In his flattering 2005 biography of Rick Warren, George Mair identified the principal founders of the Church Growth movement: C. Donald McGavran, Gilbert Bilezikian, and Robert Schuller. The son of two missionaries, McGavran was born in India in 1897. While serving as a missionary to India, McGavran studied 145 churches between 1938 and 1955 to discover why some churches grow very slowly.[1] From these studies he developed the concept of receptivity to measure the positive or negative response to the gospel among certain people groups. McGavran then proposed that areas of high receptivity were to receive priority in the assignment of missionaries and resources.[2]
This was a dramatic change with regard to making disciples, the first part of the church’s mission as outlined in Matthew 28:18-20. Missionaries are called by the Holy Spirit and most are also led by the Holy Spirit with regard to which countries and areas they were to go. Now, the deciding factors for many denominations and missions organizations are dependent on sociological and demographic studies. Receptivity studies not only identify receptivity but also allow modern Church Growth practitioners to better craft their sermons to address the felt needs of the people as opposed seeking the leading of the Holy Spirit regarding the message to be preached.
Gilbert Bilezikian was born in Paris, France, and grew up under the Nazis just before World War II. He immigrated to the United States in 1961 and became a minister and teacher at Wheaton College where he developed his thoughts on building mega churches through small groups and a strong emphasis on servant ministries.[3] Both concepts have merit when used and practiced correctly. But the Church Growth movement has misused these natural biblical practices as an integral part in achieving their quest for success in church growth. As a result the Church Growth model’s hyper-organized and structured methods and focus comes at the expense of other aspects of the church and its purpose. Church life tends to become fragmented, misdirected, and regimented to such an extent that it becomes a new version of the liberal social gospel.
Norman Vincent Peale was the inspiration for the modern Church Growth movement, and he developed much of its theology and pioneered many of its practices. Robert Schuller was perhaps Peale’s greatest admirer and practitioner of Peale’s methods. However, it was Schuller that is widely considered to be the father of the Church Growth phenomenon. Schuller was the great popularizer and evangelist for the movement. Although other mega churches predated Schuller’s church, he was the first national voice, evangelist, and teacher for the Church Growth movement.[4]
Robert Schuller was born on September 26, 1926 to poor parents on a remote farm in Sioux County located in Iowa’s northwest corner near the Minnesota and South Dakota borders. Of Dutch ancestry and living in a Dutch colony, the Schullers attended the local Dutch Reformed church. In 1943 Robert attended Hope College in Holland, Michigan. Upon graduation, he enrolled in Western Theological Seminary located across the street from Hope. Hope and Western were both Calvinist in orientation and affiliated with the Reformed Church in America. In 1950 Schuller graduated from seminary with a bachelor of divinity degree, married Arvella DeHaan, a young lady from a farm near his boyhood home, and moved to his first pastorate in Chicago.[5]
In 1955, upon an invitation from church elders, he moved from Chicago to start a new work in Orange County, California. He began by renting a drive-in movie theatre for $10 per Sunday. He preached from the top of the tar-paper covered concession shack to his audience sitting in their cars. Garden Grove Community Church founded in a drive-in soon relocated to nearby land where the famed Crystal Cathedral was eventually built and dedicated twenty-five years later.[6]
Two books profoundly impacted Schuller’s theological views and his preaching style: Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking. The message of these books transformed his ministry, and he began to “preach positive.” But more than the books, it was Peale himself who would have the greatest impact on Schuller’s life. Perhaps on impulse, Schuller invited Peale to fly to California and preach at his fledgling drive-in church. Schuller and much of the religious community were stunned when the internationally known Peale accepted. On June 30, 1957, standing next to Schuller on the roof of the concession stand shack, Peale delivered his trademark message of positivity. Schuller closely patterned his message and style to that of Peale. Peale’s “positive thinking” became Schuller’s “possibility thinking.”[7]
Schuller’s interest in wrapping the gospel in a positive message began in the late 1940s while at seminary. For his bachelor of divinity thesis, he chose to write the first topical and scriptural index of John Calvin’s Institutes of the Christian Religion. Calvin was a powerful force in the Reformation and founded the Reformed Church. Schuller recalled that in writing his thesis he first encountered the conflicting positive and negative interpretations of scripture. Schuller believed that Calvin’s “total depravity” of man had been dangerously misinterpreted by negative extremists who used it to cause “a strong, guilt-generating, humiliating consciousness of ‘sin’.”[8] In the course of his discussions about his belief, one professor counseled Schuller with these words.
There’s much good in many if not all humans. Every human needs help in dealing with life’s negative realities. Sin, evil, selfishness, injustice—these are life’s realities. So man isn’t totally depraved, but he’s totally incapable of saving himself from these realities! Every person needs the divine forgiveness and grace that only God can offer—and that He generously offers to all.[9]
But Schuller eventually developed his own interpretation of Calvin’s theology of sin.
I would come to define sin as primarily a condition rather than an action (though that condition is often revealed in action); an inborn absence of faith more than a turning from faith. As a result of these conclusions, I deduced that if I focused not on generating guilt, but on generating trust and positive hope, I would be preaching against sin via a creative, redemptive approach. Then I would be preaching the “Good News”…Eventually they [Schuller’s conclusions] would lead me to emphasize that we’re “saved” not just to avoid “hell” (whatever that means and wherever that is), but to become positive thinkers inspired to seek God’s will for our lives and dream the divine dreams that God has planned for us. We are “saved” so that we can go on to do good works and thus truly learn to live our lives for the glory of God. This to me was an exciting, proactive approach to the problem of sin—and it became the basis for my possibility thinking message…[10] [emphasis in original]
Here we find the bones of Schuller’s possibility thinking that also mirrored Peale’s practical Christianity. As Schuller fleshed-out those bones of possibility thinking, it embodied what was to beome the philosophy and teachings of the fully-formed Church Growth movement. Inborn sin is a condition to be dealt with therapeutically as opposed to an action requiring repentance and a turning from sin. The act of faith itself absolves sin without the necessity of an ongoing faith walk—a daily dying to self and sin. The purpose for one’s salvation is to do good works rather than having a right relationship with God. Therefore, hell is minimized or ignored altogether. Positivism emphasizes divine dreams in this life as opposed to man’s eternal destination. Through reason, methods, techniques, and pandering to self, man can proactively overcome sin whereas Schuller’s professor saw the need of every person is “divine forgiveness and grace that only God can offer.”
Essentially, the theology of Robert Schuller was centered on the self whereas the great themes of the Bible are about man’s relationship with God. Just how far Schuller’s theology of self had evolved since his seminary years is evident from Schuller’s 1982 book Self Esteem-The New Reformation.
A major world problem since the beginning of the Protestant Reformation in 1517 is that Christian thinkers have not formulated a well-rounded, full-orbed, honestly integrated systematic theological system. What we need now is an integrated systematic theology that will allow for a naturally evolving, noncontrived, and nonmanipulated spawning of second generation theological positions. The evolving theologies must reveal (not contrive) viable, nonvariable principles relating human problems beyond the salvation of a solitary immortal soul.
I contend that most, if not all, of the social, political, and religious problems facing our world reflect theological defects. The imperfect theology of the Protestant Reformation was really interested primarily in the “salvation of shameful, sinful, wicked, rebellious souls from eternal hellfire.” Salvation was offered, very correctly, by divine grace, not by human works. When our theology started with the salvation of a human commodity called “a soul” from “hellfire,” we found ourselves sincerely unable to relate that doctrine of salvation to other human conditions that demanded theological answers.[11]
Schuller believed the church should understand and be committed to meeting the deepest felt needs of human beings. He was correct in saying that the deepest of all human needs is salvation from sin and hell. However, he defines sin as, “Any human condition or act that robs God of glory by stripping one of his children of their right to divine dignity.” He elaborates by saying, “Sin is any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self-esteem.” He further describes “hell” as the “…loss of pride that naturally follows separation from God—the ultimate and unfailing source of our soul’s sense of self-respect.”[12] Schuller has said self-esteem is “pride in being human” and is the “single greatest need facing the human race today…When a human being’s self-esteem is stimulated and sustained…in a redemptive relationship with Christ, we are truly saved from sin and hell.”[13]
What Schuller was saying is that man is saved from sin and hell through self-esteem and pride in being human. But if by a redemptive relationship he means that man was saved through the atoning work of Christ, Schuller cannot at the same time mean that man was saved through stimulating and sustaining his self-esteem and having pride in being human.
In an attempt to distinguish between what Schuller called theological positivism and theological negativism, he contrasted the teachings of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. He said that, “Paul railed against sin, but if you read your New Testament as I did, you’ll see that Christ never called anyone a sinner. His ministry was the teaching of peace, love, and joy.”[14] Based on his belief that the style and content of Christ’s preaching and teaching were superior to Paul’s, Schuller has undeniably implied that some portions of the scripture are more inspired, more infallible, more reliable, and more truthful than other portions. But the Paul said, “All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.” [2 Timothy 3:16. KJV] Perhaps if Christ had said these words instead of Paul, Schuller could have accepted the so-called negative theology of doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction in righteousness.
How does Schuller reconcile his beliefs that contradict the Bible? Schuller claims that the Eternal Word transcends the written Word, and that, “Christ is the Word made flesh. Christ is the Lord over the Scriptures; the Scriptures are not Lord over Christ.” He states that biblical inerrancy is not the most critical issue facing Christianity but a distraction from a higher, healthier issue: the Lordship of Jesus Christ…So Christ must be accepted as Lord over the Scriptures.”[15] But the Bible, the written Word, tells us, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” [John 1:1. KJV] Said another way, the Triune God is the Word, and God cannot be higher than Himself.
Schuller prescribes an evolving, second generation theology that goes beyond salvation to supply answers to “other human conditions.” In spite of his assertion that salvation comes by divine grace and not human works, he immediately prescribes an evolving theology dependent on the works of man.
Schuller’s doctrinal heresies are legion throughout his many books. Schuller’s claims and prescriptions are amazing if not breathtaking for most Christians and especially students of the Bible. The Protestant Reformation was centered on the authority of the scriptures alone and that men are saved by faith in Christ alone. Schuller’s call for a new Reformation sweeps all of that aside as he essentially questions the sufficiency of the Bible to answer the basic questions of life and the power of the atoning blood of Christ for the salvation of man.
Schuller’s call for a New Reformation has been echoed by other leaders in the Church Growth movement. As one reads and researches the teachings and theology of the leaders of the Church Growth movement and their respective churches, it becomes very evident that Robert Schuller’s beliefs have heavily leavened their doctrines, teachings, practices, and techniques. This has occurred not only through his many widely-read books but especially through the Robert Schuller Institute for Successful Church Leadership.
In 1969, Schuller began teaching other ministers his Church Growth concepts through a series of lectures at the Institute. He taught that big churches were better at winning lost people. Small churches were better at serving the churched members and denominational purposes. His message was that regardless of the denomination, his methods could be applied and church growth would follow. He encouraged churches to drop denominational labels and call themselves community churches. Services, sermons, and activities were to be programmed to appeal to the spiritual needs of the unchurched. “Mission theology doesn’t begin with ‘good’ believers teaching ‘bad’ unbelievers how sinful they are!…What they need to learn from us is that we can and will help them by introducing them to Jesus Christ. He will then lead them in becoming persons of positive-thinking faith, hope, and love!”[16]
Many insist that if Robert Schuller’s methods for building mega churches work, they must be approved by God. Certainly, his methods have worked in many churches. His success and that of his students in building mega churches is not disputed.
*Bill Hybels – Willow Creek Community Church, Illinois
*Rick Warren – Saddleback Community Church, California
*Bishop Charles Blake – West Los Angeles Church of God in Christ, California (one of the largest black churches in the world)
*Frank Harrington – Peachtree Presbyterian Church, Atlanta, Georgia (largest Presbyterian Church in America)
*Sundo Kim – First Methodist Church, Seoul, Korea (largest Methodist Church in the world)[17]
By many standards, the Church Growth movement has been wildly successful. But the doctrinal underpinnings and methods of Peale’s practical Christianity, Schuller’s positivity thinking, and the philosophies and teachings of many mega church pastors such Bill Hybels and Rick Warren are heretical in many respects. These deviations from sound biblical doctrines and practices will be examined in some detail in the following chapters.
Larry G. Johnson
Sources:
[1] George Mair, A Life With Purpose, (New York: Berkeley Books, 2005), pp. 65, 101.
[2] Stephen Parker, Church Growth Crisis – The decline of Christianity in America, (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: Forever Family Publications, 2011), p. 27.
[3] Mair, p. 103.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Robert H. Schuller, My Journey, (New York: HarperSanFrancisco, 2001), pp. 3, 6-7, 125-126, 147.
[6] Mair, p. 106-107.
[7] Ibid., pp. 106, 108.
[8] Schuller, My Journey, p. 126-127.
[9] Ibid, p. 127.
[10] Ibid., pp. 127-128.
[11] Robert H. Schuller, Self Esteem – The New Reformation, (Waco, Texas: Word Books, 1982), pp. 145-146.
[12] Ibid., pp. 13-14.
[13] Ibid., pp. 19-20.
[14] Schuller, My Journey, p. 126.
[15] Schuller, Self-Esteem – The New Reformation, p. 45.
[16] Schuller, My Journey, pp. 291-292.
[17] Ibid., p. 472.
