Christ Cathedral

in january 87 baker was about to break ground in fort mill on his biggest project ever a one and a quarter million square foot ministry center that was to be a replica of london's 19th century crystal palace with a price tag of a hundred million dollars in 1987 it would have been the biggest church in the world it's

interesting that um in in orange county california was the crystal cathedral which was what's his names

place.

Yes.

Robert Schuller.

Yes.

So there's the Crystal Palace and the Crystal Cathedral.

Everyone wanted to be crystal.

Well, Jimmy's gone to God.

Did they have the Crystal Cathedral?

I can't remember.

Oh, God, weren't they a couple of you of shifty, shonky-looking bloody television

I think my in-laws may have been at one of his drive-in churches.

Am I misremembering, Walt, Sherry? And then, of course, Crystal Cathedral is what he moves to, and the Hour of Power, a kind of new version of Norman Vincent Peale.

Fun fact, the Hour of Power today is broadcast by his grandson and out of his church, which was formerly Irvine Presbyterian Church.

And so if you turn it on, you'll see Bobby Schuler III, and he's speaking from the exact same place where I was both baptized and married.

Let me meet him." And, uh, I meet him in, in meeting rooms the same way.

Uh, I was looking, glancing down the list, uh, Dr. Robert Schuller, Hour of Power, uh, the, uh, Crystal Cathedral.

I had a friend who knew him, and he invited me down to spend the weekend or something.

I said, "I'll come on one condition.

and Mrs. Schuller, my wife, me, Danny Cox, his wife, having a w- Oh, cute story.

Uh, Danny Cox was very...

He was the leading layperson at the Crystal Cathedral, great speaker, real estate expert, et cetera.

But at church, he was the leading layman 'cause he liked to be in the front of the room doing things, and he said, "All right, we're gonna have...

One of the predecessors to the full seeker sensitive model was Robert Schuller.

Schuller became famous through the Crystal Cathedral in Southern California and through his television ministry, Hour of Power.

His theology and preaching were controversial in their own right, but his ministry demonstrated something that later evangelical pastors would develop in much further.

Church could be designed intentionally around the person who did not normally attend church.

Yes.

But, uh, but he said that when he went out and founded what became the Crystal Cathedral, he said that all the people moving to, to, to California, like there were-

Mm.

... a lot of them were coming from Texas, Oklahoma, et cetera.

So you're faced with a dilemma.

As we gorge ourselves around the table at dinnertime and drive our $20,000 cars and $10,000 cars and $2,000 cars and live in our fancy homes and our church buildings such as the Crystal Cathedral and the Mormon temple or our multi-million dollar superstructures with padded pews, air conditioning, heating, and fleets of Greyhound buses to carry us on our tours.

And if I mention your church, folks, I'm not trying to insult you.

I'm trying to bring home a point.

It's the word of God being brought into being before our very eyes.

Isn't it marvelous? And oh, yes, we Christians, we know that we will have to suffer for a while, but then we will be with Jesus and there will be a new heaven and a new earth and Jesus will rule the whole world in one government." How convenient.

But you see, what you're being told in church and what you're being told by Pat Robertson and what you're being told by Reverend Schuller in his crystal cathedral filled with the light and what you're being told by Brother Stair and what you're being told by all these other people in my research does not stand up to what the Bible itself says.

And if that is true, and I've already proven that it is true Friday night and Monday night and I'm going to continue tonight and tomorrow night and Thursday night and possibly Friday night until I've completely covered this and there is no doubt in my mind.