Posted on 04/02/2015 10:53:55 AM PDT by MNDude
ARTESIA, Calif. (AP) The Rev. Robert H. Schuller, the Southern California televangelist and author who beamed his upbeat messages on faith and redemption to millions from his landmark Crystal Cathedral only to see his empire crumble in his waning years, has died. He was 88.
Schuller died early Thursday at a care facility in Artesia, daughter Carol Schuller Milner said. He was diagnosed with terminal esophageal cancer in 2013.
Schuller, who preached in a flowing purple robe and outsized aviator glasses, led an evangelical Protestant ministry that was a product of modern technology. He and his late wife, Arvella, started a ministry in 1955 with $500 when he began preaching from the roof of a concession stand at a drive-in movie theater southeast of Los Angeles.
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He also said, “Sometimes a miracle is something that DOESN’T happen.”
The Catholic Church is particularly awful on the subject of illegal immigration. I keep telling myself when I go to Mass I am going to church, not a political meeting. But that doesn’t stop the Church leadership continuing to exhort us to accept amnesty and turn blind eye towards illegal immigration. Obviously, with the Church having so many millions of Hispanics as parishioners, I can see why it feels compelled to take the positions it takes. But that doesn’t change the fact that illegal immigration is illegal and is nothing less than assault on our national sovereignty, total chaos, anarchy, and lawlessness. There is absolutely NOTHING in the Bible which encourages such wanton disregard for rule of law. When I hear the archbishop weigh in on this issue it goes in one ear and out the other and I wish it would stop.
He clearly misses the mark by a country mile in those comments.
I don’t like to rip the clergy stridently, but I’d have to agree this guy seems to have been a religious widget that took the place of a ‘real’ sound teacher.
In that respect, he probably did lead many astray.
In the end God will deal with him.
I don’t know all there is to know about him, so I don’t want to say he was a bad guy, even if he may have ultimately have been a bad guy.
He may have done many good things too. I do have to admit I don’t like those comments one bit.
This video has nothing to do with him directly but he did help inspire it;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RVXjBMK3EkI
Your thoughts seem entirely reasoned to me. I would feel the same way.
I don’t like to see an entity like a church take a stand that is so clearly unsupportable. It causes the patrons to realize the church may also be wrong with regard to it’s other principles.
I would think a church would do it’s best to try to avoid that realization.
That the church leadership doesn’t realize this, and acts out like it does, is extremely unfortunate.
RIP
Good he is wolf in sheep clothing ES
I hated him after OC Register over the years keep busting his chops over his lifestyle
He wasn’t sincere - when he firs started out, he did a study to find out what non-believers wanted in a church. He then did just that. Also knew a guy who met him on a plane once, said he was an arrogant ahole the way he treated people.
He may have had a “positive uplifting” messsage but it wasn’t a scripture based one. thanks for posting.
“Schuller - We enter the Kingdom of God when we have a dream focus on the dream [and] fuel the dream (Hour of Power TV broadcast 25/3/01) Schuller - The Church needs a theology that is man-centred, not God-centred (Hour of Power TV Broadcast)
Schuller - Jesus bore the cross to sanctify our self esteem.
Schuller - Self-love is the ultimate will of man (Self Esteem: The New Reformation, 1982).
Schuller - Focus on the things the major faiths can agree on.
Schuller - Transcendental Meditation, Zen Buddhism and yoga are valid methods for harnessing Gods divine laws.
Schuller - Its time to go to the Pope and say, what do we have to do to come home? (1987).
Schuller - If he came back and found his grandchildren were Muslims it wouldnt bother him. (Hour of Power)
Schuller - When the Bible says a people without a vision perish it is talking about the inner eye of visualisation (Psychology Today, 1985).
Schuller - AND WHAT IS ‘HELL’? IT IS THE LOSS OF PRIDE THAT NATURALLY FOLLOWS SEPARATION FROM GOD—the ultimate and unfailing source of our soul’s sense of self-respect. (Schuller, Self-Esteem, pp. 14-15, 93).
Schuller - What do I mean by sin? Answer: ‘SIN IS ANY ACT OR THOUGHT THAT ROBS MYSELF OR ANOTHER HUMAN BEING OF HIS OR HER SELF-ESTEEM (Schuller, Self-Esteem, p. 14).
Schuller - THE FATHERHOOD OF GOD OFFERS A DEEP SPIRITUAL CURE FOR THE INFERIORITY COMPLEX AND LAYS THE FIRM FOUNDATION FOR A SOLID SPIRITUAL SELF-ESTEEM (Schuller, Self-Esteem, p. 60).
Schuller - Classical theology DEFINES SIN AS ‘REBELLION AGAINST GOD.’ The answer is not incorrect as much as IT IS SHALLOW AND INSULTING TO THE HUMAN BEING.(Schuller, Self-Esteem, p. 65).
Schuller - The core of original sin, Lack of Trust. Or, it could be considered an innate inability to adequately value ourselves. Label it a ‘negative self-image,’ but DO NOT SAY THAT THE CENTRAL CORE OF THE HUMAN SOUL IS WICKEDNESS. ... POSITIVE CHRISTIANITY DOES NOT HOLD TO HUMAN DEPRAVITY, BUT TO HUMAN INABILITY. I am humanly unable to correct my negative self-image until I encounter a life-changing experience with non-judgmental love bestowed upon me by a Person whom I admire so much that to be unconditionally accepted by him is to be born again (Schuller, Self-Esteem, p. 67). Schuller - TO BE BORN AGAIN MEANS THAT WE MUST BE CHANGED FROM A NEGATIVE TO A POSITIVE SELF-IMAGE—from inferiority to self-esteem, from fear to love, from doubt to trust (Schuller, Self-Esteem, p. 68).
Schuller - THE CROSS SANCTIFIES THE EGO TRIP. FOR THE CROSS PROTECTED OUR LORD’S PERFECT SELF-ESTEEM FROM TURNING INTO SINFUL PRIDE (Schuller, Self-Esteem, p. 75).
Schuller - ESSENTIALLY, IF CHRISTIANITY IS TO SUCCEED IN THE NEXT MILLENNIUM, IT MUST CEASE TO BE A NEGATIVE RELIGION AND MUST BECOME POSITIVE (Schuller, Self-Esteem, p. 104).
Schuller - JESUS NEVER CALLED A PERSON A SINNER. ... Rather he reserved his righteous rebuke for those who used their religious authority to generate guilt and caused people to lose their ability to taste and enjoy their right to dignity... (Schuller, Self-Esteem, pp. 100,126).
Schuller - Christ is the Ideal One, for HE WAS SELF-ESTEEM INCARNATE (Schuller, Self-Esteem, p. 135).
Schuller - EXERCISING NARROW AUTHORITARIANISM IN DOCTRINES AND PRACTICES AND BY SOWING SEEDS OF SUSPICION AND DISSENSION IN THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY. (Schuller, Self-Esteem, pp. 153-154).
Schuller - The classical error of historical Christianity is that we have never started with the value of the person. Rather, WE HAVE STARTED FROM THE ‘UNWORTHINESS OF THE SINNER,’ AND THAT STARTING POINT HAS SET THE STAGE FOR THE GLORIFICATION OF HUMAN SHAME in Christian theology (Schuller, Self-Esteem, p. 162).”
My sympathies to his family and friends.
RIP. He is the only television preacher I actually enjoyed listening to.
It made the point in a very good way.
I was especially fond of Kathryn Kuhlmann. Does anyone remember her? “And now, Dino at the piano.”
I immediately remembered that issue of The Wittenberg Door when I started reading this thread! It made a big impression on me as I was a fairly young Christian.
The “What Can You Do with $6 Million?” story was at a time when every couple of months on the local news you would hear about how the building of the church was over budget and continuing to rise. They started selling the seats in the sanctuary for $500 each so you could get a plaque with your name on it on the back of the seat. When that wasn’t enough, they sold the individual windows the same way. I can’t remember when they stopped, but the church got built.
It was not my kind of church, but I trust God that Schuller did reach some people with the information they needed to find Christ or simply be ministered to.
Are you in California?
As someone living in Massachusetts, I have seen how the Catholic Church is closely aligned with the Democrats. Since the Democrats went far to the left, the church seems to have followed behind. They may not like some of the policies of the Democrats but it seems that the Dems are in charge now and the church is following the Dems. The radical Dems have won the fight. The church now barely makes a whimper.
Did he start his church after Norman Vincent Peale became a big sensation? Schuller seems to be repeating the power of positive thinking message.
Yes. In L.A. no less. According to figures I’ve seen, Hispanics make up about 70% of the parishioners in the L.A. Archdiocese which includes L.A. County, Ventura County, and Santa Barbara County. Clearly when such demographic factors are taken into account, it doesn’t take a rocket scientists to know where the Church is coming from on the immigration issue. While understandable, it does not make the policies they advocate any less deplorable. In 1938 Austria, the Nazi absorption of that country into the Third Reich was extremely popular among many Austrians, but that did not make the takeover any less deplorable.
The devil leads the Marxists, the Marxists leads the Democrats and the Democrats lead the Catholic church. Who knows, maybe the Democrats are threatening the church with loss of tax exempt status. Nothing would surprise me today.
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