Crystal Cathedral: Robert A. Schuller Says Sibling Rivalry Fueled Downfall

Attendees sparsely fill the seats at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, Calif., where it was announced Sunday, March 11, 2012, that the congregation will no longer be holding services at the current location. The church sold its iconic glass-paned cathedral to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange last month to emerge from federal bankruptcy protection. (AP Photo/The Orange County Register, Mindy Schauer)

By Adelle M. Banks
Religion News Service

(RNS) As the Crystal Cathedral tries to find its footing without any members of founder Robert H. Schuller's family at the helm, the only son and one-time successor says "sibling rivalry" played a key role in the California megachurch's decline.

"They didn't want to be accountable to me, their brother," said Robert A. Schuller, the church's former senior pastor, of his sisters and brothers-in-law, some of who were board members and ministry staffers. He chalked it up to "sibling rivalry."

"So they took steps into their own hands to make sure that they had job security."

In an interview Monday (March 19), Robert A. Schuller, 57, said his siblings took advantage of his father's signs of dementia and halted the younger Schuller's 2006 succession to his father's ministry within two years. He left the gleaming megachurch in 2008.

The onetime heir apparent said the memory of his 85-year-old father has been failing for at least 10 years.

"My sisters were able to manipulate that because of his mental capacities," said Schuller, now co-owner of YouToo TV, a television and social media network. "It was the demise of the ministry."

Family members could not immediately be reached for comment. Schuller's parents recently resigned from the ministry they founded more than 50 years ago over financial disputes with the board. Their daughter, former Crystal Cathedral Senior Pastor Sheila Schuller Coleman, started a new church in an Orange, Calif., movie theater on Sunday (March 18) and it is scheduled to meet at a nearby hotel for the next four weeks.

Schuller said the ministry his father led was able to thrive without the glass-walled building for which it became known, and its prime years began in the 1970s, before the large edifice was dedicated. He thinks business decisions to focus on the "Hour of Power" television show and to not have an independent board led to the ministry's decline.

But he nevertheless believes both Coleman's new congregation and the current congregation at the cathedral -- which had a significantly larger attendance last Sunday than the week before when his sister was still there -- could continue.

The cathedral worshippers will have to move within three years after the megachurch campus was sold in bankruptcy proceedings to the Catholic Diocese of Orange, Calif.

"I think there's definitely a potential there for a congregation to survive without the Crystal Cathedral," he said. "The congregation is the people. It's not the building."

And he also thinks family-run ministries can survive, despite the inherent risks.

"I think family-run ministries are fabulous but they have to be placed in proper governance," he said, noting that potential big donors were uncomfortable with the way Crystal Cathedral Ministries was run.

The younger Schuller has attended his son's church in Orange, and said he has been invited to preach a sermon at Crystal Cathedral. Steve Yount, a spokesman for the ministry, said the new board chairman, John Charles, was not aware of any such discussions.

Schuller also said he is willing to serve as an adviser and might be open to helping the troubled church in other ways.

"I'm willing to do whatever I can to assist, but I just want to make sure that whatever participation I had was going to help and not hinder anything," he said.

Schuller's new book, "When You Are Down to Nothing, God is Up to Something," uses the ministry as Exhibit A in every chapter to guide others through unexpected personal loss.

"It would be as if a surgeon lost his eyesight and could no longer perform surgery -- that's where I was in my life," he said. "It was devastating. From that period of pain I had to reinvent myself and that's what I've done."

Schuller said he didn't speak to family members for 18 months, but he now sees his parents regularly and talks with his siblings periodically.

"It's not good to hold onto grudges," he said. "Even though they've done this, it's kind of like over now and time to move on."

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly said that Robert H. Schuller made the comment about sibling rivalry leading to the downfall of the Crystal Cathedral. The comment was made by his son, Robert A. Schuller

Comments

[mneff07]

03:24 PM on 06/17/2012

Sibbling rivalry has been occureing since Cain and Able. Just rember Nepitism is not a good thing in any business.

[lewtag]

07:28 PM on 06/13/2012

This is not the first time God has raised up a ministry and then brought it down...I refer to God as generator, operator, and destroyer of churches as well as everything else in the universe...the Old Testament declares, “... though you build your nest high as the eagle, I will bring you down.” (Jeremiah 49:16, Obadiah 1:4) Can you believe that? The New Testament is full of similar claims...“The stone the builders rejected has become the capstone and a stone that causes men to stumble and a rock that makes them fall. They stumble because they disobey the message, which is also what they were destined for.” (1 Peter 2:7-8) If God rules our destiny, what power have we to control it...which leads me to believe in Theofatalism..google it for all the details...

[Renee Dowling]

08:53 AM on 06/04/2012

Got God?

[Paul Fullerton]

12:21 AM on 04/05/2012

I miss Robert senior,s son.It,s a shame when families fall apart,i know. I knocked my own family apart.I loved to watch Crystal C, for 17 years and it was the only show i watched on sunday morning.I wish this family all that the Lord has to offer them and i will pray for them all.

[Clevelandinwi]

07:40 PM on 03/24/2012

Oh, what seeds we sow!

[jmndodge]

09:04 AM on 03/24/2012

One of Robert H. Schuller's principles was that in making church decisions the leadership team came together for vigorous debate, but once the decision was made, a second vote was taken, and that vote was unanimous. If you still disagreed and could/would not go along with the decision you resigned from you leadership position. While that was very effective in the first generation, and kept the congregation moving in a single direction -- it is not so easy for the heirs of a ministry to follow that principle. Come to think of it, as appealing as that principle was to a young pastor, I don't have any personal experience with lay church leaders who just automatically went along with every decision. Some who got made and quit, a few who were gifted followers, but never leaders who just automatically agreed.

[SecularAdvocate]

04:17 PM on 03/23/2012

The fancier the snake oil hut, and the more fancy writing you put on the bottle, the more profit you make from snake oil sales.

Hallelujah!

[Neil20]

10:03 AM on 03/23/2012

The problem is that tele-evangelists have turned religion into big business. God is never into business deals. Lack of God's presence has led the Crystal Cathedral authorities to sell the marvelous structure to another powerful business house,more precisely a corporate, that sells religion- the Roman Catholic church. This is called religious capitalism where big religious sharks eat smaller religious sharks. Nowhere in the Gospel or in the writings of Paul and others are indications of such predatory religious behavior. The rivalry in the Schuller family was due to personal egos,ambitions, the pursuit of wealth and greed and the forsaking of humility which is the hallmark of true spirituality. In fact, there was no spirituality indicated in the Schuller ministry at any time. If Americans do not change their outlook on tele-evangelism and mega-ministries and, at the same time, bring about genuine spiritual rejuvenation in their ministry then many such bodies will meet a similar fate with the manipulative and greedy Roman Catholic 'Jaws' ever ready to pounce on the spectacular properties of bankrupt TV evangelists.

[SDGypsy]

02:47 AM on 03/23/2012

Though I am not a religious person, both Schuller and Graham were men that tried to be spiritual beacons even with their millions, their offsprings not so much.

[Just walkin the dog here]

04:35 PM on 03/22/2012

Most businesses involving too many family members fail also. This business is no different.

[Luv2Purple]

02:51 PM on 03/22/2012

doesn't sound very godly does it?

[MBADNACONSULT]

02:37 PM on 03/22/2012

Headline should reference Robert A. Schuller, not Robert H. Schuller