Yawn! $huller? Moyer? Not much difference.
So what is Schuller saying? The masses want the Joel Osteen’s “pray to Jesus for a new BMW” ministry?
Give me a break - he hired Phillip Johnson as the architect. I bet you that added a LOT to the cost. These huge buildings are just a monument to someone’s ego. It has nothing to do with faith.
...and so passes another “Feel Good” church...
That sure helps to spread the Gospel.
/s
“The Ministry is extremely grateful for the time and effort expended by the Creditors Committee to date, and looks forward to working with them to finalize a payment plan that is fair to all vendors and consistent with our belief as a Ministry and emerge from Chapter 11 as quickly as possible. “
Well, by their theology, Chapter 11 is tantamount to a leveraged buyout by Satan himself. Maybe it’s time to go back to used car sales.
Not crystal, not a cathedral. Other than that, though....
About the most positive things i ever saw from the Crystal Cathedral was the humble testimony of Evel Knievel (not that Schuller had much if anything to do with it) . The place needed it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N85-eXlftIY
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/aprilweb-only/115-43.0.html
Praise God.
Seriously, though I will continue to pray for our dear brothers and sisters that their eye's will be opened to the truth, and not fall for the lies that they will undoubtedly hear as to why this church is failing!
Dennis Voskuil, a professor of church history at Schuller’s alma mater, Western Theological Seminary, placed Schuller within the context of the New Thought movement. “Robert Schuller is indirectly related to a long line of popular religionists who have proclaimed the gospel of this-worldly well-being through positive thinking,” he wrote. “His lineage includes such disparate figures as Phineas Parkhurst Quimby, Mary Baker Eddy, Charles and Myrtle Fillmore, Ralph Waldo Trine, and Norman Vincent Peale. While there are many ideological branches on this family tree, all of its members have stressed a utilitarian message of self-help through some form of mind-conditioning.”After detailing Schuller’s distinctive pilgrimage, Voskuil concluded: “By several standards, then, Schuller is an unconventional evangelical. But while he may be unusual, he is by no means unique, for he is merely one of the most prominent of a large and growing group of evangelicals who are promulgating the gospel of success.”
Worthy of remembering.
Ping to Gamecock, for the "bestest, most purposeful life right now, don't worry about later" ping list.
Though ordained in the Reformed Church in America, Schuller minimized historic Christian orthodoxy and stressed instead the message of positive thinking.
Reminds me: 16 or 17 years ago, when we were new in town here and looking for a church, we spent a Sunday morning at a small local Reformed Church (I assume RCA). They had, I kid you not, a small "shrine" to Robert Schuller in the narthex.
Weird. And we didn't go back.
In his 1982 book, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation, Schuller explicitly replaced the message of salvation from sin with a message of rescue from low self-esteem.
They sent millions of copies out, to everyone who might conceivably be thought of as a Christian leader. I even got one, probably because I subscribed to Christianity Today (< sarcasm>the predecessor publication to Christianity Astray< /sarcasm>).
Crystal Cathedral also put on, not too much later, a conference based on that book. Someone in the denomination (CRCNA) paid for a bunch of pastors, including ours to go. Don't know who, but I suspect the powers behind Amway, if anybody.
Anyway, nothing much seemed to come of that conference, at least for our church. It might be worth some research, and a footnote in the history of the subversion and decline of late 20th century Am. evangelicalism.
The name “Crystal Cathedral” has always annoyed me. It may be made of crystal, but it’s not a cathedral—the denomination has no bishops. The name strikes me as a tacky, alliterative example of commercialism such as “Crispy Cream” or “Captain Crunch.” The least they can do is change it back to “Garden Grove Community Church”