Lotsa fools out there.
Posted on 07/03/2011 8:21:25 PM PDT by markomalley
GARDEN GROVE – The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, who started his ministry in an Orange drive-in theater more than five decades ago, has been voted off the board of Crystal Cathedral Ministries, which has been torn apart by debt and familial disharmony for the last several years.
The church has not released information about the board meeting where Schuller, 84, was ousted, but his son Robert A. Schuller, who was himself forced out of the cathedral by his sisters and brothers-in-law three years ago, confirmed it Sunday.
He said his father wanted to enlarge the board, which was not received well by the others.
"A majority of that board consists of paid employees of the church and that's a serious conflict of interest," Robert A. Schuller said.
None of the board members or church officials could be reached for comment Sunday.
Schuller said his mother, a board member, voted against it, but was in the minority.
"It's a very sad day and unfortunately, I know how that feels," the younger Schuller said.
The church's financial travails, including a significant drop in donations and dwindling membership, culminated in its filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. The church still owes about $7.5 million to unsecured creditors, many of whom are vendors for the cathedral's "Glory of Christmas" pageant. According to a reorganization plan filed by church last month, they have an offer from Irvine developer, Greenlaw Partners LLC, to buy the core buildings for $46 million.
(Excerpt) Read more at ocregister.com ...
"“Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also." -- Matthew 6:19-21"For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." -- I Timothy 6:10
Somewhere along the line Christianity became a business proposition. Take the unadulterated gospel. Add to that millions of dollars of revenue. It doesn’t work.
Cheers!
A church is a business that takes money for that which G-d gives for free.
That’s OK. It really wasn’t a church anyway, and he wasn’t preaching the gospel.
“and he wasn’t preaching the gospel.”
Amen, P8. He preached the power of positive thinking, not the gospel.
The “Crystal Cathedral” may be made of crystal, but it certainly isn’t a cathedral. It has no bishops, and it grew out of the Dutch Reformed Church, which, of course, has no bishops or cathedrals.
If I were put in charge of the church, the first thing I would do would be to change the name back to Garden Grove Community Church.
Dr. Schuller was originally tied to Hubert Humphrey? Did he remain active in politics thereafter?
>>Somewhere along the line Christianity became a business proposition.<<
Not all Christianity. Just a lot of churches did. But not all.
>> Not all Christianity. Just a lot of churches did. But not all. <<
Yep, that’s right. A lot of “Christianity” going on and not inside what many would call “a church.”
Lotsa fools out there.
It is not the church that is at fault, it is established by Christ. What is to blame is what man has established and called the church.
I like this phrase:
His father should have been dismissed from the board if he's "detached". They run the church into the ground and walk away with no sense of responsibility of what they have done.
I was speaking rhetorically. Christianity is not and can not be a business. And when Christians prostitute their faith for the sake of money or popularity it ceases to be faithful Christianity.
“I was speaking rhetorically. Christianity is not and can not be a business. And when Christians prostitute their faith for the sake of money or popularity it ceases to be faithful Christianity.”
I agree. I look at it this way: In every generation, man messes up Christianity in one way or another. I think that is why there are so many warnings in the epistles as well as the messages to the seven churches in Revelation. The obvious screw ups are things like the Crusades and the Spanish inquisition. But we’ve got even well meaning people screwing it up in every generation and in all sorts of ways. Heck, the KKK was a “Christian” organization.
Nowadays, the “prosperity doctrine” is one of the more obvious.
Actually, my best friend wrote a book about the mondern church in the US. It’s about a quarter inch thick and called “And No Religion Too: Thoughts on the spectator church”
It’s not really a plug, but here is where he is: http://edgoble.com/
He’s my friend in Kentucky I was visiting when I decided to buy a home there.
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