Faith, Spectacle & the Business of Church: Marti & Mulder on Schuller’s Enduring Influence

Episode Transcript
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>> Loren Richmond (00:07):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
walk boldly into the future. Whether

(00:27):
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
of your faith community, this podcast is
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.

>> Martha Tatarnic (00:44):
Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast.
Today, Loren Richmond Jr. Is in
conversation with Gerardo Marti and
Mark T. Mulder. Gerardo
is the William R. Kennan Jr. Professor of
Sociology at Davidson College and
President of the Society for the Scientific
of Religion. A uh, prolific and award

(01:06):
winning author. His research explores
religious innovation and the role of religion
in shaping patterns of racialization
and political engagement in the United States.
Mark's research focuses on urban
congregations and changing racial ethnic
demographics. Mulder is professor

(01:27):
of Sociology at Calvin University
and Director of the Common Good Collective.
He is the author or co author of five
books. In addition, Mulder has published
numerous peer reviewed articles in academic
journals including Social Problems,
Religion and American Culture and the

(01:47):
Journal of Urban History. He has also
published pieces for church audiences and won
writing awards from the Evangelical Press
association and the Associated
Church Press. Uh, a reminder,
before we start today's conversation, please take
a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a
review and share Future Christian with a friend.

(02:10):
Connect with Loren, Martha and Future
Christian on Instagram. Shoot us
an email at, uh, laurensonatemediapro
uh.com
with comments, questions or ideas for future
episodes. We appreciate your voice
in how we faithfully discern the future of the
church.

>> Loren (02:39):
Okay. Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Loren Richmond
Jr. I'm pleased to be joined today by Dr.
Mark Mulder and Dr. Gerardo Marti. Thank you
both for your time and looking forward to this conversation. Welcome to
the show.

>> Mark T. Mulder (02:51):
Thank you.

>> Gerardo Marti (02:52):
Glad to be here.

>> Loren (02:53):
Yeah. So looking forward to having this conversation. Uh, let's
start with you, Mark. Anything else you want listeners to know about you?

Um, I'm also a
dad and a husband and a bike rider and I've
been president of my neighborhood association in
the core city of Grand Rapids, Michigan for a number of years.
Uh, and then passed.

>> Loren (03:13):
Yeah, great. That can be the real controversial
work. I can imagine. Hoas. Is it
an HOAS or just a neighborhood association?

No, um, uh, professors can't afford.
This is a good old fashioned, uh, urban neighborhood
Fair enough.

>> Loren (03:32):
Fair enough. Probably less drama that way.
Um, Gerardo, how about you?

Uh, born on the east coast, uh,
moved to the west coast, married a woman from
the Midwest and have been working,
uh, in the south for decades now. So
I feel that I've had the good fortune of
experiencing a lot of life, a lot of
religious life. And most of my work has focused
on changing religious dynamic, religious

(04:00):
innovations, as well as congregations. And in
between that, uh, I'm a dad, I'm a grandfather.
I have other commitments and I love to read.

>> Loren (04:10):
Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I love the read too. And that's kind of why
we're having this conversation today. So
we're here to talk about the book
that Mark and Gerardo authored, the Church
Must Grow or Perish. Robert
Schuller and the Business of American
Christianity. I was really glad. I can't remember if I
found this on Eerdman's or they sent it to me, but I was really

(04:32):
excited to read this and I was not disappointed.
So let's start with this for the conversation.
What was the driving idea or question
y' all had when you sat down
to write this book? Mark, do you want to start with that?

I'd love to. So I think Gerardo and
I started having conversations about this,
uh, roughly a decade ago. Um, we were just past
the 10 year mark of Schuller's, uh,
passing. He died quite quietly in April of
2015. And Gerardo and I had been working on
a different project together for a while.

(05:08):
And I'm, uh, gonna give Giarado the credit. This was his idea.
He had grown up, uh, in the shadow of the
Crystal Cathedral. And I think we were both
struck by the fact that Robert Schuller, who
had been this, uh, you know, at one point, I think you
could have made the argument the Crystal Cathedral was perhaps the most
recognized, uh, congregation, uh, or church in

(05:30):
the world, if not just the United States.
Um, and had, you
know, he was somewhat. I remember from seeing on, uh, Hour
of Power on Sunday mornings when I was homesick from church
and uh, for him to kind of just kind of
quietly pass, um, without
much fanfare or discussion, I think
struck us. Well, there's a story there,

(05:52):
um, a, uh, narrative. Um, and
I think we really felt like,
um, Schuller was.
His influence was being underestimated. And we
wanted to address that and try to see,
um, what we could explain about his
ministry and what it could tell us, um, about

(06:12):
late, uh, 20th century, early 21st century
religion in the United States.

>> Loren (06:18):
Yeah, yeah, thanks. Thanks for Sharing that, I was
struck just by how even
you mentioned watching the Hour of Power. Like,
I remember growing up. I grew up Independent Baptist. My
dad was a pastor. When he wasn't a pastor, I was going to church
every Sunday.

Mhm.

>> Loren (06:35):
Yet even though I remember somehow watching
even here and there, the Hour of Power, so it
speaks to kind of the cultural significance
it had. Like this would have been for me probably
in the late 90s. Um, Gerardo, like, was
the 80s 90s. Was that kind of like the pinnacle
of the crucial cathedral and

(06:55):
Schuller's ministry in some ways?

Well, absolutely. I think part of, uh,
connecting with Mark was not only, uh, were Mark and
I getting along well and we were doing some work. I
think part of it is that Schuller's story was so big.
I never felt that telling Schuller's story could be done
alone or just from one person.
And so having grown up in Southern California and

(07:18):
seeing various phases of the cathedral and the
ministry before, it was definitely an unignorable
reality in the area. Um, not only
did pastors and Christians, so to speak,
know about it, but it was a phenomenon of
Southern California in a culture where there
were a lot of changes and a lot of big things
were occurring, big things that people had

(07:41):
to see or experience or were seen,
um, advertised or evident on local
television and in local news. So from that
standpoint, um, uh, we also knew that there were people
coming from across the country and even across the world
that were seeing Schuller's ministry as a
stopping point. It was more than just a tourist

(08:01):
destination. It was somehow seen as a guide or a
model. And so once I understood even
better, as Mark and I were talking about, uh, these things,
that the tradition that Schuller
came from was something that Mark knew and was associated
with, uh, in his own way, the
familial and ethnic backgrounds also
that Schuller had, um, spent much of

(08:24):
his formative experience, um, in
Michigan. And the kind of connections
then, Then I got very excited, uh, because
there was a sense that there was a real
bigger aspect of what was going on in the
shaping not only of Robert Schuller, but therefore
of American Christianity. Um, and
when you combine with the sensibilities that Mark

(08:46):
has built over time of working with archives
and digging into memos and
photos and writings that I don't
think anyone has looked at, this treasure
trove of deep background material
that other people had ignored, that's what was
being brought to light. So that, uh,
initiated us to write a book that focused

(09:09):
first on how the massive
enterprise of Crystal Cathedral Ministries
crumbled seemingly overnight. And that
became our first project together on,
um, the ministry, the Glass Church. But
there was so much left over that was
biographically interesting, just understanding this
person, um, that I approached a

(09:30):
publisher who was open, ah, to looking at things.
Erdman's with their library, um, of religious,
um, biography, and said, we've got a
lot here. Would you be interested in
Schuller's story? And they were willing to snatch
that up. So we did an unexpected. This project,
the one that we're talking about now, this biography is a

(09:50):
very unexpected project. It grew out of
the overflow of this life
and m. The massive material that was available
to be able to tell an intriguing story that we
thought was not only telling of Schuller's life himself, but something
about the world of Christianity that we live in
today.

>> Loren (10:10):
That's one of the most things that was fascinating to me just reading
the book. Was his upbringing very rural,
Christian Reformed Church, crc. And how starkly
different Crystal Cathedral came to be.
You mentioned a couple things there just in your
statement about the change and
how California was. These are my words, but

(10:33):
kind of like the breeding grounds, if you will, of.
Of these new innovations.
And I think that's what struck me about the title
the Church Must Grow or Perish.
Uh, I'm curious. You're welcome to start with this,
Gerardo and Mark, if you want to chip in here
too. But in what ways was Schuller's diagnosis of the American

(10:53):
church's decline accurate or prophetic in a
way?

Well, uh, first a small correction that it was the Reformed Church
of America. The Dutch. A Church of America.

>> Loren (11:03):
I'm thinking of a friend I know who's crc.

That's right. Well, Mark can give more of that background,
but certainly is the oldest denomination in America
and also one that had these deep, um,
roots and these ethnic enclaves. So the idea
of church, um, persisting and even
the question that a church would not exist in a community is just
not something that, uh, Schuller or his

(11:26):
Dutch community ever imagined. So I think
that once Schuller then moved out of that, went
to seminary and began to see this broader
environment where there were other churches, my
gosh, Lutherans and Methodists. And
then there were these other places and all these people who
may not have Christianity. Right. Were they really
Christian? Uh, was in and of itself a question.

(11:49):
And then the unquestioned power and
authority of a pastor, which is something
that he was imbued with. But then
questioning who listens to that authority and is that
authority, uh, going to remain? So
the boldness by which he went
to a successful ministry in
Illinois, he actually did exactly what

(12:12):
his parents or his community or his upbringing would have
expected. But then to launch out to something new in
California is the unexpected part of
it.
And Mark, maybe you can continue with how you
see this and how we've kind of figured some things out here.

Yeah. So, um,
part of the story is that he was
disenchanted with his inability
to uh, make more money.
True, true. One of the breaking points with his first
church in the south side
suburbs of Chicago was like he had grown

(12:47):
it, um, ten times. You
know, I think it was in the less than 100 and it was over
400 within five years. Uh, members. And,
you know, I can say it because I'm Dutch myself. You know, the
cheap Dutch folks, um, weren't willing
to pay him anymore. And so when, uh, the
denomination, the rca, asked him to plant a

(13:08):
church in uh, California,
um, I think he initially probably, uh,
was hesitant, but then, um, threw himself into
it and he just happened to,
you know, pick the perfect,
symbolically, the perfect spot to
be. To try innovative worship in California.

(13:28):
When, you know, he was very honest that it was the
drive in movie theater where he planted his
church in Orange. Um, California
was the 10th out of 10 options.
He couldn't get into a school. The Presbyterians had rented
the funeral home. Um, there was no place
to put up a tent. And so this became last ah, resort.

(13:49):
And what he did not realize was how that was going to
ah, m so perfectly onto the automobile
centric nature of Southern California
in particular. And, and eventually the
suburban United States writ large.
It was all automobile centric. And so he found a
way, um, to blend

(14:10):
the innovation of the west coast
in California and worshiping in a new way.
But he still had a lot of the
hallmarks of his mainline
Protestant traditional, uh, worship
service that he grew up in with. And so
it's really interesting, he figured out a way to baptize babies

(14:31):
in cars, to pass communion elements in cars, to
hand out bulletins. Uh, you know, all these
rituals got changed and modified.
Um, but it resonated with the
folks who are migrating along Route
66 with him from the same, you know, from
Iowa, from Michigan, from Arkansas,
Oklahoma, who also. These are the folks who are

(14:53):
migrating. So they do have. They're searching for things. So they're a
little more adventurous than the people who stayed behind. But
they still have the residue of traditional Christianity. And
so they want to see some of those hallmarks. And
he delivered that, um, in
a setting that was, uh, exciting.

Mhm. And Loren, your note on decline? His
emphasis didn't begin with seeing decline. His
emphasis began with the fact that he entered into an
atmosphere where there weren't very many people from
his own denomination. So it was very
religious, very Christian, the people who came,
but they seem to be now competing

(15:31):
with each other to be able to attract people. And
therefore, is denomination going to be
the attraction for people? Is it going to be
going back to something that you already know, or
are you going to be willing to open yourself to
a place that is still Christian, but is
going to open itself to a broader sense of community?

(15:51):
So. So Schuller's intentional decision
to call it a community church was in itself
an innovation, to not name it a
denomination, because where were people gonna come from? And
who the heck are Dutch Reformed? Right. Uh, but
to be able to do that then initiated a sense
of the competition that I think became very

(16:12):
characteristic of the era. And
that then implied that you were, uh, going
to compete with people who weren't a part of a church. Right
now, um, have some Christian sens
that we're not necessarily loyal to a church. And I think
that that then starts to speak to people,
um, uh, or speak to a strategy that says maybe we

(16:33):
can attract people who actually aren't connected to any church
and have never been connected to any church at all.

>> Loren (16:39):
Uh, this is something that really fascinates me. And I'm
curious how
you've come to think about how much of his
strategy was intentional. Because certainly I think you all
mentioned him going door to door in Chicago, if I
remember correctly, even door to door in Californ, California, and
asking people if you're involved with a church,
how much of it was it, uh, just like, accidental? Like

(17:02):
you mentioned being in California where people are
displaced and you know,
somewhat. Somewhat
obviously, or I guess quite literally in some ways, like pulled
away from their traditions and roots, looking for
something new, like, you know,
the automobile industry, like all that.

(17:22):
Mark, what do you think on that?

So, um, I want to give him some credit because
he was tapping into a zeitgeist. You know, he had read,
you know, you rightly mentioned about him going
door to door. And he has an anecdote about
seeing Norman Vincent Peale's,
uh, the power of positive thinking
on so many coffee tables.

(17:45):
And he said, okay. And then this was a guy who
he had been, you know, is a fellow RCA
pastor, uh, in New York City. He had
seen as a seminarian and came back and made fun of him in the
seminary, uh, apartment because he thought it was
just a joke. And like, yeah, uh, he was embarrassed to
have Norman Vincent Peale, ah, as a,

(18:05):
you know, another pastor in the, in the rca. But
he realized, okay, that
something's going on here. Peel is, Is
um, uh, attractive to people
for some reason. And so he is,
uh. There's a real intentionality about
m. Picking up some of the

(18:27):
positive thinking, changing it into possibility thinking,
coming up with a theology of self esteem, which he
thought literally was going to start the Second Reformation when he
published that book. And so, um, I
think um, there is a lot of intentionality, a lot
of puzzling that he's working on and that he was
uh, intuitive about even his methods

(18:48):
in church growth. The folks, the other guys at
uh, Fuller Seminary who had systems in place and
structures for um, how they wanted to do
church growth kind of marveled
at the way that Schuller kind of intuited the things
that they had been testing.
Um, and so he had a ah,
knack for being in the right place at the right time. But I

(19:11):
think he also deserves quite a bit of credit
um, for the way that
he worked hard to figure out uh, a,
um, a way to do this in a way that is going to
uh, appeal to a large swath of
the Southern California population. But then
eventually as it's beamed into people's
televisions across the country and then eventually across the world. Right.

(19:34):
He's the first released broadcast in the Soviet Union.
Um, and so that stuff is not lucky. Like
he's negotiating things and um, he's
figuring out systems himself.

>> Loren (19:45):
M. Yeah, I think this is something that
strikes me as how he kept having
his building program was for instance, something that struck
me as visionary and forward thinking
and a way to keep driving inspiration
and interest and forward thinking, but
also struck me as something that I think

(20:07):
seems to be, at least from my perspective, a deeper
flaw in this model of, you know what.
If I understand the story correctly, what ultimately ruined the
Crystal Cathedral was like debt, like massive debt and
bankruptcy.
Uh, Gerardo, do you want to talk about this
almost capitalism driven model and you
know, the strengths and weaknesses of

(20:28):
his approach?

Well, let's start with first of all his belief
that whatever the traditional model or normal
model of doing church was, he believed it wouldn't
fit the world as it was today. Yeah, good
point. There's a market centered, um,
society. You cannot just simply rely on
momentum of tradition. You can't just

(20:50):
decide to do the same things over and over again and assume
that people are going to respond. So he concluded that.
And he certainly wasn't the only one to conclude that. Right?
So from that standpoint, once you accept that
he was a very,
very committed person in relation to the
church, he was so committed that the church should

(21:11):
exist, that the church should actually be a
building, that it should be um, based
out of an actual ecclesial
structure that have to do with people who are
there and gathered and encouraging and working
together and mobilized to reach other people.
There are ways of framing
um, Schuller's, um, own ministry

(21:33):
in ways that sound very, very much what
very conservative, uh, biblical kind of people
would say, this is what the church is about. I think that they actually
would agree. And this, what people found over and over
again in their surprise of talking with Schuller is that
they actually agreed on many of the same things,
including very conservative, um,

(21:54):
theological positions and very
conservative political positions. So
when you then enter an environment like Southern
California, ah, a dynamic, growing,
expanding um, population,
and it wasn't the only one. It was part of that sun belt
that was expanding then you're seeing everything else

(22:15):
grow and expand. Everything else, trying to keep up with
the population changes, everything else
taking in new technology, everything else
sort of taking in accounting practices and
financial practices and accessing
credit in order to expand their work. So
in a way he definitely did take on

(22:35):
what he considered to be the best practices
of um, Christian businessmen
and being able to um, adopt
uh, things that were consistent with a
capitalist driven economy. Because he did believe that
capitalism was a God given thing. Right? That this was
a great country, that this was a great economy,

(22:56):
that its system was exactly the way, um,
things should be done. And he fell into those things. And
so once you take on that logic, that
logic then takes on two different
faces. On the one hand, as a
pastor, he pastored people with the compassion that
they had to face tremendous changes and
had to forge themselves into people who could

(23:18):
compete in ah, a highly aggressive
economy. Right? That they needed to make themselves to be
um, marketable and if they were going to survive, they needed to
meet needs and to build businesses, um, or
contribute to businesses that met those needs. But then
on the other hand, he actually used the same
logic in his own congregation as he

(23:38):
managed that congregation. And in managing
that congregation, yeah, he was going to, to keep it
moving. He's going to appease the customers,
he's going to borrow as much as he could and grow
on the basis of borrowing on the assumption that
there are Future people who are coming, who will fund
these things, and seeing everything as a source of

(23:59):
revenue, because that, to him
is a practical reality. So once you take
a look at that, I realize that there is a lot
that when you examine it, you can critique
it. But I think that part of what the book
accomplishes is to help you to understand
Schuller's motivations and how

(24:20):
consistent Schuller's motivations are
as bare and as plain as we can make them, because
he also made them bare and plain in his writing and
his speaking to also uncover the
assumptions that Christian ministries
operate in today. So that's where we
can sort of say, gee, that went out of control, or, boy, that

(24:40):
was off the rails, or there are a lot of different things that
Schuller may not of anticipated or
adequately accounted for, but there
is a sense in which what he believed was truly
traditional at the same time that it was innovating
in the right directions, consistent with
what he thought the culture required at the time.
Um, and that's where now we can step back and

(25:02):
say, oh, maybe that wasn't the best idea.
But at the time, right as he did it and
as his leaders followed him, and as thousands and
thousands and thousands of pastors attended,
uh, his seminars and read his material and consulted
with him personally, they also resonated with it
and built their ministries around that as well.

(25:23):
And so to the extent that Schuller
may consider to be off based, I think that we might see,
uh, to what extent is the Christian ministry in America
fundamentally based on the same motivations and fundamentally
based on the same ideas, um, and they may
be obscured or hidden over in other ways, or they may have
other language, but I think that there's something there.

(25:43):
Before we simply say Schuller got
it wrong. I think that it's important that we say there's a lot
that Schuller was experimenting with, and he was open about it. He
was open about experimenting. He wasn't secret about it,
um, and doing so. He was ambitious.
And so now we have other people who are also
doing the same, and they are quite ambitious. Um, but I

(26:05):
think that in many ways there isn't too much of a difference
between how Schuller ran his ministry and the way in which many,
many, uh, Christian leaders run their ministries today.

>> Loren (26:14):
Yeah, I think something that struck me about the
book, and y' all can correct me here if this
is not accurate, but it struck me that Schuller was
very much like a man of integrity and committed to
the mission. Like you said, Gerardo
he believed in what he was saying. I think it
struck me, it seemed like there was multiple times where

(26:37):
certainly it sounds like near the end things got a little
sideways with the church family. So many church family
members on the barrel. But like, as far as, like
Schuller himself, it seemed like he was like,
committed. Giving up his own money again
and again, taking out, it seemed like, if I'm remembering correctly,
personal loans to help fund the ministry endeavors. Like,
it seemed like he was committed and it wasn't just like,

(26:59):
uh, he never struck me as like the kind of stereotypical
like, um,
TV evangelist preacher. I don't want to name names, but, you know,
folks who seem to be just chasing, uh, you know,
um, fame and status, like, it seemed like he
was. He believed in what he was saying, which I think,
and I appreciate your point. Like the

(27:20):
implications today seem to be
off base. But like, again, in the moment, I think it makes
sense why he was doing what he was doing.

Mark can talk about this, I think, better in the sense that Mark
interviewed so many people associated with the
ministry and I think can speak to their experience of
Shuler directly.

>> Loren (27:39):
Yeah, go ahead.

We interviewed, uh, uh, boy,
almost 40 different people out in
Southern California. And then there's a few who are scattered
across country. We did on phones. But I have
to tell you, I think Gerardo and I
entered this project
pretty skeptical about Shuler and

(28:01):
highly critical. As sociologists, that tends to be what we do.
And um, and we still are. I think there's still a lot
to criticize, but,
uh, pretty much every single person that I interviewed,
uh, just couldn't, you know, they
knew he was a flawed man. You know, they called him an egghead. Not one of the
boys that, uh, uh,

(28:22):
um, you know, a consistory meeting with him was
pretty much a monologue. And if he got
bored, he sometimes should just walk to the window and
stare out.

>> Loren (28:32):
And then those are my favorite stories in the book
and walk out the.

Door, you know, and everybody around like, what do we do now
with all these flaws? Though they still,
uh, found him, they loved him,
um, they had very warm feelings about him.
Would visit, you know, would sneak around to visit
him, um, in the nursing home. And when he got
out to the barbershop, there was really elaborate

(28:56):
plans to how to stay in touch with him because they had such
warm regard for him. These weren't just, you
know, congregants, um, who only saw him
front stage. These were co pastors
and staff members and musicians who saw him
in, in, you know, in all this
glory.

So um, to speak. And family members. Mark.

Yeah, and family members and um, just
tremendously, uh, warm regard. Yeah. We interviewed
both, you know, Bobby, uh, the grandson who is
now. You can still watch Hour of Power from.

>> Loren (29:27):
Yeah, yeah. I was fascinated to see that too.

And uh, and Robert a. The son
spoke uh, with us as well. And
um, you know, and
Bobby uh, actually told us that um, he
saw Joel Osteen as uh, the most
direct descendant of his grandfather.

>> Loren (29:45):
Interesting.

But he said. And uh, but he said, but Osteen
is uh, more orthodox than my grandfather.

>> Loren (29:52):
Interesting.

But despite that, you know,
um, they all wanted to
um, make. They wanted to
um, uh make sure that
his legacy would be one that was
uh, cherished.

Mhm. And we're proud that Richard Ma, former
president of ah, Fuller Seminary, wrote
a wonderful forward for the book. Uh,
Rich Mao knew Robert Schuller personally
and um, he uh, feels very
sympathetic, uh, very warm towards him. Wrote
a very warm forward for the book
and he himself wrote in there. This is the

(30:32):
biography that Robert Schuller deserves.
Um, it's great to see that
there is a sympathetic portrait. I really feel
um, for Robert Schuller and for what he
was doing and what he accomplished. And
I really felt um, in those last
lines, in thinking about his passing,

(30:54):
um, the sadness of the
ministry and comparing that with the incredible
highs uh that he experienced, the
crisis. Incredible moments where you really feel
that there was this intersection between his
own um, hopes for the church and
his sense of what God wanted for the church.

(31:15):
M. There were moments in his life where I think he really believed
that those two um, had come together.
Um. Um. But things didn't quite turn
out that way. And so to really see uh,
that um, empathize with that and
then seek to understand it. I um, think
the book, Book uh, accomplishes that

(31:35):
um, to a greater extent than maybe I
even thought was possible.

>> Loren (31:40):
Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
I want to spend a moment just on legacy. When we think about
the legacy of Schuller from the grand
architecture, I mean I think that's one
thing that megachurches have not gotten is the grand
architectural visions he had. Uh, but
also the megachurch model, the thinking about
spectacle and performance. Uh,

(32:02):
what do you all have thoughts about? Just like the
legacy. And maybe this is also the question,
like do even
similar stature pastors today understand
how much like their
current status stems from the legacy of
Schuller?

My guess is that they don't.
I don't think they see the lineage uh in the ways that
we do. Um, we highlight in both books that, that
you know, as of 10 years ago, Rick
Warren and Bill Hybels were probably two of the most high
profile pastors in the United States. Both of their stars have
fallen a bit Hybels, uh, um,

(32:44):
but they're both disciples of Schuller.
They both went to the institute to learn from Schuller. And
Hybels, um, was so swept away that
he was a mentee of Schuller. He was flying out
once a month for a while. He took his entire staff out to
the Leadership Institute. And so
um, I think there's not a lot of pastors today who would,

(33:05):
who would make that, draw that line from
Schuller to themselves. But I think the
shadows of uh, men like
um, uh, Hybels and
Warren, um, they
learned so much from Schuller. Right. Even
Hybels kind of mimicked um,
Schuller's Leadership Institute with his conferences on

(33:28):
leadership and church mammoth management. And
so I think there's that Shuler's
fingerprints are all over how
uh, pastors, not just megachurch pastors, but pastors of
all congregational sizes, how they
think about management and leadership,
um, and how you actually do Sunday

(33:50):
mornings. Shuler put a
template out there for 40 years non stop
that this is how you do worship. And
um, uh,
that's a lasting legacy.

Mhm. Well I think we can spend a lot of time
focusing on architecture and we do
because Schuller emphasized architecture. But
I think that there's a deeper principle that is also
written in uh, how we understand
Schuler and that is he sought for ministry
to be nimble in relation to
changing circumstances. Okay.

(34:25):
And that sense of being nimble is part of why he moved away
from denominational structure. Uh, because
he found them to be too slow,
too deliberative. Um, he called an
albatross. Um, it's the word
that Mark uses as a metaphor to
describe um, Schuller's relation
to understanding denominations. And

(34:48):
so the issue of moving away from
denominations was not out of a hatred of
denominationalism or anything like that. It was in order
to allow the pastor to have executive authority,
authority to make decisions. And that also
propelled uh, a sense of authority over
the governance of the church. So that even though

(35:08):
you have uh, a board or an elder or those
kinds of things, it's still the idea that the full
time professional uh, pastor
is the one who should be making the decision.
Right. And also the idea of how
you work with money, ministry, hiring,
uh, bringing people in, arrangement, it's all about

(35:28):
being nimble. Now, because you
can take that principle as perhaps more core
in many ways to his approach to
church ministry and church leadership. We can
see how pastors today are
negotiating the need for buildings or land
on the basis of whether it gives them that
nimble quality that Schuller

(35:51):
advocated. See, so there are people who
are giving up their, uh, buildings.
There are people who are diversifying into,
to multiple campuses. There are people who are
doing a number of different things, saying that
having one big building and investing in
one large structure actually

(36:11):
puts, uh, too many assets and too many
dynamics in one basket. And so if we're
going to create a nimble community,
a nimble leadership structure, then we may need to
renegotiate whether this is the way to do it or
not. And so as we look at, um,
seminaries, uh, that are selling their buildings,
uh, many churches who are, um, only renting or

(36:33):
going from here to there, they're accepting other kinds
of challenges because they think that the challenge of
investing in one piece of real estate,
that risk is too high. Right. So I think that
there's more to read into and to engage with
as you read, rather than seeing it only
as the template of ministry, to see what are the things that

(36:54):
were guiding that template template, and how is that
then seeping into the way in which we see
decisions being made even today?

>> Loren (37:02):
Uh, well, let's take a quick break here and let's come back with
some closing questions.
I want to ask this question first with you, Gerardo,
and then go to Mark.
I'm thinking about one of the things I appreciate about the book was you kind
of end the book, at least one of the final chapters with
Wizard. Hopefully I'm getting this name right, Hartmund Rosa.

(37:25):
And talking about Resonance, I was
thinking about one of the
authors and scholars I've appreciated, Nandra Root,
who I think wrote about Rosa in his book,
I think the Congregation in the Secular Age. If I remember, he talked
about the speed and the challenge
being the speed at which we have to do in daily life
and we're no longer, uh,

(37:48):
things change so much. And certainly
I think that's where Schuller was exactly right
with the denominational structures. They're just
slowing us down and we have to move quicker and we don't have
time for all this. So what do you want to say
about residence and this idea of
the change in speed of life right now?

Well, I had the great pleasure of meeting
Andy and Hartmut Rosa, uh, last
year at ah, Princeton Theological Seminary
where, um, Andy gathered everybody together
Uh, a group of us, uh, to talk. I was the only non
theologian there, but was able to
think about these things because I had been persuaded
um, as we were working on the project that maybe Hartmut

(38:31):
Rosa had something to say. Theologians
and pastoral leaders have been paying attention to
Rosa because in a very intriguing way
Rosa uh, has defined um,
the social problem of our age. And that
is the problem of acceleration. The idea
that things are speeding up and they keep speeding up.
So the problem is uh, the problem of

(38:53):
obsolescence. Whether it's planned
obsolescence or the fact that you're trying to outpace
obsolescence, uh, through constant
reworking and re. Innovation and going
faster and accelerating yet again. Um,
uh, he concludes that this is absolutely
unsustainable, um, that the speed or
the pace, even if you feel like you made it this year, you're

(39:15):
still going to have to be faster next year. Right?
Um, and he makes this super clear. Andy picks
this up and then redirects it for a
theological, religious, uh, uh, audience. Hartmut
Rosa himself is agnostic, but he has seen
how much resonance his concept of
resonance has taken because Rosa is saying that

(39:36):
in a time when we cannot
keep pace, we have to find
some way of achieving, achieving a
truer humanity or a fuller humanity. And
that is by being able to find some deep sense
of connection with things, with the environment,
with nature, uh, with ourselves, with

(39:56):
other people. And he uses this concept of
resonance as his sort of
um, stopgap. It's just a big concept to sort of
say acceleration is the problem, resonance
is the solution. Um, and, and
Rosa himself does not necessarily believe that
religion is capable of actually providing

(40:17):
this, um, that religion may never actually be
able to do it well. Um, and they're too self
concerned and they're also stuck in tradition.
So Rose himself never imagined a person
like Schuller. Schuller does not fit
into Rose's conception of
what religion could ever accomplish. And

(40:37):
it's a challenge, uh, which we discuss directly.
Um, but in its own way there's a sense in which
a lot of other people who are church leaders
also say we've got to get off of the speed
bandwagon and try to
tap into whatever this resonance thing. In my
mind the difficulty is that many pastors mean

(40:58):
that they can ignore social change
and just rest in tradition and hope that they
can achieve resonance through whatever
they think they grew up with or some
cobbled together sense of tradition like
hymns or, or a prayerful
space or something like that. And I'm not sure that
that's what Andy's saying. I don't think it's

(41:20):
what, uh, Hartmut Rosa is saying, and it's certainly
not what Schuller is saying. So. Because
resonance may or may not be a pathway for
considering how to address acceleration, I'm
not sure that we can readily say that
just pursuing resonance by
moving back into tradition is the answer. So

(41:41):
that's where being able to play on this, to be able to
use ros language for
highlighting something that Schuller never needed
to be explained. Right. Schuller
intuitively understood change was
happening. You could not ignore it that we have
moved into a different societal sphere and
we're never going to move backwards. Okay. But

(42:03):
at the same time, Schuller had also an incredible
optimism that worship, um,
and being in the sanctuary and church grounds and
the architecture of church would provide the resonance
that was possible and we can still evaluate. Well, is
that true? We don't know. But we can also
say, by the way, that as another part

(42:24):
of the rest of the story is that Schuler's
grounds and building were sold. It is now
a part of the church Diocese of Orange. Right.

>> Loren (42:33):
Yeah.

A Roman Catholic church. And that by
embracing the local Vietnamese community,
by creating space for the local Latino community,
as well as just being the bishop seat. Right.
Of Roman Catholicism in the area, uh,
there is a lot of evidence of vitality.
And last time I looked, they were saying
something like 12,000 people

(42:56):
attending mass services every
weekend. So you can sort of say, okay, there
is something that is still holding, still
resonating in that place. Even
if it's not what Schuller intended, it is
still what Schuller would rather have. So
when it was being sold, and it could either be an extension
campus of a local university, or it could

(43:18):
be a Roman Catholic church, um,
Schuller expressed a desire that it remain a
church. And to that extent, the building
and the grounds has actually lived up to
the legacy that he had hoped it
would have.

>> Loren (43:33):
Yeah. Mark, let me ask you too, about that, because I think
that was the most fascinating thing. And Gerardo,
I'm fascinated by your point about how
Schuller sort of understood residence there through,
um, through the architecture and the campus, like you
said. But like, uh, Gerardo mentioned it. But like
Chapman University is connected to the tradition. I'm connected

(43:55):
with the Disciples of Christ Christian Church also, I think the United Church
of Christ. And if I read the book and understood
correctly, like the family didn't want it to go to them, because
as happens, and has happened in
many higher Education
colleges that even were associated with my tradition,
like, they've gone secular and the family, they didn't want

(44:16):
the risk of the campus going secular, the
cathedral going secular. So Mark, like, uh,
again, I just find this whole, this
thing fascinating. Any other thoughts you have about that,
the campus and even that transition?

Yeah. So, um,
for some folks, the Trapman, uh,
bid was much more attractive. It was comparable
in the millions of dollars. Um, but there was also
a very good, uh, opportunity
for the congregation to continue to
worship in the cathedral.

(44:51):
Perpetuity.

>> Loren (44:52):
Mhm.

Um, but they chose against that. Uh, Schuller
described it as returning it to the mother Church
for it, um, to be
returned to go to the Roman Catholic, uh, diocese.
Um, and so to me, it's remarkable
that, that, you know, I grew up in roughly the
same tradition. I'm Christian Reformed. Um,

(45:14):
Schuller is Reformed Church in America. Outsiders can't tell the
difference. We're both Dutch. Um, but
it's a tradition of restraint, right?
Modest church buildings, lack of drama
in the service. And
so for him, um,
to intuit, as Gerardo said,

(45:34):
different forms of resonance to me is just quite
remarkable. Remarkable that someone from his background and
with his theological preparation was the one
who intuited. Oh,
what about biorealism? You know, that we're going to worship
in a sanctuary where you can see God's
nature. Um, and it's going to be a spectacle

(45:55):
because God is grand. We are going to have a grand,
as grand a cathedral. And it's also very
unreformed to call it a cathedral.
Just all these flourishes and
drama. Ah. But yet he also found
a way to maintain his dignity. You know, one of our favorite
stories is, you know, part of the drama is the costume.

(46:15):
Right. The vestments. And, you know, one
person I interviewed told us, well, that's because, you know,
in the Presbyterian tradition, Reformed tradition, it's about the office
and so you don't get distracted by, uh, the person underneath and what they're
wearing. So this real noble idea.
And then I think it was his son, Robert A. Who told.
Well, my dad struggled with his weight. Yeah.

(46:37):
It hid girth. But he also liked to eat between services.
And so ketchup and mustard on the tie was
no big deal.

>> Loren (46:44):
M. It's funny because I've heard that before. It's.

It's true. It's practical.

It's true. Yeah. And so for
us, it was just, um,
connecting him with Rosa just made so much
sense in the ways that,
uh. And if putting these two
together, you almost think like well Shuler was ahead of his time for what
he was doing.

>> Loren (47:08):
Right.
Well this is such a great conversation and unfortunately
I'm out of time. Uh, so can I give you both an
opportunity? Just kind of share what other projects you have
working on and then how folks can connect with you.
Jordan, if you want to start.

Well Mark and I are continuing in our work
together with another colleague, Kevin
Dorrit. And we have been looking at
anti racism in churches that
have been committing themselves to anti
racism. White progressive
congregations who um, have said
look, we stand behind these issues

(47:45):
of justice and um, yet
there is no playbook, there is no formula,
um, there's no sense exactly of how to accomplish this.
And so what happens um, in
churches when, when they commit to
anti racism, uh, the most progressive
and almost exclusively white

(48:05):
congregations do so. Um, we have a
contract with Oxford University Press for that
book. It's been a five year project with uh, a million
dollars of grant money from Lillian Dauman
and that um, is on its way towards
completion in this year. Uh,
so you can expect that in another year or so.

(48:26):
Um, ah, in addition, uh, there's
always something going on right in terms of just keeping up
with different uh, commitments and service
opportunities. And in terms of a
little bit of presence that I have online, bluesky, uh
is where I'm at now. You can just look at my name. Gerardo
Marty know uh, spaces. You should be able to find
me there.

>> Loren (48:47):
Great Mark.

Yeah. And I just want to reiterate what an important
project we think this, this is that we're this
anti racism with uh, uh a white progressive
denomination. Because you know there's been a
lot of uh, academics in our field
who have looked at white evangelicals and issues
of race and racialization and uh, racial
justice. And so uh, we think we're going to be

(49:11):
uh, in an important space
for thinking about uh, what is
probably technically you know, a white mainline
Protestant denomination in the way that it functions.
I also just submitted a manuscript, uh, that
considers
um, uh, American Christians and
how they think about poverty. So that will

(49:32):
be a 20 ah, 26 book,
um, that should be out I would think in the spring, but
maybe in the fall of 2026. So American
Christians and Poverty Myths. Uh, and the subtitle is
uh, beyond the Veil of Meritocracy. So it's an interrogation
of um,
uh some um,

(49:53):
assumptions we have about poverty in the United
States. And I'm sorry to say Loren, I am not
on Blue sky or Facebook and
so uh, they can, people can email me
and that's easy enough come.

Knock on his door at the office.

>> Loren (50:08):
Well, I look forward to reading that book and hopefully
having another conversation with you all in the future. So thank you so much for your
time. Really appreciate the conversation. We always leave
folks with a word of pleasure. Peace. So may God's peace be with you.

And with you.

>> Loren Richmond (50:28):
Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
Media. We love to hear from our listeners with
questions, comments, and ideas for future episodes.
Visit our website at, uh, future-christian.com
and find the Connect with Us form at the bottom of the
page to get in touch with Martha or Loren. But

(50:49):
before you go, do us a favor, subscribe to the
POD to leave a review. It really helps us get this
out to more people. Thanks and go in peace.

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