some people are genetically predisposed to see the world darkly.

“Jesus does want His believers to find joy and to stay focused on positive thoughts — heavenly ones based on eternity,” Sophia Bricker writes. “He wants his followers not to worry, but to instead stay focused on and seek the Kingdom of God.”

Some people tell us just to “think positive.” But that response can involve avoiding reality. 

“When we tell ourselves to ‘think positive’ and to push negative or difficult emotions aside, it won’t work; it doesn’t work,” says psychologist Susan Davis.
 
  IS the POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING BIBLICAL?  

“There are many people, Christians included, who believe that positive thinking has the power to change their lives,” Bricker says. “Visualizing their successful lives, such people practice positive thinking believing that they will become richer, more successful, and healthier.”

Bricker says there is nothing wrong with optimism or looking on the bright side, but the philosophy that asserts there is inherent (in itself) power in positive thinking is not Biblical.

“Using positive thinking exercises, practices, or mantras as a magical or powerful force cannot change a person or anything in their life,” Bricker says. “Placing one’s hope or trust in anything other than the Lord is idolatry and clearly condemned in Scripture. For Bible-believing, faithful Christians, using positive thinking as a magnetic force to bring about change or success in life is not an option.”

People who trust in positive thinking need to realize that true happiness and change only comes through Jesus Christ, not the power of positive thoughts, Bricker says.

The Rev. Norman Vincent Peale (known as “the father of positive thinking”) wrote the book “The Power of Positive Thinking.” Published in Oct. 1952, it and was on the New York Times’ best-sellers list for 186 weeks. He seemed to try to mesh positive thinking with Christianity. 

Ms. Oprah Winfrey credits “positive thinking” and “the law of attraction” to some of her success. “The law of attraction (LOA) is the belief that the universe creates and provides for you that which your thoughts are focused on.” That is not a Christian concept.

Positive thinking has value. It’s good therapy that helps some people look on the brighter side. But some folk believe in positive thinking as their go-to “religion” and don’t believe in the God of the Bible.   

Those who don’t accept Christ will not enter heaven, no matter how positive they seem on earth, according to the Bible. 

I draw positive strength from Jude, verses 20-21: “But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life.”

And here’s a comforting verse for those of us who battle negativity: “Cast all your care upon him [Jesus]; for he careth for you” (1 Peter 5:7).

Should We Study Genealogy?

“Genealogy” is defined as the “line of descent traced continuously from an ancestor.”

My wife, Barbara, traced her family tree. Her mother hailed from an Adair family in Rutherford, NC. Her father, Mr. Walter Springfield, descended from a family traced to Mrs. Dicey Langston, a Revolutionary War heroine. She married Mr. Thomas Springfield, a patriot leader, on Jan. 9, 1783. 

Family history research is the second-most popular hobby in the U.S., after gardening, according to a 2017 article. 

“Genealogy received a boost in the late 1970s with the television broadcast of Roots: The Saga of an American Family by Alex Haley,” sources say.

But there was a downside to that surge. 

“The irony of the watershed cultural moment surrounding ‘Roots’ was that a book about slavery and the African diaspora became a catalyst for a largely white ethnic revival,” wrote Ms. Honor Sachs in Dec. 2019. “As the nation embraced a new passion for genealogy, the narratives of African American experiences embedded in slavery were eclipsed by a new obsession with the white ethnic European immigrant.”

Renewed interest in genealogy perhaps enhanced potential for racial tensions. 

In the 1960s, the Mormon Church, which espouses “baptism of the dead” and encourages its members to research unbaptized ancestors, opened many branch genealogical libraries. In the 1970s, these libraries began receiving more and more non-Mormon patrons.

By the 1990s, digital technology made possible record-accessing online.

Many have taken AncestryDNA tests to discover distant cousins and genetic ethnic mix. 

“Ancestry.com has become a huge success, boasting millions of subscribers,” says Nathan H. Lents, Ph.D. “The fact is, if you go back far enough, each one of us has a shared ancestor with every other person on earth. … One thing that Ancestry.com won’t often tell you is that the genealogy you discover may not be accurate anyway. Inferences have to be made when you are dealing with records that are hundreds of years old. There are many surnames and first names that are quite common. There is no way to be sure that the ‘Jacob Carter’ that turns up in one record is the same ‘Jacob Carter’ that shows up in another from 15 years later, even in the same general area.”

Dr. Lents continues: 

“A problem with putting so much stock in our genealogy is that this over-emphasizes genetic relationships over social and cultural history (or at least attempts to). We draw our identity from our experiences and we are deeply imprinted by the cultural themes of our society and the parents that raised us, regardless of where we got our chromosomes. Family ties are about shared culture, not genes.”

Dr. Lents wonders: 

“I ask, ‘What is the point of researching our precise ancestry at all?’ The answer seems to be that a connection to our recent ancestors is what compels us to study our genealogy. It is their stories that fascinate us, not their genetic stock.”

Someone said, “In an age where many are looking to connect to something bigger than themselves — to have a deeper understanding of themselves and where they came from — it makes sense that genealogy would have grown more popular over the past few decades.”

WHAT DOES THE BIBLE SAY?

“The Bible does not condemn all genealogy per se,” one writer says. “But it rejects the use of genealogy to ‘prove’ one’s righteousness.”

Genealogies help us follow priestly and royal lines through Israel’s story.

“Paul teaches us that the priesthood has its origins in the High Priesthood of Christ after the Order of Melchizedek,” sources say.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke delineate Jesus’ ancestry. Paul indicates that the Aaronic priesthood was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

Titus 3:9 (KJV) tells us, “But avoid foolish questions, and genealogies, and contentions, and strivings about the law; for they are unprofitable and vain.” 

During Early Church times, some teachers took pride in proving they were Abraham’s direct descendants.

“It [Titus 3:9] means don’t think you are something special because of who your family is and, in reverse, don’t think that just because you were not born into a good family that God doesn't love you as much,” Mark Hamric says. “It is saying that Christ has made you a joint heir with him, which is far better than any earthly genealogy.”
 

Ms. Miriam Jones Celebrates Birthday: 108 Years

 

Ms. Miriam Jones is pictured here. She recently celebrated her birthday at age 108.
 

An e-mail from Ms. Dede Hamlin came to me, saying, “Hello Everyone. It's that time of year again. Time to celebrate an extra special friend, Miriam Jones, 108! Can you believe it?”

I met now-108-year-old Ms. Miriam Jones in 1989 at Sandhills Assembly of God (AG), Southern Pines, NC. She was, as I recall, the lady who phoned AG headquarters and asked about starting that church.   

“Sandhills Assembly began in the mid-1970s with a handful of people from various denominational backgrounds who had begun to experience Charismatic worship and teaching, along with manifestations of the gifts of the Holy Spirit,” the Rev. Bryan Rainbow wrote in 2008, while serving as the church’s pastor.

The group gathered in house meetings and then at a Holiday Inn for Sunday morning services before inquiring about founding a church. 

In Oct. 1976, the group was recognized as an NC AG district-affiliated church. On Sept. 25, 1977, the Rev. David Hicks became the church’s first pastor. They built a church house on 6.5 acres on Hwy. 1 in Moore County, NC.

I interviewed Miriam Jones when she was 86 years old:  

“My parents read the Bible regularly and lived as Christians but never had devotions and prayed with us,” said Miriam, who was born Miriam Kennedy Sloan in Wilson, NC, in 1913. “Father ((W. J. Sloan) was a Missionary Baptist who read the New Testament in the original Greek, and Mother (Mary Long) was a Primitive Baptist.” 

Her father was a school principal; her mother taught piano and directed chorus.

“My sister and I were taught the discipline of memorizing one Bible verse each Sunday before we could see the funny papers,” she recalled, referring to the Charlotte Observer comic section. “I was adventuresome and had many peach-tree switchings for disobedience, but I felt their loving concern. I was taught to be careful of my diet. Father bought the first book on diet by Mr. J.H. Kellogg. We had wheat boiled in water for breakfast. It was hard to chew, but sugared- and creamed-up, it was good.”

Miriam, preparing to teach, graduated from The Women’s College of UNC (now UNC Greensboro) and enrolled in Columbia Univ. in New York during the Depression. She met her husband-to-be before he enrolled in Columbia Medical School.

“We were mostly unchurched,” she said, adding that her exposure to Darwin’s theory of evolution in college took her away from Christ, even though after her husband became a doctor, they sometimes took their four children to a Baptist church.

Miriam says they lived in Nyack, NY, when she began Bible study and read the Bible through several times before she “accepted Christ.” While attending an Episcopal church in New Rochelle, she participated in a responsive reading of the Ten Commandments. The recitation ended with this group response: “Incline my heart to obey this law.” She was touched when she said those words and was moved to greater Christian service.  

Through the Rev. Harold Bredesen’s influence she experienced a “baptism in the Holy Spirit” and began attending White Plains AG in White Plains, NY.  

Her husband built a retirement home in Pinehurst, NC, in 1972, but before the home’s completion said he “wanted space” and had lost interest in their 35-year marriage. “I told him it wasn’t right for us to divorce,” Miriam said. “A woman feels totally unattractive and unacceptable at a time like that.”     

In the mid-1970s, Miriam, whose four children were grown, moved to the Sandhills alone. “The Lord helped me through many a trying time with too many coincidences not to see his hand,” she said.  

To celebrate Miriam’s 108 years, a daughter set Sat., Aug. 28, 2021, as party day. At 2:30 p.m., a car-parade of family and friends planned to motor past Ms. Miriam’s assisted-living facility in Raleigh, NC. The party was to begin inside at 3:00.    

“It’s difficult to talk to her sometimes now, due to hearing and cognitive issues,” Dede wrote. “Ms. Miriam is very lonely. If you remember our loving, outgoing, full-of-life Miriam —  she's depressed now. I called one day … She said she had been weeping because she’s so lonely and is so far from her friends that she loves so dearly. …Her family visits her often. She has a dear lady that stays with her maybe 5 hours each day for 4 days a week. But she misses her friends.”  

Miriam often talks by phone with Ms. Wren Roberts, 94, who attended Sandhills Assembly, has dementia, and lives with her daughter, Linda Sealy, in Summerville, SC.   

Dede says, “Linda helps Ms. Wren call Ms. Miriam almost every day. They may not know who each other is, or remember that they talked, but in their spirits, they know they’re dear friends.”