Crystal Cathedral Shattered: The Schullers Throw Too Many Stones At Each Other!
(By GILLIAN FLACCUS
The Associated Press
GARDEN GROVE)
Once one of the nation's most popular televangelists, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller is watching his life's work crumble.
His son and recent successor, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller, has abruptly resigned as senior pastor of the Crystal Cathedral. The shimmering, glass-walled megachurch is home to the "Hour of Power" broadcast, an evangelism staple that's been on the air for more than three decades.
The church is in financial turmoil: It plans to sell more than $65 million worth of its Orange County property to pay off debt. Revenue dropped by nearly $5 million last year, according to a recent letter from the elder Schuller to elite donors. In the letter, Schuller Sr. implored the Eagle's Club members who supply 30 percent of the church's revenue for donations and hinted that the show might go off the air without their support.
Maybe Schuller Jr. should:
1. Wear a Hawaiian shirt ala Rick Warren.
2. Hold "empowerment" seances.
3. Get a bid on the Crystal Cathedral by Swarovski.
4. Stop squabbling with his dad. He probably has more money.
And Schuller's stance on gay marriage? Rather different than the usual Christofascist homophobia:
And I feel that heterosexual marriage is the more excellent way, and it surely is approved holy by the Holy Bible, and it holds so many more possibilities, the possibilities of having children of both the mother and father, the male and the female. I think it's all very important...
Schuller was considered rather heretical in his theology because he was more like Peale and "positive thinking." And he wasn't as much fire and brimstone as many would have wanted. Rick Warren might have agreed on some things, but definitely not on others. Quote from Schuller, Sr.:
If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been.
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2 comments:
not quite sure where you are going with this. might want to be more clear about it. so to speak.
Sometimes the petty bickering between "Luminaries" is small in the scheme of things. Here is this televangelist empire on the possible chopping block because: people attached themselves to religious "personalities" more than to what those personalities actually had to say, and and they've been able to build an empire on personalities: an empire that could have feed millions of people through the years. All this glitter and splash and plastic "beauty" for what? For people to feel energized and good about themselves?
Isn't it really the ultimate of selfishness?
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