How Should We Feel About the Crystal Cathedral?

By: Jim Umlauf

Robert Schuller’s ministry has been famous for many years, and he’s got a plethora of quotes available online. Here’s one:

“Anyone can count the seeds in an apple, but only God can count the number of apples in a seed.”

Nothing wrong with that. In fact, along with being clever, it’s true when held up to the Scriptures. Here’s another:

“If you listen to your fears, you will die never knowing what a great person you might have been.”

Not bad, right? It’s just good life advice. But being lulled by a couple of quips is where things can get dangerous.

"To be born again means that we must be changed from a negative to a positive self-image – from inferiority to self-esteem, from fear to love, from doubt to trust."

What in the world is that gobbledygook?! Is being born again (Jesus’ term, by the way) really about changing our outlook? Is it about self-image, or is it about God making us spiritually alive, God turning spiritual blindness into sight, God making a heart of spiritual stone into a living thing? Is it about self-esteem or is it about being called, regenerated, justified, sanctified, adopted, forgiven, redeemed, restored, united with Christ, and a part of God’s worshiping people forever?

How about this spurious quote:

"The classical error of historical Christianity is that we have never started with the value of the person. Rather, we have started from the 'unworthiness of the sinner,' and that starting point has set the stage for the glorification of human shame in Christian theology."

That’s a snarled theological mess, and shows that Schuller has no grasp on the overall message of the Bible or the trajectory of grace. Yes, we are created in God’s image. But sin violently marred that image. To deny the unworthiness of the sinner is to spit at the foot of the cross. God addressed human shame by punishing his own Son as a substitute, thus restoring our fellowship and relieving our consciences. For Robert Schuller to be on record with such ideas (and there are many, many more like it) puts everything he ever said into question. True believers of the Bible and the Lord Jesus should strenuously separate themselves from anything spilling out of the Crystal Cathedral.

But how should we feel about the financial woes of that ministry? Mixed emotions, I think. It’s ironic that a you-can-do-it, believe-it-and-it-will-come-to-pass theological system is caving in. Frankly, I’m thrilled about that because it shows what a cruel and empty theology it is. But the world lumps Christians together, so we can grieve over not only the muddying of the gospel, but the sullying of the name of Christ.

I believe what we should be praying for is redemption: of the ministry of the Crystal Cathedral itself, of the people who have been led astray, and of the message of the gospel as the world looks on.

A Tenacious Grace

By: Will Savell

If you have ever taken the time to read through the book of Judges, we see a sad picture of God’s people going from a bad place to an even worse place (just read the last 5 chapters, if you have the stomach for it). God’s own people were known for doing what was “right in [their] own eyes.” Unfortunately, can’t we apply that statement – the root sin - to each of our own lives?

Dale Ralph Davis finishes his commentary of Judges with this hopeful statement, which is just as applicable to each of us as God’s people:

"So the book of Judges ends with a miracle. How after chapters 19-21, indeed, after chapters 1-21, can you account for the fact that there is still an Israel? It can only be because Yahweh wished to dwell in the midst of his people in spite of their sin. It can only be because Yahweh’s grace is far more tenacious than his people’s depravity and insists on still holding them fast even in their sinfulness and their stupidity."

In the midst of our lives full of sin, may we never forget or quit celebrating the underserved grace of such a great Savior.

A Grave and Vital Issue

By: Jim Umlauf

From the start, there have been pressures placed upon God’s gracious provision of the gospel. Because the gospel rejects any efforts on the part of humans, or good works to repair God’s broken law, or honor in this life as valid in the next, the world must reject it. In fact, the world prefers these things, and so cannot allow them to be condemned.

Unfortunately, there are churches, movements, and even whole denominations that are striving to put gospel softener into the theological washing machine. But that’s no gospel at all, as Paul warns us in Galatians 1. Here’s what Martin Luther says about our care for the gospel as God offers it:

“The issue before us is grave and vital; it involves the death of the Son of God, who, by the will and command of the Father, became flesh, was crucified, and died for the sins of the world. If faith yields on this point, the death of the Son of God will be in vain. Then it is only a fable that Christ is the Savior of the world. Then God is a liar, for he has not lived up to his promises. Therefore our stubbornness on this issue is pious and holy; for by it we are striving to preserve the freedom we have in Christ Jesus and to keep the truth of the gospel. If we lose this, we lose God, Christ, all the promises, faith, righteousness, and eternal life.”

I’d call that grave and vital, wouldn’t you? None but Jesus. Let no other trust intrude.