Rev. Robert H. Shuller’s Crystal Cathedral Ministries filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy last month. Schuller, for several decades the host of broadcast television’s “Hour of Power,” has been a fixture in televangelism and the megachurch movement for some decades. His “Crystal Cathedral” is a monument to his arrogance, in the same way that most of the cathedrals of western Europe are monuments to the arrogance of assorted archbishops and popes.
The immediate cause of the Chapter 11 bankruptcy is a shrinkage in membership, a decline in television viewers and extremely expensive churches. Friction, as they say, between cash flow and the mortgage. At a deeper level, the bankruptcy is a consequence of family succession wars in the Schuller family. At a still deeper level, it may be a sign that America is finally getting tired of the megachurch movement.
Robert H. Schuller picked his son and second child, Robert A. Schuller, as his successor. But the younger Shuller’s sisters, and in particular his older sister, Sheila Schuller Coleman, ousted their brother in a coup, declaring his preaching was “not anointed.” It’s not clear to WC whether that means they decided his preaching wasn’t blessed by God or the kid wasn’t bringing in the bucks. While the Rev. Ms. Shuller Coleman has put a brave face on it, the Schullers’ creditors now control the future of this megachurch.
Schuller’s problems are just the latest in a parade of televangelical debacles.
There’s the late Oral Roberts. In 1987, during a fundraising drive, Roberts announced to his television audience that unless he raised $8 million by that March, God would “call him home.” WC was surprised to learn God was a blackmailer, but some were fearful that he was referring to suicide, given the impassioned pleas and tears that accompanied his statement. Later that year, he announced that God had raised the dead through Roberts’ ministry. His homophobic college, Oral Roberts University, has had frequent problems with the IRS. The ORU Board of Regents “rubber-stamped” the use of millions in endowment money to buy a Beverly Hills property so that Oral Roberts could have a West Coast office and house. It even paid his country club membership. His kid, Richard Roberts, was sacked from the presidency of ORU on November 23, 2007 after being named as a defendant in a lawsuit alleging improper use of university funds for political and personal purposes, and improper use of university resources.
And then there’s Pat Robertson. Long-time readers of this blog already know how WC feels about televangelist and all-around bigot Pat Robertson. He flunked the bar exam and entered the ministry as a second career choice. He spews vileness in a kind of unconscious, unthinking antithesis of Jesus’s teachings. False miracles and bogus prophecies follow him like a sulphurous cloud. His God is a hateful blackmailer. His statements on the Haitian earthquake were simply despicable.
The late Jerry Falwell, another racist homophobe, speaking of the U.S. Supreme Court’s Brown vs. Board of Education ruling,said, in 1958: “If Chief Justice Warren and his associates had known God’s word and had desired to do the Lord’s will, I am quite confident that the 1954 decision would never had been made. The facilities should be separate. When God has drawn a line of distinction, we should not attempt to cross that line.” By contrast, WC shares Christopher Hitchens’ view. Appearing on CNN a day after Falwell’s death, Hitchens said, “The empty life of this ugly little charlatan proves only one thing: that you can get away with the most extraordinary offenses to morality and to truth in this country if you will just get yourself called ‘reverend’.”
Joe Barron, one of the 40 ministers at Prestonwood Baptist Church, one of the largest churches in the United States with 26,000 members, was arrested on May 15, 2008 for solicitation of a minor after driving from the Dallas area to Bryan, Texas, in order to allegedly engage in sexual relations with what he thought to be a 13 year-old girl he had met online. The “girl” turned out to be an undercover law enforcement official.
Todd Bentley rose to prominence as the evangelist at the Lakeland Revival in Florida, which began in April 2008. Bentley claimed that tens of thousands of people were healed at the Revival, but a June 2008 investigation by ABC Nightline could not find a single confirmed case. Bentley took a short break after the program was broadcast, but returned to leading the meetings. However, in August 2008, he stepped down permanently when it was revealed he was separating from his wife, Shonnah, and was in a relationship with Jessa Hasbrook, a member of his staff.
On September 20, 2008, FBI agents raided Tony Alamo Christian Ministries headquarters as part of a child pornography investigation. In late July 2009, Alamo (who had a previous conviction for tax evasion in the 1990s) was convicted on ten counts of transporting minors across state lines for sexual purposes, sexual assault and other crimes. On November 13, 2009, he was sentenced to the maximum punishment of 175 years in prison. His church, in any barely coherent web page, claims he is a political prisoner.
Jimmie Bakker, minister and convicted con artist. Jimmy Swaggert, serial john and hypocrite. The list of convicted religious leaders is long and depressing. WC has no quarrel with religion. But he also agrees with John MacArthur, at least on this one issue:
Someone needs to say this plainly: The faith healers and health-and-wealth preachers who dominate religious television are shameless frauds. Their message is not the true gospel of Jesus Christ. There is nothing spiritual or miraculous about their on-stage chicanery. It is all a devious ruse designed to take advantage of desperate people. They are not godly ministers but greedy impostors who corrupt the Word of God for money’s sake. They are not real pastors who shepherd the flock of God but hirelings whose only design is to fleece the sheep. Their love of money is glaringly obvious in what they say as well as how they live. They claim to possess great spiritual power, but in reality they are rank materialists and enemies of everything holy.
Or if you prefer a more populist version,
now I send what I can to the man
with the diamond ring
he’s a part of heaven’s plan
and he sure can sing
now it’s all I can afford
but the lord has sent me eternity
it’s to save the little children
in a poor countryMark Knopfler, Dire Straits, “Ticket to Heaven”
Wickersham's Conscience 
It is so fascinating to me that for morality and how to live, they turn to the Old Testament.
They can use these ‘truths’ to oppress women, gays and anybody else they don’t like or that they don’t agree with.
But when they want to raise money, they talk about Jesus.
They are worse that crooked politicians.
I hope they reap what they have sown.
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