The Roman Catholic Church is about to buy a beacon of Protestant televangelism.
The Crystal Cathedral, a temple of glass in Garden Grove, Calif., will be sold to the Catholic Church for $57 million ”” a decision that left some congregants furious and their future up in the air.
When the Crystal Cathedral declared bankruptcy last year, it soon became clear that the legendary building would have to be sold. There were several offers, but in the end, the church’s board favored the Catholic diocese in Orange County.
Sheila Schuller Coleman, the cathedral’s pastor, said in a videotaped message that it was the best way to save the church.
So the Crystal “Cathedral” will become a real cathedral with a bishop’s cathedra. Those with long memories may recall that long ago, when Robert Schuller bought the property in Orange County on which the glass wonder is built, it was offered by its owners first to the Jesuit Order, which decided not to buy it. So in a sense, the Catholic Church is finally getting what it was offered long ago.
A sad ending for a once flourishing ministry. There is an apt irony in Schuller’s brand of a shallow, “positive-thinking” gospel ending in disaster, for it always was a distorted, unbiblical kind of gospel that had no staying power. The demise of his TV-based church and the narcissistic message it promoted shows the wisdom of the ancient biblical maxim that “[i]Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall[/i].”
David Handy+