'Hour of Power' televangelist Robert Schuller dies
He was number 103 on the list.
He was 88 years old.
Schuller, also the founder of Crystal Cathedral megachurch,
had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer in August 2013, a release from
"Hour of Power" said.
"My father-in-law passed away peacefully early this
morning. He was a great Dad and a great man of God," said Schuller's
daughter-in-law, Donna Schuller, in a Twitter message.
Schuller's life followed an almost Shakespearean arc. He was
born in a Iowa farmhouse without running water and longed to preach from his
earliest days. In his autobiography, "Prayer: My Soul's Adventure with
God," he described standing alone by a river and picturing himself
delivering sermons to a rapt congregation.
After attending a Hope College and Western Theological
Seminary in Michigan, he met his wife of more than 60 years, Arvella, while
preaching at her church (she was the organist). With their young family in tow,
the Schullers caravanned west to California, where he rented a drive-in theater
and preached from the roof of the snack bar. It was beneath the dignity of
Christian ministry, some local pastors huffed. The "passion pits"
where teenagers necked was no place for the gospel.
Schuller was undeterred, and he quickly outgrew the
drive-in. He called the explosive growth of his tiny congregation a
"miracle," though his many mainstream critics had other names for it.
His confident, breezy version of Christianity -- too breezy, by some
estimations -- drew hordes of seekers and lapsed Christians who were put off by
the hellfire fulminations of many post-War American preachers.
Schuller sold a softer, gentler message, which borrowed
heavily, he acknowledged, from the father of the feel-good gospel, Norman
Vincent Peale. He preached not to convert or condemn people, but to encourage
them, a sentiment he called "possibility thinking."
People loved it.
"Evangelicalism at its best wants to be innovative and
reach people," said Timothy Larsen, a professor of Christian thought at
Wheaton College in Illinois. "And Schuller was a master at that."
"What he got right is that the gospel is good
news," Larsen continued. "And he preached an uplifting message about
personal transformation and hope."
Some of Schuller's favored phrases, though, struck others as
cornpone Christianity.
"Turn your hurt into a halo?" said Randall Balmer,
a professor of American religious history at Dartmouth College, citing one such
phrase. "That's pretty weak tea."
Still, Balmer gives Schuller some credit. "It may be
bad theology, but it's brilliant marketing."
In 1970, Schuller began broadcasting "Hour of
Power," believed to be one of the first, if not the very first, Sunday
service to be shown regularly on television. With his genial smile, priestly
robes and gray hair, he looked and talked like a guy who wanted nothing more
than to see his flock succeed. The show, which ran for decades, reached
millions, making Schuller a televangelist before the term became tarnished by
the sins of his many successors.
Schuller's crowning achievement, at least architecturally,
still stands in Orange County, California, though it is now owned by the Roman
Catholic Church. The Crystal Cathedral, a great gleaming edifice with 10,000
glass panels, gave worshipers a look at the clouds that house the heavens,
while Schuller preached in the pulpit below. The message was clear to many: The
road to the former ran through the latter.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Schuller's star continued to
rise, with presidents stopping by the Crystal Cathedral -- often during
campaigns, it should be said -- and future megachurch pastors like Rick Warren
and Bill Hybels seeking his advice.
In a statement late Thursday, former President Bill Clinton
called Schuller a "beacon of faith, hope and love."
"We will always be grateful for his unfailing kindness
and wise counsel," Clinton continued. "In 1997, he sat with Hillary
at the State of the Union address as I asked Congress to follow his biblical
admonition to me—that we are all called to be 'the repairers of the breach' in
a divided world. Robert Schuller's generous spirit repaired many
breaches."
As Schuller aged, though, his family was beset by a succession
scandal straight from the pages of "King Lear." He tried to install
his only son, Bobby Jr., as pastor of Crystal Cathedral. But the preaching
styles of father and son were too different for the congregation -- measured at
times at 10,000 strong -- to countenance. Bobby Schuller Jr. left "Hour of
Power" and the pulpit at Crystal Cathedral after a short time.
As the family searched for a new successor and tussled over
finances, viewers and donations to the church and its television show dropped
precipitously. Crystal Cathedral Ministries filed for bankruptcy in 2010,
citing debts of more than $43 million, according to The Associated Press.
Schuller's empire, which once soared as high as his glassy cathedral, had
fallen to dust.
Eventually, Schuller's grandson, also named Bobby, took over
"Hour of Power," though at a different church. In a statement on
Thursday, the younger Schuller recalled standing atop Crystal Cathedral's
12-story Tower of Hope with his grandfather as they surveyed the surrounding
landscape.
"You could see the whole world from there," he
said.
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