Another Note On Dr. Robert H. Schuller And The Crystal Cathedral, in Garden Grove, California

Some months ago, we wrote something on Doctor Robert Schuller's book, "Love Yourself," and asked for some to test their ability to distinguish between modern, humanistic error and balanced biblical truth. We do this kind of thing to try to stir up Christians who are so lethargic that they do not know anything about being fit to serve as lights in the world of our day. It is terrifying to see how indifferent most people who set the course and control the spending of Churches are about the issues we are called to meet.

Well, we did not, until now, get any response to our call, except from one or two who said, "Please give us more simple truth about this man and his doctrine, because some of our church people are greatly taken up with his television show. At last, we have one article such as many need. It is from Professor H.C. Hoeksema of Grand Rapids, Michigan. He writes about another of Schuller's books which is also sold in so-called evangelical book stores. He says, "Probably like many others,, I always tended to think of Robert H. Schuller, of the well-known Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, as just another of the several mass-evangelists in our country. He is touted as such. His congregation is said to number 10,000; and his television program, "The Hour of Power," it is claimed, is the most widely watched broadcast of all televised church services. Though I never paid much attention to reports about his high-powered operation, I had a vague impression that his name was connected with the phrase "possibility thinking." For the rest, I had a rather vague idea that, like most of the crusade-type evangelists, he probably came with an Arminian message.

Recently, however, (like many clergymen whose names found their way to his mailing list) I received a book by Schuller: Self-Esteem, The New Reformation.

While reading in this book, I changed my mind about Robert Schuller.

Not for better, but for worse.

Mr. Schuller, I believe, cannot even be classed with those who are sometimes called "evangelicals" in a broad and loose sense, evangelicals of an Arminian bent.

In fact, I do not hesitate to say that he presents "another gospel." And my reference in using this term is to what the Apostle Paul writes in Galatians 1:6-8:

"I marvel that ye are so soon removed from Him that called you into the grace of Christ unto another gospel: Which is not another; but there be some that trouble you, and would pervert the gospel of Christ. But though we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed."

When Mr. Schuller speaks of "The New Reformation," he means what he says. He means that we must abandon the Reformation of Luther and Calvin, with its principles, and replace it with something new and different. Just as surely as Luther and Calvin broke radically in the Reformation with the teachings of Rome, so surely Schuller's "New Reformation" purposes to break with the doctrines of the Reformation and to replace them with new and strange doctrines.

Let me cite some shocking samples from this new book.

"For the church to address the unchurched with a theocentric attitude is to invite failure in mission. The non-churched who have no vital belief in a relationship with God will spurn, reject, or simply ignore the theologian, church spokesperson, preacher, or missionary who approaches with bible in hand, theology on the brain and the lips, and expects nonreligious persons to suspend their doubts and swallow the theocentric assertions as fact. The unconverted will, I submit, take notice when I demonstrate genuine concern about their needs and honestly care about their human hurts." p. 12.

"The scales must tip the other way. It was appropriate for Calvin and Luther to think theocentrically. After all, 'Everyone was in the church' and the issues were theological, not philosophical. For them, the central issue was, 'What is the truth in theology?' The reformers didn't have to impress the unchurched so there was no need for them to take the 'human needs' approach ....

"Time and history have changed all that. Today the sincere, Christian believer is a minority. So the church must be willing to die as a church and be born again as a mission. We cannot speak out with a 'Thus saith the Lord' strategy when we are talking to people who couldn't care less about the Lord!" pp. 12, 13.

In answer to the question, "What do I mean by sin?" he offers this:

"I can offer still another answer: 'Sin is any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self-esteem.' 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. 'My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?' was Christ's encounter with hell. In that 'hellish' death our Lord experienced the ultimate horror — humiliation, shame, and loss of pride as a human being. A person is in hell when he has lost his self-esteem . . ." pp. 14, 15.

Here is his definition of self-esteem: "Self-esteem is the human hunger for the divine dignity that God intended to be our emotional birthright as children created in His image." p. 15.

"Yes, what we need in the worldwide Christian church today is nothing less than a new reformation. Where the sixteenth-century Reformation returned our focus to sacred Scriptures as the only infallible rule for faith and practice, the new reformation will return our focus to the sacred right of every person to self-esteem! The fact is, the church will never succeed until it satisfies the human being's hunger for self-value." p. 38.

"The core of original sin, then is LOT — Lact 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. If this were so, then truly, the human being is totally depraved. But 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." p. 67.

"No theology of salvation, no theology of the church, no theology of Christ, no theology of sin and repentance and regeneration and sanctification and discipleship, can be regarded as authentically Christian if it does not begin with and continue to keep its focus on the right of every person to be treated with honor, dignity, and respect. At the same time, any creed, any biblical interpretation, and any systematic theology that assaults and offends the self-esteem of persons is heretically failing to be truly Christian no matter how interlaced, interfaced, or undergirded it might be with biblical references . . ." pp. 135, 136.

Examples equally as shocking could be multiplied.

It does not require much discernment to detect that my characterization of Schuller's book is correct. It is indeed "another gospel," not the gospel of the Scriptures, that he brings!"

 

Kathryn Kuhlman, Queen of Charismatics Left Treasures Behind

From "The Path of Life" July-August, 1978.

Under dateline of February 4, and under the title, More Faith Than Charity, the Washington Star printed the following story:

While laying on hands, evangelist Kathryn Kuhlman was also laying up treasures worth $732,543, according to a final Pittsburgh court's inventory of the faith healer's estate. Beneficiaries included an Oklahoma car dealer, two sisters, a sister-in-law and 20 employees, but nothing for the foundation in her name. The estate included a $130,000 home, $94,000 in jewelry, $187,350 in Pittsburgh banks, $51,000 in valuable antiques as well as other furnishings, and a Russian sable coat and a leopard coat worth a total of $5,500. Despite Kuhlman's professed faith in a divine cure, most of her $150",000 in debts resulted from medical care before dying more than a year ago.

 

Previous Article Summer 2003 Front Page Next Article