CT: “Cracks in the Crystal Cathedral”

Christianity Today considers how the Crystal Cathedral pictures much of where Christianity is in North America.

This past October, the megachurch prototype of the late 20th century filed for bankruptcy. A 24 percent drop in donations and a $50-$100 million debt owed to more than 550 creditors forced the Crystal Cathedral to file. It was a poignant moment in the history of modern evangelicalism.

Robert H. Schuller’s famous Crystal Cathedral was built on a foundation of self-esteem. In a 1984 interview with Christianity Today, Schuller said that when he came to Garden Grove, California, in 1955, he asked himself, “What human condition exists here that I can have a mission to?” His answer was “emotional hunger.” “Because of that,” he said, “we have developed our present ministry.”

That ministry increasingly was defined as the gospel of self-esteem, which for Schuller meant “the divine dignity that God intended to be our emotional birthright as children created in his image.” It was lost in the Garden of Eden, he explained, but “we hunger for it until we regain it through faith in Christ.”

The rest here.