A&E Biography Robert Schuller

from a Andy this is my ography there has never been a preacher quite like dr. Robert Schuller there has certainly never been a global television ministry like his you know of the longest-running television programs in America today the top three are news programs Meet the Press Face the Nation 60 minutes but the fourth longest running series is a weekly church service for 29 years now the hour of power with Robert Schuller this is the day that God has been isn't if he had a great big Meg walked into the room it's up to entering it's just like like a train he's a great financial wizard I think it'd be gone into business the world would have heard as much of him as it did because he went into ministry and he can turn the hurt into a halo the star into his star it's the equivalent of McDonald's I mean if you want to hang on the shingle and say I'm selling feel good theology trying but just don't call it Christianity you know my father is always expressive about everything I mean if he said I'd love you when he said I know I will boom hi one of our country's best-known pastors Reverend Robert Schuller suggested that I read isaiah 58:12 the California Reverend Robert Schuller has had the year of presidents and world leaders Schuler took his message of self-esteem and feel-good theology first to a drive-in movie theater then through masterful marketing to a Crystal Cathedral spun of 10,000 panes of glass jeweler's hour of power is seen in almost as many countries as the United Nations has members quite a journey from the confines of a small Midwestern farm the wide sky and empty Plains of Iowa shaped Robert Schuller's vision from childhood survival on a farm in the 1920s depended on daily devotion to hard physical labor we had no electricity no running water in the house it all had to be carried in we milked cows we had our own hogs and eggs and chickens so it was a very humble and modest life that we lived the last of five children Harold Robert Schuller was born to Anthony and Jennie Schuler in 1926 the Schuler's were a Dutch descent and like most everyone else in Alton Iowa worshiped at the Protestant Dutch Reformed Church my dad was a gentle man he was so humble very kind yes yeah mom was a wonderful person too but you headed to the mark with mom Robert inherited his commanding personality from his mother Jenny she was a confident outgoing woman and Robert too showed few signs of Midwestern reticence he knew how to talk and and to show off despite Roberts gregarious nature the family had no real social life the only respite from chores was Church the Calvinist sect was a stark and strict as an Iowa winter and in the Schuler's home it dictated daily routine we'd always sit at a table as a family and have devotions Scripture prayer before and after I was a must always never filled the pride of the devout family was Roberts Uncle Henry Henry was a missionary to China and in a town where most residents had never even seen Chicago Uncle Henry was as mysterious as a movie star he met me at the farmgate and he says so sure Robert are you you're going to be a preacher you grow up and he was my hero and he was a missionary in China if he said it he knew something I didn't know so I bought it hook line and sinker the trap was set and from that moment on Robert never wanted to be anything else but then he wasn't exposed to many other possibilities were not allowed out of that cotton house I don't think we ever owned the DECA cars we're not allowed to and we didn't never radio ate it for a long time in a year didn't even in a radio the Schuler's family church frowned on frivolous pursuits and preached John Calvin's 16th century theology well he grew up with a sense of man being unworthy of God in other words a Newark general unworthiness sense of sin a need for salvation ordinary labor was honored as a means of proving one's Worth and every day on the Iowa farm no matter what the weather there were cows to be milked and tended by the young Robert Schuller he found he had a captive audience there was a time when he had to go get the cows and back at the pasture and he wasn't coming back well the cars are coming home but he wasn't but he was out and back at the past year yet sitting on top of a high bank and pretending he was a preacher he preached to the cows and practiced his delivery by bellowing sermons across the Floyd River all agreeing young Robert wasn't cut out for farming you can usually tell if the kid is would make a good farmer or not he would really stick out his hand and help right away and Bob didn't do that in school Robert wasn't much liked his quiet farm boy friends he wasn't sought-after in sports but in debating drama and singing he was a standout outgoing and confident with a playful sense of humor he would play any role on the stage even that of a woman he made good grades and in 1943 was accepted at Hope College in Holland Michigan to pursue his dream of ministry Schuler paid his way working as a janitor and picking up laundry at the dormitories Robert came home for the summer of 1945 the family farm was hit with a calamity of biblical proportions we were just home a little while and the tornado dropped in the distance we saw it coming there you couldn't mistake it it was like a slithering snake waving with its head preparing to strike the tornado blew everything away everything there was nothing I mean nothing as if the huge vacuum it come and taken it all and then my dad hit the steering wheel with both fists my dad gets out of the car and he said violet I lost everything I don't have anything anymore he said well we still have the land coolers father bought a broken-down old farmhouse for $50 and pulled apart the nails and shingles and used the parts to build a new home out of nine families who lost their farms the Schuler's were the only family to rebuild his family's resilience would become a recurring theme in Schuler sermons Schuler graduated Hoch College with a degree in psychology and prizes for oratory he entered the Western Theological Seminary also in Michigan in 1947 now he spent his summers in the pulpit traveling Iowa as a substitute preacher Bob Schuler hadn't given much thought to girls but one warm spring morning in 1948 he opened a church door and found a pretty teenage girl playing the organ her name was Arvella de Haan a little while later he comes over to me and he says are Villa de Haan he said man he said I was in church and I met her Villa de Haan does she go with anybody no I don't think so well man do you think she'd go with me I kind of think wouldn't be any problem that very night he wrote a friend that he had met the girl he wanted to marry when Robert returned to the seminary that fall he began to court Arvella in a relentless letter-writing campaign he even risked suspension by cutting classes to go home and visit her he'd spent all of his janitors savings on a diamond ring and asked me to marry him and I said maybe I didn't say yes right away because I said I don't know how I don't know how to be a pastor's wife I had heard stories of how they expected you to be perfect so he sent me a book and in the book it said how she never wore makeup you wear black always her spotless house and and I said I can't be this kind of a person no thank you so then he had to convince me that I could just be me Robert graduated the seminary in and was ordained by the Reformed Church two weeks later he married are valid aha they planned on a conventional life in the conservative churches of their youth but the church Robert Schuller would build would defy all Convention as he had once preached to cows he would soon be preaching two cars at a drive-in movie theater by 1950 Robert Schuller was finally an ordained preacher but his first posting wasn't much to boast about he was called to a tired old Church in a Chicago suburb that only served 60 families Schuler and his young wife Arvella had their first child Sheila and barely enough money from milk I'm at one time they needed money I didn't know and no money for groceries so he found some postage stamps that he bought a probably roll of stamps and he thought I'll trade them in at the post office found out you can't do that what Robert Schuller could do was put his natural gift for salesmanship to work knocking on doors and persuading people to come to church in just five years he had doubled the congregation jewelers drive was noticed by the leadership of the Reformed Church they asked him to try to start a new congregation in California California at that time for us at least was kind of a wasteland he confessed to me that he had the same fear that I did which was that if he went to California nobody'd ever hear from him again nevertheless the Schuler's rented an organ packed up Sheila and their new baby Robert and set out for the west coast in 1955 Garden Grove California was a burgeoning new town serving an economic explosion in the Aeronautics and electronics industries Disneyland is your land well Disney was breaking ground in nearby Anaheim to serve up family entertainment orange groves were being uprooted for freeways and thousands transplanted families were arriving in their cars but Schuler faced tremendous obstacles there were only a handful of members of the Dutch Reformed Church in all of California and he was told it was impossible to find a Hall and Garden Grove to hold services in even if he did find anyone willing to attend in an exercise of what he'd later call possibility thinking Schuler pondered locations for services ranging from mortuaries to Masonic lodges he started making phone calls he struck out on nine out of ten of his possibilities for a meeting hall but the tenth possibility and the most outlandish was available the Orange County drive-in movie theater could be rented for $10 on Sunday mornings Schuler built a pulpit and a 15-foot cross to erect on top of the snack bar and bought a microphone and a trailer to haul our Vella's organ the Schuler's advertised at the drive-in between movies and handed out flyers all over town the ad said come as you are in the family car the church elders were not amused with a night before he was to begin his first service and the drive-in theater one of his neighboring pastors came by and said I can't believe you're doing this and Shirley said doing what he said you're holding church in a drive-in theater in that Passion Pit and so we were not only a weapon aah I don't know frightened but but really concerned because this was our denomination and realize that they're very embarrassed about this but it was too late I just kept encouraging my husband to let's do it let's find out you know if it isn't if it isn't good we'll drop it Schuler knew the appearance of success was as important as the real thing and he was afraid he'd be preaching to an empty parking lot so he invited a choir from another church to perform and requested that each member come in their own car to pack the lot Schuler's marketing paid off more than 50 cars showed up on that sunny Sunday morning in 1955 and the church collected their first offering of $86 week after week Arvella bravely played along whatever the weather later on in one of the Sundays we had a Santa Ana wind and the trailer tipped over and I held on to the organ and my music went flying but it was fun Mina I think immediately because of the people who came there was a lady who had loaded her husband in the car he had six months left to live from cancer and she made a bed for him in the backseat of his car so we just right away had people who needed they'd arrive in the church elders backed off that Schuler's experiment began to succeed Schuler christened his new ministry the Garden Grove Community Church it was generic labeling designed to be non-threatening he discovered that the driving appealed to a great many who hadn't set foot inside a church in years who wanted to worship almost anonymously I put on my jeans and my t-shirt and headed off to Garden Grove I think it was for me at the time like a private way to worship God and I didn't have to prepare for it drove in did my own little thing drove out like his uncle had before him sure became a missionary in a strange land going door-to-door he did his own primitive market research polling people about what they wanted in a church and some of these people like himself and like us were transplants to California and for a lot of people it was an opportunity to begin life in you and as you wanted it to be I can go to church if I want to or I can forget it if I want to Shuler decided that calling people sinners would only drive them away literally his sermons began to accentuate the positive good news about God's love I was raised with thou shalt nots then thou shalt you know everything was a sin life was a sin almost and to go from that position to knowing that God loves you and hearing that a lot was very very refreshing and hopeful Schuler began to draw people who had forgotten or abandoned their own religious traditions and were attracted to his positive guilt-free approach he had found his market niche and soon the parking lot was overflowing in just a year's time he was able to parlay several small donations into a down payment on a small new traditional Chapel just a few miles from the driver Reverend Schuler could finally get off the roof of the snack bar but as it turned out many members of the congregation still preferred the drive-in so now Schuler preached two sermons a day one indoors and one out but Schuler now had a vision of even greater expansion to attract attention he knew he needed a big drawing card a national celebrity the going gets tough let the tough get going another Dutch Reformed minister dr. norman vincent peale was the best-selling author of the power of positive thinking Shuler idolized him and quoted his work often he sent Pele an invitation to preach in California in his letter he craftily described his beautiful outdoor church neglecting to mention that it was in a drive-in theater or didn't make any difference to Norman Bob Schuler had had some signs made Norman Vincent Peale in the drive-in theater on Sunday and a date given and he put these on the telephone poles all the way up the highway I thought my goodness sakes he knows how to advertise more than 2,000 cars jammed into the lot baking in 90-degree heat for Norman Vincent Peale what what a Sunday the entire drive-in was filled all of the cars and then we didn't have enough room there was a backup down the freeway there was one freeway five all the way through and that was backed up for miles this morning look out over this vast assembly of people of Southern California this is a great experience and I'm very happy to be here the event was a high-water mark for the congregation Heels presence gave Schuler's ministry the affirmation he had been looking for and the Garden Grove Community Church underwent another burst of growth the response fueled Schuler's instinct to adopt peels positive thinking but he had to come up with his own name for it Schuler made a slight alteration and called his theology possibility thinking one time I had a little conversation with him and I said now look Bob norman vincent peale has positive thinking and robert schuller has possibility thinking so you both go along parallel but you have a different phrase that you use when Schuler sermons steered away from the subject of sin some conservative church members thought was diluting the message but the unchurched californians he was courting loved it he was now in full flight from his Iowa upbringing in 1958 Arvella gave birth to another baby girl Jean though the family was living more comfortably on a minister's salary they were by no means well-off and Schuler seemed to never stop working there were times when I'd like to go golfing with him or so but as he says he does he has no time for golf he never really turns off Church it's never turned off and the Reverend was frustrated he was exhausted from running from Chapel to drive in and the congregation's were jealous of each other and growing apart it was at that time and I remember him going through this where he would just just walk around the house he would just lie on the sofa and just think and think and say I don't know how I'm gonna solve this problem Schuler even considered leaving the ministry altogether he needed an inspirational idea to save his ministry he came up with an ambitious new building plan the same service would be held in the pews and the parking lot new freeway friendly real-estate would cost the church more than 66 thousand dollars and a tab that high had to bring criticism oh you're just your motives are all you just want to build something big for yourself you want to build a monument for yourself and question his motives about this the congregation held a special meeting and almost half voted against him the next morning Schuler received the resignations of most of his staff and I was too crushed I stood up and prayed I don't remember the words all I can remember was something came into my brain it was a verse from the New Testament Jesus said I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it but I heard it like I had never heard it I heard it with the emphasis on I will build my church it's not yours sharor it's mine Wow and I said okay Lord and I pointed to my desk chair and said do it may I take a vacation and I heard yes go ahead Shuler told his board that from now on Jesus Christ was the chairman of the board and to demonstrate his point he left an empty chair for him at meetings few could argue that Schuler's ego was at stake if the new Church was the will of Jesus whether through divine intervention or strategic savvy Schuler would build his new Church in November of 1961 Robert Schuller dedicated his walk in drive-in Church it was a sweeping glass structure that like the drive-in welcomed in the sky above half the congregation was inside and fused the rest listened to the sermon on the am dial of their car radios the church had 1700 parking spaces Schuler called it a shopping center for God but the combination church and drive-in was no tacky compromise Shore had commissioned Richard Neutra a visionary modern architect to realize his inspiration Schuler was again banking on the hope that the appearance of success would more success and the church did look sleek and successful and so did the Reverend this is the day that God has made let us rejoice and be glad in it he was thinner and he had had no surgery to alleviate a swelling condition he blamed on his poor diet as a youth the Schuler family continued to prosper as well in 1965 and 1967 two more daughters Carol and Gretchen arrived making a family of seven within two years the walk-in drive-in church had grown so fast that sure was preaching to one thousand people every Sunday I thought it was one of the California fads and however I wanted to return again because of the message as his new church began to thrive Schuler's message was becoming more finely tuned with God all things are possible instead of the message of man's unworthiness he'd received in his own childhood Church Schuler began to celebrate strong self-esteem change your mental environment and you change everything the message being that the human dilemma is no more serious than a little bit of tinkering with self-esteem when fix and above all God really loves us God is somebody you can plug into like a power line or God is somebody who can call on who will help us like ourselves a lot and give us things good things and above all to be a success and practicing this what we call in this church possibility thinking obstacles become opportunities irritations become invitations to be higher and better and bigger than you've ever been before and Schuler practiced what he preached in 1967 he published his first book move ahead with possibility thinking sales were so strong it is still in print today Schuler had a knack for the snappy phrase that slogans maybe Germans palatable and easily memorable and he can turned the hurt into a halo the star into his star the reverends one-liners turned out to be crowd pleasers but he sought an even broader audience he consulted with Reverend Billy Graham's television producer and made another risky decision to put his own church on TV however Schuler knew nothing about the business so he turned to his wife but he said there's one thing I need from you I would need you to run it and I said you want it and he said you've got to do it cuz he said you know worship you know music I don't know how to think about television nobody could learn with Eddie turn around and walked out of the house welcome to an hour of power with Arvella as the executive producer Shula went on the air in 1970 from his sparkling telegenic glass church already the master of distilling spirituality into sound bytes the grey robed minister was a natural we have a major problem of mental pollution of negative thinking Schuler himself compared his TV program to religious kindergarten life can be different life can be better life can be wonderful religious observers have agreed the fair is light it's the equivalent of McDonald's you go you get what you want and you leave you make no connections with anybody in the building let's see that's pretty darn good because that's basic you got to give them the basic stuff give me a hamburger don't try it making it a French restaurant Getty solid food cheap that's good for me God could come down this morning and present a beautiful golden gift to you and if you could open it out with tumble to words it's possible it's a very salable set of ideas that he's putting forward it's just that they don't have anything to do with Christianity I mean if you want to hang out a shingle and say I'm selling feel-good theology and you can come but I'm fine but just don't call it Christianity yet even though Schuler seemed to be moving away from his Calvinist roots members of his dutch reformed denominations supported their most famous son since norman vincent peale times change and we do change and i think that he is just creating a new vocabulary a new language for the presentation of the Christian message the hour of power was a powerful conduit for Schuler's message and the best advertisement for his beautiful church again the membership balloon and Schuler began to feel the walk in drive-in Church was increasingly inadequate in size the man who had begun life as a simple Dutch farmer's son wanted to build his own american cathedral and he wanted philip johnson one of the master Modern architects of the 20th century to design it as usual Robert Schuller knew exactly what he wanted I wanted the dim religious look he wanted the parking lot look he said to the ministry Philip is something where you connect with the world it's the thing with the connector of everyday life this is I preached all these years from the top of a truck to a pioneer parking lot so I know what that feeling is it's can contact people in the most primitive way the model Johnson constructed was light and airy based on the shape of a star with 10,000 window panes made of leaded glass Shuler was ecstatic and he named it the Crystal Cathedral it wasn't crystal nor technically even a Cathedral but it was a catchy name Schuler had told Johnson not to be limited by cost because he didn't have the money yet anyway now he had to raise it an estimated 15 million dollars from scratch in the 1970s Robert Schuller's our of power dominated religious programming more than a million viewers tuned in each Sunday the hour of power provided Schuler with the perfect forum to promote his latest dream building a Crystal Cathedral the price tag was initially estimated at 15 million dollars Reverend Schuler would ask donors to buy Windows for five hundred dollars each with their names inscribed the difference would be made up by individuals donating 1 million dollars each he started talking about his idea on TV and parenthetically pause now for station identification if there is anybody that wants to give a million dollars we will with great humility accepted the donations started to arrive and bundles and ground was broken in 1976 Schuler ran a smooth fundraising operation that was computerized early on from the beginning letters were carefully screened and sorted by paid professionals to ensure personal replies to those that required it the ministry consistently received an average of 20,000 letters a week most containing donations during the construction of the Crystal Cathedral Schuler's world seemed blessed but he was about to do his share of suffering in 1978 his family faced an horrific tragedy his 13 year old daughter carol was in a motorcycle accident the athletic teenager had her leg amputated below the knee Carol's long and painful recuperation was a heavy strain on the whole family especially on her mother now I was so weak I'd gone down to 80 some pounds and I was five seven um she had to lift me in and out of the bathtub she had to wash me she had to when I did come home to look at her and I think all she was just so taxed Arvella and Robert basically lived at the hospital with their daughter the same year Arvella was struck with breast cancer and underwent a mastectomy I think my breast cancer came though because of Carol I really believe that and it was because of the pain that we had to witness day after day month after month Schuler would often share his family's troubles with the hour of power audience we got in an accident and um and you you landed the ditch mm-hmm and before I go any further I think I have to say whose idea was it the fewer to be my guest today fine yeah your car's yeah was it my idea you're doing terrific and I mean do you do you have anything you want to share with him well all I can say is is keep on turning your scars into stars and I didn't prompt that line will you please tell the bed I didn't tell you to say anything are you right right at the time Schuler was also under enormous pressure to raise an extra five million dollars needed to complete the crystal cathedral despite his family's crises Schuler kept calling on donors and pushing towards his goal he's still go to work get on with the job and that's not being Noble that's not being extraordinary his just milking the cows I gotta get built never been a farmer who's kept milking because his wife died that morning within a year Schuler had raised the funds he needed to finish his Cathedral on May 13th 1980 the Crystal Cathedral opened its 90-foot doors it was an architectural triumph that heralded a new era in Schuler's ministry the parking lot preacher had created a new American phenomena the megachurch and it could seat 2700 worshipers in the end the Crystal Cathedral had cost more than twenty million dollars the church has defended itself from critics of the cost people look at that and say twenty million dollars for a building why why not give it to the poor you gave twenty million dollars to the poor to be gone tomorrow this will stand I hope for hundreds of years and will be an instrument to raise a lot more than twenty million dollars for God's work the account books for the Crystal Cathedral came under scrutiny by California tax authorities in 1983 because Schuler had claimed religious exemptions for money-making activities held at the church aerobics classes and psychotherapy were questioned as were the Christmas pageants extravaganzas the shows were so popular that the Crystal Cathedral used ticketron to handle sales the church's tax-exempt status was temporarily lifted but considering the church was taking in more than thirty million dollars yearly it could have easily paid the property taxes in question we had a right to check out today I would put our heads together we'd have a little prayer and we'd come up with the check I have no doubt about that the state eventually ruled in favor of the Crystal Cathedral and all the fines were returned now Schuler began churning out inspirational bestsellers year after year and stopped accepting a Church salary though he would not disclose his income he was living well on book royalties and fees for motivational speeches that commanded up to twenty thousand dollars for an event that's what he was paid to cheer up laid off General Motors workers in Flint Michigan at the bottom of the recession which America saw in the cynical documentary Roger in me times last but tough people do just because you've got problems excuse to be unhappy Schuler's own tough times were coming to an end our Vella and Carroll both had remarkable recoveries and Carol even became an expert skier and in 1984 she carried the Olympic torch with pride but the period of stability for the Schuler's was not to last long and we hope all of the people we love so much will forgive us in 1987 sex scandals struck televangelism big name TV preachers Jim and Tammy Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart came under fire for corruption suddenly every television ministry was suspect we lost probably 25 percent of our audience and 25 percent of our income overnight the press zeroed in on the Crystal Cathedral how much damage has what happened to Jim and Tammy Bakker and what has happened more recently to Jimmy Swaggart how much damage has that done to Christian ministry as a whole I happen to believe that enormous and probably irreparable damage has been done but but despite many probes and public forums no wrongdoing at the Crystal Cathedral was uncovered and Robert Schuler rode out the crisis and standby in the bail standby to dissolve cross and by 1988 the hour of power had 2.5 million viewers in the United States and was the most-watched religious TV program and Schuler's feel-good message was making him a certified celebrity and raising his public profile but Reverend Schuler was on the verge of gaining power well beyond the pulpit is all mean bells now as he approached his 70th birthday Reverend Robert Schuller was spending more and more time globe-trotting to build his international audience by 1990 the hour of power was even the most-watched program in the Soviet Union Esther Schuler Elliott sir probably come if I'm at the skid circuit is conforming Yoshii Schuler was robust and in good health then in 1991 during a visit to Amsterdam a simple bump on the head getting into a car almost ended his life rushing to the hospital he was in a coma and they did a brain scan and he had this tremendous subdural hematoma and they said we're an apt operator he's gonna die the church board held an emergency meeting and designated Schuler's son Robert Anthony now also a minister to take over the ministry recovery and rehabilitation took almost a year he was like cerebral palsy when we took him home he couldn't really walk couldn't remember he didn't know people and then meanwhile our board was saying you must get him in front of the cameras because people will wonder is he okay and so we had that that was a tremendous amount of tension I think and to get him up in front of the cameras and I have to tell you I stand before you today as the only minister that's had his brain vacuumed there were some negative thoughts I couldn't get out any other ways so I said well let's give it a vacuum job Reverend Schuler was soon back in the public eye which increasingly meant mixing with the stars of politics because if you want the president again you get elected I want to make sure you remember I treated you well that's what you call possibility thinking yes throughout his career Schuler had remained pointedly a politically and non controversial on the pulpit but he had befriended politicians and presidents from all sides much of America was unaware of the influence Schuler had quietly amassed that would change on Christmas Eve 1994 President Clinton was in a valley of his presidency the Republicans had just swept Congress and his popularity was ebbing on impulse Schuler picked up the phone and called the White House switchboard the president returned the call within an hour the president is not one to ignore someone who has such a large audience and I think that's why he called back the two hit it off immediately and Clinton invited Schuler to the White House there is a kind of relationship between the two they both speak highly therapeutic language president feels your pain Schuler's Christianity is basically a pain reliever for Clinton's second inauguration Schuler sent him one of his favorite Bible verses and at the State of the Union address Reverend Schuler was seated next to the first lady one of our country's best-known pastors Reverend Robert Schuler suggested that I read isaiah 58:12 and thou shalt be called the repairer of the breach was totally impulse so I am a person of divine destiny I think I was divinely directed he was talking about building bridges I took him at his word that would provoke the subconscious to think of this Bible text you shall be called a repair of the breach and a restore of the past to dwell in Schuler had previously been inspired to share the verse with Jesse Jackson and Yasser Arafat but the president embraced it as his own quoted the verse frequently and said it inspired him to reach out to Bob Dole after the election and award him the Medal of Freedom with Schuler's growing fame came adverse publicity a spat with a United Airlines steward wasn't settled on board but went to court a male flight attendant pressed charges against Schuler for allegedly shaking his shoulders during an argument over the contents of a fruit plate as a result of this assault I have suffered injuries both physically and psychologically and have been unable to return to work to the work that I love or even go to the airport for fear that I might be assaulted again Schuler made an apology and paid a small fine of eleven hundred dollars to the Federal Aviation Administration the steward sued the Reverend anyway asking for five million dollars the poor publicity hardly slowed him down today the Crystal Cathedral is rapidly buying up neighboring real estate with plans for a full-service entertainment center that will include a movie theater food courts and the ever-important mega-sized parking lots and in a surprising development Robert Schuller stopped calling himself a Christian after bought a quote follower of Christ by rejecting the Christian label in favor of the more generic follower of Christ he hoped to appeal to non-christians in a global television market and that's why Muslims by the millions are my friends through my television audience that's why Roman Catholics a millions it's simply to increase in audience I go back to Saint Jerome avoid like the plague a clergyman who was also a man of business yet few doubted his message would be spread ever wider least of all Reverend Shore so I think that religion in the next century is breaking loose I think then I am going to shape it I hope I will have that power because I know we could create a community of people of faith who will get off of there collision course into a coalition of working together to turn human beings into being beautiful people Robert Schuller always had a keen sense of the mood of the times and his vision for the next century will predictably capture the prevailing currents I think we are living in a bull market for spirituality I would guess that he's tapped into it intuitively he simply found a way into the American spirit Robert Schuller's favorite song is The Impossible Dream appropriate for this is a man who has spent his life having impossible dreams and making them come true and inspiring the rest of us to do the same he hopes his son Robert will take over his ministry one day but not for a while Robert Schuller would like to continue in the pulpit for another 10 years into his 80s

Channel: Greg Griffin

Views: 45,461

Keywords: Biography (TV Program), A&E (TV Network), Robert H. Schuller, Crystal Cathedral (Place Of Worship), Robert Schuller

Id: U4nYEf8F-9g

Length: 45min 44sec (2744 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 25 2015