Robert Schullers CultPossib
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“SCHULLER’S CULT OF POSSIBILITY THINKING!”
Taken from an article in the magazine: “CORNERSTONE”
Vol. 12 Issue 68
Written by: JON TROTT
An exterior shot: a glass pyramid, rising upward to pierce heaven. Man’s finger touching God’s, Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel portrait with the order reversed. Interior shot: a slow pan from the hundreds of ultra-modern white girders holding up the glass “ceiling” to a choir and gigantic organ which, on cue, begin singing and playing. Close-up: Robert Schuller of Garden Grove, California’s Crystal Cathedral, reaches toward the camera and encourages the watcher to become a possibility thinker, “a somebody in a world of too many nobodies, a success in a crowd of failures.”
For evangelical and charismatic believers Robert Schuller is a well- known personality. Thousands attend his Crystal Cathedral, while millions view Hour of Power, which according to the Nielson ratings, reaches more people than any comparable program. Since 1970 more than twenty thousand pastors have attended Schuller’s Institute for Successful Church Leadership. As has been said, success is its own best argument.
On a deeper level, however, Robert Schuller’s emphasis on personal success and self-esteem has caused consternation and controversy among Christian theologians and philosophers.
SUCCESS AND POSSIBILITY THINKING
Robert Schuller’s possibility thinking message makes him the most believable and likeable success evangelist in America:
“Here’s how it works. When a person begins to believe it just might be possible, somehow, someway, somewhere, someday – then in that magic moment of Possibility Thinking three miracles occur: (1) Opportunity-spotting brain cells activate! (2) Problem-solving brain cells come to life (3) Determination-energizing chemicals are released into the blood stream!”
Heady stuff, and Rev. Schuller goes on to claim that God has fantastic dreams for each one of us, but that impossibility thinking blocks our ability to make them realities. So, “Stop running away from opportunities and possibilities! Run toward fulfillment, actualization, and success!”
Success is inevitably big and visible. “You are suddenly catapulted into the spotlight. The attention is never on the comfortable spectator, but on the energetic chance-taker in the center ring. And the bigger the gamble, the bigger the crowd of onlookers. It is the risk-running racer on the track, not the hot-dog-eating grandstand sitter that gets the attention, the applause, the encouragement, and finally, the prize.”
Schuller’s own successes via possibility thinking range from the gift of a new Lincoln luxury car to his various building projects (the newest of which is a scripture-studded sidewalk around the Crystal Cathedral dubbed the “Walk of Faith.”)
Adding to possibility thinking Rev. Schuller in 1969 wrote, “Every negative thinker I have ever met distrusts himself, belittles himself, and downgrades himself. This lack of self-worth lies at the root of almost every one of our personal problems.” The subject of self-love, or self-esteem became “something greater than possibility thinking.”
Setting a prelude for what was some thirteen years later to be a theological showdown, Rev. Schuller claimed, “if your job is to save souls, you can do this when you liberate them from the sin of self-degradation and lift them to salvation and self-esteem.
Come to the understanding that self-will is sin, self-love is salvation!” Schuller continues, noting that self-love or selfesteem is in fact “the deeper ultimate will” of mankind, worded in 1982 as “the deepest of all human needs.”
In that year, “after 32 years of thinking, praying, testing, retesting,” Rev. Schuller published his definitive theological statement, SELF ESTEEM: THE NEW REFORMATION. Chapter one sets the tone:
“What the Church needs, more than anything else, is a new reformation – nothing less will do! Without a new theological reformation, the Christian church as the authentic body of Christ may not survive…Martin Luther faced this haunting and recurring question:
`Am I alone right and all the rest of the church wrong?'” At numerous points he labels the reformation led by Luther and Calvin a “reactionary movement,” and observes “that classical theology has erred in its insistence that theology be `God-centered’ not `mancentered.'”
Sin and salvation are redefined by Schuller to fit the selfesteem model. The classical definition of sin as “rebellion against God” is, we are told, “not so much incorrect as it is shallow and insulting to the human being.” The problem is rooted in “the failure of historical theology” to differentiate between “Adam’s sin” and “original sin.” While Adam sinned knowingly, constituting a sin of rebellion against God, the children of Adam were born non-trusting. “By nature we are fearful, not bad.”
To illustrate, Schuller utilizes what might be called golf ball theology. The outer coating of white, hard plastic he likens to the rebellious, disobedient acts man performs, “the externality of sin.” The real core, the small hard rubber ball, is man’s “negative self-image.” Stretched rubber bands wrapped tightly around the golf ball’s core represent “negative reactions” or “anxieties, fears, and negative emotions” which finally appear as outward acts of rebellion, though in reality go back to non-trust.
What we need in light of this, then, according to Schuller, “is a theology of salvation that begins and ends with a recognition of every person’s hunger for glory.”
“What does it mean to be saved?” Rev. Schuller asks, then answers his own question. “It means to be permanently lifted from sin (psychological self-abuse with all of its consequences as seen above) and shame to self-esteem and its God-glorifying human needmeeting, constructive, and creative consequences.”
Or, for another definition, “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.”
SELF-ESTEEM AND THE GOSPEL
What influences have shaped Rev. Schuller’s theology? To gain a well-rounded view, we talked with four prominent Christian thinkers: Norman Geisler, author of numerous philosophical works, and professor of systematic theology at Dallas Theological Seminary; Paul Vitz, associate professor of psychology at New York University, and author of Psychology as Religion: The Cult of Self-Worship; Elliot Miller, senior literary consultant for Christian Research Institute (CRI), an organization dedicated to the critique of cults and new religious movements; William Kirk Kilpatrick, associate professor of educational psychology at Boston College, and author of Psychological Seduction: The Failure of Modern Psychology.
For the one man who has most influenced Rev. Schuller there is unanimous agreement. Says Elliot Miller, “Schuller recognizes Norman Vincent Peale as a primary source of inspiration for his own `possibility thinking’ ideas. Peale in turn was influenced by the founders of Unity School of Christianity, and Ernest Holmes, the father of Religious Science. On the back cover of a biography entitled, Ernest Holmes: His Life and Times, Peale wrote, `Only those who knew me as a boy can fully appreciate what Ernest Holmes did for me. Why, he made me a positive thinker.'” Miller concludes, “What Schuller is preaching can historically be traced to the mind science movement.”
On the other hand, Miller does not believe Schuller has a clearcut panthestic theology such as Mary Baker Eddy’s or the Fillmores’ (Unity’s founders). “He does have those tendencies, but I don’t think he develops it into a full-blown metaphysic. His main problem is that he’s trying to conform the Bible to a positive thinking approach to life instead of allowing his positive message to be shaped by the Bible. If you take a pre-established approach and shape the Bible to it, what you end up with is a really bad distortion. That’s what he’s done.”
At the center of that distortion, according to Norm Geisler, is Schuller’s concept of sin. “When Schuller defines sin as the lack of self-esteem, that’s an existential definition not a moral definition. He’s cast the gospel in terms of psychology and philosophy rather than terms of morality. Sin is a moral rebellion against a moral God, and to neglect or diminish that element of sin is not to preach the true gospel of the New Testament.
“Heidegger and Bultmann make statements like Schuller’s `Man isn’t bad, just fearful.’ The whole sense of `angst,’ or `dread,’ an objectless fear, that’s typical modern existentialist language. The existential gospel says man is finite and insecure and needs cosmic help. That’s quite different than man is sinful and rebellious and needs moral deliverence.”
Paul Vitz points out the peculiarly American strains in Rev. Schuller’s ideas. “American existentialism is optimistic, European is pessimistic, but the assumptions are the same. A lot of Schuller’s self-esteem thought has come from American optimism about the self-made man. Obviously, if one of the important ways you’re supposed to be made is to be saved, you’re the self-made man. It appeals to our vanity, or basically, our narcissism.”
There is common agreement among all those interviewed that salvation is the bottom line. “The way he defines the new bith, it sounds like a psychological process, not a supernatural process,” observes Miller. “Naturally people love it because he doesn’t preach about sin, judgment, or anything negative, just about your own possibilities.
“He’s reduced Christianity to popular terminology and thereby reduced the offense of the gospel,” says Geisler. “But to avoid the offense of the gospel you have to avoid the gospel. If you’re not a sinner, you can’t be saved. Going from a state of insecurity to a state of security, even if Christ happens to be your cosmic Linus blanket, is not going to get you saved.”
“The precondition for the Gospel is knowing you’re in moral rebellion against the God who is there, and therefore stand condemned before him. Otherwise the cross of Christ doesn’t make any sense – its full significance is robbed.” Elliot Miller adds, “The whole biblical idea of the glory of God being the primary concern is missing from Schuller’s theology.”
None of those interviewed felt Rev. Schuller was being intentionally aberrant in his theology. “His motives may be good, and his efforts noble,” notes Geisler. “Sincerity’s not a test for truth, however, and if people don’t know more when they hear him, its questionable whether they will be able to come to the point of salvation. I do know, though, there are follow-up programs in his church, where people get more deeply into the Scriptures.”
One lesson is well articulated by Geisler. “We need to examine any teaching we hear in light of the Scriptures as the Bereans did in Acts 16. We should ask not `How sincere are the people?’ or `How many are being reached and helped?’ but `What precisely is the gospel being preached?’ It’s one thing to cloak the moral gospel in psychological terms so people can understand it, it’s another thing to reduce it to these terms.”
Paul Vitz finds a lesson tinged with positive aspects. “One of the main appeals to Schuller’s message which is legitimate but needs to be dealt with differently is that the result of being a Christian should be a life of joy. It’s not the joy of self-salvation; it’s the joy of being saved. It’s the difference between the receipt of an enormous, undeserved, and glorious gift, and the self-satisfaction that comes from having done a good job on your own, which is at the center of pride.”
WHAT ARE WORDS FOR?
Perhaps the great truth illustrated by the problems in Rev. Schuller’s theology is this: When words are stripped of their historical meaning, they lose all meaning.
A general example might be the scripture, “God is love.” When someone mentions that God is love, the hearer may be emotionally blessed. But what does “God” mean? Jehovah or Maharaj Ji? And what does “love” mean? Anything from Paul’s definitions in 1 Corinthians 13 to Bob Guccione’s definition in Penthouse magazine. The end result? Meaninglessness.
So it goes with Schuller’s redefinition of sin, and his muddying of the historical meaning of salvation. Christianity threatens to become nothing more than what Francis Schaeffer called “God-words,” terms that sound Christian but mean whatever the hearer wants them to.
It is important for us as believers to respect biblical authority, and in its historical context. At bottom this is the reason we must not accept a gospel emphasizing salvation without sovereignty, taking words filled with power and vital meaning and squeezing them into whatever cultural mold lies closest at hand. The Bible reveals the only reality there is, and though the two-edged sword sometimes cuts its wearer, it’s only because we need the stinging healing God’s Word brings. If the Word is only words, it has no edge. The Gospel becomes a self-serving gospel of shallow emotionalism.
Robert Schuller has sincerely erred, and those of us who might be filled with self-righteous indignation would do well to remember where righteousness comes from. We should pray and write Rev. Schuller, lovingly pointing out his errors in mixing Scripture with psychology. Finally, we should look to ourselves that our faith is not corrupted by the leavening influence of secular culture, but influenced by the unchanging Word of God.
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