Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Robert Schuller "Ministries" ... Spiritually Bankrupt, and Now Financially Bankrupt.



I normally don't smile at another person's or group's misfortune; but when I read that Robert Schuller's church, The Crystal Cathedral, had filed for bankruptcy, I actually found myself smiling at the news. As one who's been aware of Schullers false gospel/non-gospel for quite some time, to him I simply say "good riddance". Only God knows the legions of people this man has led astray with his positive-thinking/self-esteem pseudo-gospel.

In his excellent article Bankruptcy in the Cathedral, R. Albert Mohler, Jr states:

“Possibility Thinking” was Schuller’s central message. He told his fellow preachers not to worry about repeating themselves in sermons, insisting that every message (he did not like to call his messages “sermons”) must be about the development of a positive mental outlook.

Though ordained in the Reformed Church in America, Schuller minimized historic Christian orthodoxy and stressed instead the message of positive thinking. In his 1982 book, Self-Esteem: The New Reformation, Schuller explicitly replaced the message of salvation from sin with a message of rescue from low self-esteem. In his 2001 autobiography, My Journey, Schuller told of the massive influence of Dale Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale on his thinking and theology. He told of his decision early in his ministry to replace theology with therapy. “I realized that every sermon I preached (whether formally from the pulpit or casually at a coffee shop) should be designed, not to ‘teach’ or ‘convert’ people, but rather to encourage them, to give them a lift. I decided to adopt the spirit, style, strategy, and substance of a ‘therapist’ in the pulpit.”


The church filing for bankruptcy is the ultimate irony of course, since they've been theologically bankrupt for decades! Of course, Schuller is one of many such "therapists"/"motivational speakers" in America's pulpits who have chosen to preach self help and pop psychology, rather than the cross of Jesus Christ. Would to God that they would go bankrupt also, but unfortunatly many of them are flourishing.May God open the eyes of his people to discern truth from error.
Amen .

For anyone who wonders if Schuller's teachings are really that much in opposition to Biblical Christianity, I refer you to these two articles, just for starters: The Gospel According to Schuller,  and Robert Schuller's Distorted Doctrine.

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