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

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

0:07
>> Loren Richmond: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast, your
0:10
source for insights and ideas on how to lead your church in
0:13
the 21st century. At the Future Christian
0:16
Podcast, we talk to pastors, authors
0:19
and other faith leaders for helpful advice and practical
0:21
wisdom to help you and your community of faith
0:24
walk boldly into the future. Whether
0:27
you're a pastor, church leader, or a passionate member
0:30
of your faith community, this podcast is
0:33
designed to challenge, inspire, and equip
0:36
you with the tools you need for impactful ministry.
0:39
And now for a little bit about the guest for this episode.
0:44
>> Martha Tatarnic: Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast.
0:47
Today, Loren Richmond Jr. Is in
0:49
conversation with Gerardo Marti and
0:52
Mark T. Mulder. Gerardo
0:55
is the William R. Kennan Jr. Professor of
0:57
Sociology at Davidson College and
1:00
President of the Society for the Scientific
1:03
of Religion. A uh, prolific and award
1:06
winning author. His research explores
1:09
religious innovation and the role of religion
1:12
in shaping patterns of racialization
1:15
and political engagement in the United States.
1:19
Mark's research focuses on urban
1:21
congregations and changing racial ethnic
1:24
demographics. Mulder is professor
1:27
of Sociology at Calvin University
1:30
and Director of the Common Good Collective.
1:33
He is the author or co author of five
1:36
books. In addition, Mulder has published
1:39
numerous peer reviewed articles in academic
1:41
journals including Social Problems,
1:44
Religion and American Culture and the
1:47
Journal of Urban History. He has also
1:50
published pieces for church audiences and won
1:53
writing awards from the Evangelical Press
1:55
association and the Associated
1:58
Church Press. Uh, a reminder,
2:01
before we start today's conversation, please take
2:04
a moment to subscribe to the podcast, leave a
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review and share Future Christian with a friend.
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Connect with Loren, Martha and Future
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2:26
in how we faithfully discern the future of the
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church.
2:39
>> Loren: Okay. Welcome to the Future Christian Podcast. This is Loren Richmond
2:41
Jr. I'm pleased to be joined today by Dr.
2:44
Mark Mulder and Dr. Gerardo Marti. Thank you
2:47
both for your time and looking forward to this conversation. Welcome to
2:50
the show.
2:51
>> Mark T. Mulder: Thank you.
2:52
>> Gerardo Marti: Glad to be here.
2:53
>> Loren: Yeah. So looking forward to having this conversation. Uh, let's
2:56
start with you, Mark. Anything else you want listeners to know about you?
3:00
>> Mark T. Mulder: Um, I'm also a
3:03
dad and a husband and a bike rider and I've
3:06
been president of my neighborhood association in
3:09
the core city of Grand Rapids, Michigan for a number of years.
3:12
Uh, and then passed.
3:13
>> Loren: Yeah, great. That can be the real controversial
3:16
work. I can imagine. Hoas. Is it
3:19
an HOAS or just a neighborhood association?
3:22
>> Mark T. Mulder: No, um, uh, professors can't afford.
3:27
This is a good old fashioned, uh, urban neighborhood
3:31
Fair enough.
3:32
>> Loren: Fair enough. Probably less drama that way.
3:34
Um, Gerardo, how about you?
3:38
>> Gerardo Marti: Uh, born on the east coast, uh,
3:40
moved to the west coast, married a woman from
3:43
the Midwest and have been working,
3:46
uh, in the south for decades now. So
3:49
I feel that I've had the good fortune of
3:51
experiencing a lot of life, a lot of
3:54
religious life. And most of my work has focused
3:57
on changing religious dynamic, religious
4:00
innovations, as well as congregations. And in
4:03
between that, uh, I'm a dad, I'm a grandfather.
4:06
I have other commitments and I love to read.
4:10
>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Well, I love the read too. And that's kind of why
4:12
we're having this conversation today. So
4:15
we're here to talk about the book
4:18
that Mark and Gerardo authored, the Church
4:21
Must Grow or Perish. Robert
4:24
Schuller and the Business of American
4:26
Christianity. I was really glad. I can't remember if I
4:29
found this on Eerdman's or they sent it to me, but I was really
4:32
excited to read this and I was not disappointed.
4:35
So let's start with this for the conversation.
4:39
What was the driving idea or question
4:42
y' all had when you sat down
4:45
to write this book? Mark, do you want to start with that?
4:48
>> Mark T. Mulder: I'd love to. So I think Gerardo and
4:51
I started having conversations about this,
4:54
uh, roughly a decade ago. Um, we were just past
4:57
the 10 year mark of Schuller's, uh,
5:00
passing. He died quite quietly in April of
5:03
2015. And Gerardo and I had been working on
5:05
a different project together for a while.
5:08
And I'm, uh, gonna give Giarado the credit. This was his idea.
5:12
He had grown up, uh, in the shadow of the
5:15
Crystal Cathedral. And I think we were both
5:17
struck by the fact that Robert Schuller, who
5:20
had been this, uh, you know, at one point, I think you
5:24
could have made the argument the Crystal Cathedral was perhaps the most
5:27
recognized, uh, congregation, uh, or church in
5:30
the world, if not just the United States.
5:32
Um, and had, you
5:35
know, he was somewhat. I remember from seeing on, uh, Hour
5:38
of Power on Sunday mornings when I was homesick from church
5:41
and uh, for him to kind of just kind of
5:44
quietly pass, um, without
5:47
much fanfare or discussion, I think
5:50
struck us. Well, there's a story there,
5:52
um, a, uh, narrative. Um, and
5:55
I think we really felt like,
5:56
um, Schuller was.
6:00
His influence was being underestimated. And we
6:03
wanted to address that and try to see,
6:06
um, what we could explain about his
6:09
ministry and what it could tell us, um, about
6:12
late, uh, 20th century, early 21st century
6:15
religion in the United States.
6:18
>> Loren: Yeah, yeah, thanks. Thanks for Sharing that, I was
6:21
struck just by how even
6:23
you mentioned watching the Hour of Power. Like,
6:26
I remember growing up. I grew up Independent Baptist. My
6:29
dad was a pastor. When he wasn't a pastor, I was going to church
6:32
every Sunday.
6:34
>> Mark T. Mulder: Mhm.
6:35
>> Loren: Yet even though I remember somehow watching
6:38
even here and there, the Hour of Power, so it
6:41
speaks to kind of the cultural significance
6:44
it had. Like this would have been for me probably
6:47
in the late 90s. Um, Gerardo, like, was
6:50
the 80s 90s. Was that kind of like the pinnacle
6:53
of the crucial cathedral and
6:55
Schuller's ministry in some ways?
6:58
>> Gerardo Marti: Well, absolutely. I think part of, uh,
7:01
connecting with Mark was not only, uh, were Mark and
7:04
I getting along well and we were doing some work. I
7:07
think part of it is that Schuller's story was so big.
7:10
I never felt that telling Schuller's story could be done
7:12
alone or just from one person.
7:15
And so having grown up in Southern California and
7:18
seeing various phases of the cathedral and the
7:21
ministry before, it was definitely an unignorable
7:24
reality in the area. Um, not only
7:27
did pastors and Christians, so to speak,
7:30
know about it, but it was a phenomenon of
7:32
Southern California in a culture where there
7:35
were a lot of changes and a lot of big things
7:38
were occurring, big things that people had
7:41
to see or experience or were seen,
7:44
um, advertised or evident on local
7:47
television and in local news. So from that
7:50
standpoint, um, uh, we also knew that there were people
7:53
coming from across the country and even across the world
7:56
that were seeing Schuller's ministry as a
7:58
stopping point. It was more than just a tourist
8:01
destination. It was somehow seen as a guide or a
8:04
model. And so once I understood even
8:06
better, as Mark and I were talking about, uh, these things,
8:09
that the tradition that Schuller
8:12
came from was something that Mark knew and was associated
8:15
with, uh, in his own way, the
8:18
familial and ethnic backgrounds also
8:21
that Schuller had, um, spent much of
8:24
his formative experience, um, in
8:26
Michigan. And the kind of connections
8:29
then, Then I got very excited, uh, because
8:32
there was a sense that there was a real
8:34
bigger aspect of what was going on in the
8:37
shaping not only of Robert Schuller, but therefore
8:40
of American Christianity. Um, and
8:43
when you combine with the sensibilities that Mark
8:46
has built over time of working with archives
8:49
and digging into memos and
8:51
photos and writings that I don't
8:54
think anyone has looked at, this treasure
8:57
trove of deep background material
9:00
that other people had ignored, that's what was
9:03
being brought to light. So that, uh,
9:06
initiated us to write a book that focused
9:09
first on how the massive
9:11
enterprise of Crystal Cathedral Ministries
9:14
crumbled seemingly overnight. And that
9:17
became our first project together on,
9:19
um, the ministry, the Glass Church. But
9:22
there was so much left over that was
9:25
biographically interesting, just understanding this
9:27
person, um, that I approached a
9:30
publisher who was open, ah, to looking at things.
9:33
Erdman's with their library, um, of religious,
9:36
um, biography, and said, we've got a
9:39
lot here. Would you be interested in
9:42
Schuller's story? And they were willing to snatch
9:45
that up. So we did an unexpected. This project,
9:47
the one that we're talking about now, this biography is a
9:50
very unexpected project. It grew out of
9:53
the overflow of this life
9:56
and m. The massive material that was available
9:59
to be able to tell an intriguing story that we
10:02
thought was not only telling of Schuller's life himself, but something
10:05
about the world of Christianity that we live in
10:07
today.
10:10
>> Loren: That's one of the most things that was fascinating to me just reading
10:13
the book. Was his upbringing very rural,
10:16
Christian Reformed Church, crc. And how starkly
10:19
different Crystal Cathedral came to be.
10:23
You mentioned a couple things there just in your
10:25
statement about the change and
10:30
how California was. These are my words, but
10:33
kind of like the breeding grounds, if you will, of.
10:36
Of these new innovations.
10:39
And I think that's what struck me about the title
10:42
the Church Must Grow or Perish.
10:45
Uh, I'm curious. You're welcome to start with this,
10:47
Gerardo and Mark, if you want to chip in here
10:50
too. But in what ways was Schuller's diagnosis of the American
10:53
church's decline accurate or prophetic in a
10:56
way?
10:58
>> Gerardo Marti: Well, uh, first a small correction that it was the Reformed Church
11:01
of America. The Dutch. A Church of America.
11:03
>> Loren: I'm thinking of a friend I know who's crc.
11:05
>> Gerardo Marti: That's right. Well, Mark can give more of that background,
11:08
but certainly is the oldest denomination in America
11:11
and also one that had these deep, um,
11:15
roots and these ethnic enclaves. So the idea
11:17
of church, um, persisting and even
11:20
the question that a church would not exist in a community is just
11:23
not something that, uh, Schuller or his
11:26
Dutch community ever imagined. So I think
11:29
that once Schuller then moved out of that, went
11:32
to seminary and began to see this broader
11:35
environment where there were other churches, my
11:38
gosh, Lutherans and Methodists. And
11:41
then there were these other places and all these people who
11:43
may not have Christianity. Right. Were they really
11:46
Christian? Uh, was in and of itself a question.
11:49
And then the unquestioned power and
11:51
authority of a pastor, which is something
11:54
that he was imbued with. But then
11:57
questioning who listens to that authority and is that
12:00
authority, uh, going to remain? So
12:03
the boldness by which he went
12:06
to a successful ministry in
12:09
Illinois, he actually did exactly what
12:12
his parents or his community or his upbringing would have
12:14
expected. But then to launch out to something new in
12:17
California is the unexpected part of
12:20
it.
12:21
And Mark, maybe you can continue with how you
12:23
see this and how we've kind of figured some things out here.
12:27
>> Mark T. Mulder: Yeah. So, um,
12:30
part of the story is that he was
12:32
disenchanted with his inability
12:35
to uh, make more money.
12:38
True, true. One of the breaking points with his first
12:41
church in the south side
12:44
suburbs of Chicago was like he had grown
12:47
it, um, ten times. You
12:50
know, I think it was in the less than 100 and it was over
12:52
400 within five years. Uh, members. And,
12:56
you know, I can say it because I'm Dutch myself. You know, the
12:59
cheap Dutch folks, um, weren't willing
13:02
to pay him anymore. And so when, uh, the
13:04
denomination, the rca, asked him to plant a
13:08
church in uh, California,
13:11
um, I think he initially probably, uh,
13:14
was hesitant, but then, um, threw himself into
13:16
it and he just happened to,
13:19
you know, pick the perfect,
13:22
symbolically, the perfect spot to
13:25
be. To try innovative worship in California.
13:28
When, you know, he was very honest that it was the
13:31
drive in movie theater where he planted his
13:33
church in Orange. Um, California
13:36
was the 10th out of 10 options.
13:40
He couldn't get into a school. The Presbyterians had rented
13:43
the funeral home. Um, there was no place
13:46
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
13:52
ah, m so perfectly onto the automobile
13:55
centric nature of Southern California
13:58
in particular. And, and eventually the
14:02
suburban United States writ large.
14:04
It was all automobile centric. And so he found a
14:07
way, um, to blend
14:10
the innovation of the west coast
14:13
in California and worshiping in a new way.
14:16
But he still had a lot of the
14:18
hallmarks of his mainline
14:21
Protestant traditional, uh, worship
14:24
service that he grew up in with. And so
14:28
it's really interesting, he figured out a way to baptize babies
14:31
in cars, to pass communion elements in cars, to
14:34
hand out bulletins. Uh, you know, all these
14:36
rituals got changed and modified.
14:39
Um, but it resonated with the
14:42
folks who are migrating along Route
14:45
66 with him from the same, you know, from
14:48
Iowa, from Michigan, from Arkansas,
14:50
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
14:56
little more adventurous than the people who stayed behind. But
14:59
they still have the residue of traditional Christianity. And
15:01
so they want to see some of those hallmarks. And
15:04
he delivered that, um, in
15:07
a setting that was, uh, exciting.
15:10
>> Gerardo Marti: Mhm. And Loren, your note on decline? His
15:13
emphasis didn't begin with seeing decline. His
15:16
emphasis began with the fact that he entered into an
15:19
atmosphere where there weren't very many people from
15:22
his own denomination. So it was very
15:25
religious, very Christian, the people who came,
15:28
but they seem to be now competing
15:31
with each other to be able to attract people. And
15:34
therefore, is denomination going to be
15:37
the attraction for people? Is it going to be
15:40
going back to something that you already know, or
15:43
are you going to be willing to open yourself to
15:46
a place that is still Christian, but is
15:49
going to open itself to a broader sense of community?
15:51
So. So Schuller's intentional decision
15:54
to call it a community church was in itself
15:58
an innovation, to not name it a
16:00
denomination, because where were people gonna come from? And
16:03
who the heck are Dutch Reformed? Right. Uh, but
16:06
to be able to do that then initiated a sense
16:09
of the competition that I think became very
16:12
characteristic of the era. And
16:15
that then implied that you were, uh, going
16:17
to compete with people who weren't a part of a church. Right
16:20
now, um, have some Christian sens
16:24
that we're not necessarily loyal to a church. And I think
16:27
that that then starts to speak to people,
16:30
um, uh, or speak to a strategy that says maybe we
16:33
can attract people who actually aren't connected to any church
16:36
and have never been connected to any church at all.
16:39
>> Loren: Uh, this is something that really fascinates me. And I'm
16:42
curious how
16:45
you've come to think about how much of his
16:48
strategy was intentional. Because certainly I think you all
16:51
mentioned him going door to door in Chicago, if I
16:53
remember correctly, even door to door in Californ, California, and
16:56
asking people if you're involved with a church,
16:59
how much of it was it, uh, just like, accidental? Like
17:02
you mentioned being in California where people are
17:05
displaced and you know,
17:07
somewhat. Somewhat
17:10
obviously, or I guess quite literally in some ways, like pulled
17:13
away from their traditions and roots, looking for
17:16
something new, like, you know,
17:18
the automobile industry, like all that.
17:22
Mark, what do you think on that?
17:24
>> Mark T. Mulder: So, um, I want to give him some credit because
17:27
he was tapping into a zeitgeist. You know, he had read,
17:31
you know, you rightly mentioned about him going
17:34
door to door. And he has an anecdote about
17:37
seeing Norman Vincent Peale's,
17:39
uh, the power of positive thinking
17:42
on so many coffee tables.
17:45
And he said, okay. And then this was a guy who
17:48
he had been, you know, is a fellow RCA
17:50
pastor, uh, in New York City. He had
17:53
seen as a seminarian and came back and made fun of him in the
17:56
seminary, uh, apartment because he thought it was
17:59
just a joke. And like, yeah, uh, he was embarrassed to
18:02
have Norman Vincent Peale, ah, as a,
18:05
you know, another pastor in the, in the rca. But
18:09
he realized, okay, that
18:11
something's going on here. Peel is, Is
18:15
um, uh, attractive to people
18:18
for some reason. And so he is,
18:21
uh. There's a real intentionality about
18:24
m. Picking up some of the
18:27
positive thinking, changing it into possibility thinking,
18:30
coming up with a theology of self esteem, which he
18:33
thought literally was going to start the Second Reformation when he
18:36
published that book. And so, um, I
18:39
think um, there is a lot of intentionality, a lot
18:42
of puzzling that he's working on and that he was
18:45
uh, intuitive about even his methods
18:48
in church growth. The folks, the other guys at
18:51
uh, Fuller Seminary who had systems in place and
18:54
structures for um, how they wanted to do
18:57
church growth kind of marveled
18:59
at the way that Schuller kind of intuited the things
19:02
that they had been testing.
19:05
Um, and so he had a ah,
19:08
knack for being in the right place at the right time. But I
19:11
think he also deserves quite a bit of credit
19:13
um, for the way that
19:16
he worked hard to figure out uh, a,
19:19
um, a way to do this in a way that is going to
19:22
uh, appeal to a large swath of
19:25
the Southern California population. But then
19:27
eventually as it's beamed into people's
19:30
televisions across the country and then eventually across the world. Right.
19:34
He's the first released broadcast in the Soviet Union.
19:37
Um, and so that stuff is not lucky. Like
19:40
he's negotiating things and um, he's
19:43
figuring out systems himself.
19:45
>> Loren: M. Yeah, I think this is something that
19:48
strikes me as how he kept having
19:52
his building program was for instance, something that struck
19:55
me as visionary and forward thinking
19:58
and a way to keep driving inspiration
20:01
and interest and forward thinking, but
20:04
also struck me as something that I think
20:07
seems to be, at least from my perspective, a deeper
20:10
flaw in this model of, you know what.
20:12
If I understand the story correctly, what ultimately ruined the
20:15
Crystal Cathedral was like debt, like massive debt and
20:18
bankruptcy.
20:19
Uh, Gerardo, do you want to talk about this
20:22
almost capitalism driven model and you
20:25
know, the strengths and weaknesses of
20:28
his approach?
20:29
>> Gerardo Marti: Well, let's start with first of all his belief
20:32
that whatever the traditional model or normal
20:35
model of doing church was, he believed it wouldn't
20:38
fit the world as it was today. Yeah, good
20:41
point. There's a market centered, um,
20:44
society. You cannot just simply rely on
20:47
momentum of tradition. You can't just
20:50
decide to do the same things over and over again and assume
20:52
that people are going to respond. So he concluded that.
20:55
And he certainly wasn't the only one to conclude that. Right?
20:59
So from that standpoint, once you accept that
21:02
he was a very,
21:05
very committed person in relation to the
21:08
church, he was so committed that the church should
21:11
exist, that the church should actually be a
21:14
building, that it should be um, based
21:17
out of an actual ecclesial
21:19
structure that have to do with people who are
21:22
there and gathered and encouraging and working
21:25
together and mobilized to reach other people.
21:28
There are ways of framing
21:30
um, Schuller's, um, own ministry
21:33
in ways that sound very, very much what
21:36
very conservative, uh, biblical kind of people
21:39
would say, this is what the church is about. I think that they actually
21:42
would agree. And this, what people found over and over
21:45
again in their surprise of talking with Schuller is that
21:48
they actually agreed on many of the same things,
21:51
including very conservative, um,
21:54
theological positions and very
21:57
conservative political positions. So
21:59
when you then enter an environment like Southern
22:02
California, ah, a dynamic, growing,
22:05
expanding um, population,
22:08
and it wasn't the only one. It was part of that sun belt
22:12
that was expanding then you're seeing everything else
22:15
grow and expand. Everything else, trying to keep up with
22:17
the population changes, everything else
22:20
taking in new technology, everything else
22:23
sort of taking in accounting practices and
22:26
financial practices and accessing
22:29
credit in order to expand their work. So
22:32
in a way he definitely did take on
22:35
what he considered to be the best practices
22:38
of um, Christian businessmen
22:41
and being able to um, adopt
22:44
uh, things that were consistent with a
22:47
capitalist driven economy. Because he did believe that
22:50
capitalism was a God given thing. Right? That this was
22:53
a great country, that this was a great economy,
22:56
that its system was exactly the way, um,
22:59
things should be done. And he fell into those things. And
23:01
so once you take on that logic, that
23:04
logic then takes on two different
23:07
faces. On the one hand, as a
23:09
pastor, he pastored people with the compassion that
23:12
they had to face tremendous changes and
23:15
had to forge themselves into people who could
23:18
compete in ah, a highly aggressive
23:21
economy. Right? That they needed to make themselves to be
23:25
um, marketable and if they were going to survive, they needed to
23:28
meet needs and to build businesses, um, or
23:30
contribute to businesses that met those needs. But then
23:33
on the other hand, he actually used the same
23:36
logic in his own congregation as he
23:38
managed that congregation. And in managing
23:41
that congregation, yeah, he was going to, to keep it
23:44
moving. He's going to appease the customers,
23:47
he's going to borrow as much as he could and grow
23:50
on the basis of borrowing on the assumption that
23:53
there are Future people who are coming, who will fund
23:56
these things, and seeing everything as a source of
23:59
revenue, because that, to him
24:02
is a practical reality. So once you take
24:05
a look at that, I realize that there is a lot
24:08
that when you examine it, you can critique
24:11
it. But I think that part of what the book
24:13
accomplishes is to help you to understand
24:17
Schuller's motivations and how
24:20
consistent Schuller's motivations are
24:22
as bare and as plain as we can make them, because
24:25
he also made them bare and plain in his writing and
24:28
his speaking to also uncover the
24:31
assumptions that Christian ministries
24:34
operate in today. So that's where we
24:37
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
24:43
Schuller may not of anticipated or
24:45
adequately accounted for, but there
24:48
is a sense in which what he believed was truly
24:51
traditional at the same time that it was innovating
24:53
in the right directions, consistent with
24:56
what he thought the culture required at the time.
24:59
Um, and that's where now we can step back and
25:02
say, oh, maybe that wasn't the best idea.
25:05
But at the time, right as he did it and
25:08
as his leaders followed him, and as thousands and
25:10
thousands and thousands of pastors attended,
25:14
uh, his seminars and read his material and consulted
25:16
with him personally, they also resonated with it
25:19
and built their ministries around that as well.
25:23
And so to the extent that Schuller
25:26
may consider to be off based, I think that we might see,
25:29
uh, to what extent is the Christian ministry in America
25:32
fundamentally based on the same motivations and fundamentally
25:35
based on the same ideas, um, and they may
25:38
be obscured or hidden over in other ways, or they may have
25:41
other language, but I think that there's something there.
25:43
Before we simply say Schuller got
25:46
it wrong. I think that it's important that we say there's a lot
25:49
that Schuller was experimenting with, and he was open about it. He
25:52
was open about experimenting. He wasn't secret about it,
25:56
um, and doing so. He was ambitious.
25:59
And so now we have other people who are also
26:02
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
26:08
between how Schuller ran his ministry and the way in which many,
26:11
many, uh, Christian leaders run their ministries today.
26:14
>> Loren: Yeah, I think something that struck me about the
26:17
book, and y' all can correct me here if this
26:20
is not accurate, but it struck me that Schuller was
26:23
very much like a man of integrity and committed to
26:26
the mission. Like you said, Gerardo
26:29
he believed in what he was saying. I think it
26:32
struck me, it seemed like there was multiple times where
26:37
certainly it sounds like near the end things got a little
26:39
sideways with the church family. So many church family
26:42
members on the barrel. But like, as far as, like
26:45
Schuller himself, it seemed like he was like,
26:47
committed. Giving up his own money again
26:50
and again, taking out, it seemed like, if I'm remembering correctly,
26:53
personal loans to help fund the ministry endeavors. Like,
26:56
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
27:02
like, um,
27:05
TV evangelist preacher. I don't want to name names, but, you know,
27:08
folks who seem to be just chasing, uh, you know,
27:11
um, fame and status, like, it seemed like he
27:14
was. He believed in what he was saying, which I think,
27:17
and I appreciate your point. Like the
27:20
implications today seem to be
27:23
off base. But like, again, in the moment, I think it makes
27:25
sense why he was doing what he was doing.
27:29
>> Gerardo Marti: Mark can talk about this, I think, better in the sense that Mark
27:32
interviewed so many people associated with the
27:34
ministry and I think can speak to their experience of
27:37
Shuler directly.
27:39
>> Loren: Yeah, go ahead.
27:40
>> Mark T. Mulder: We interviewed, uh, uh, boy,
27:43
almost 40 different people out in
27:46
Southern California. And then there's a few who are scattered
27:49
across country. We did on phones. But I have
27:52
to tell you, I think Gerardo and I
27:55
entered this project
27:58
pretty skeptical about Shuler and
28:01
highly critical. As sociologists, that tends to be what we do.
28:04
And um, and we still are. I think there's still a lot
28:07
to criticize, but,
28:11
uh, pretty much every single person that I interviewed,
28:14
uh, just couldn't, you know, they
28:17
knew he was a flawed man. You know, they called him an egghead. Not one of the
28:20
boys that, uh, uh,
28:22
um, you know, a consistory meeting with him was
28:25
pretty much a monologue. And if he got
28:28
bored, he sometimes should just walk to the window and
28:31
stare out.
28:32
>> Loren: And then those are my favorite stories in the book
28:35
and walk out the.
28:35
>> Mark T. Mulder: Door, you know, and everybody around like, what do we do now
28:39
with all these flaws? Though they still,
28:42
uh, found him, they loved him,
28:45
um, they had very warm feelings about him.
28:48
Would visit, you know, would sneak around to visit
28:50
him, um, in the nursing home. And when he got
28:53
out to the barbershop, there was really elaborate
28:56
plans to how to stay in touch with him because they had such
28:59
warm regard for him. These weren't just, you
29:02
know, congregants, um, who only saw him
29:05
front stage. These were co pastors
29:07
and staff members and musicians who saw him
29:10
in, in, you know, in all this
29:13
glory.
29:14
>> Gerardo Marti: So um, to speak. And family members. Mark.
29:16
>> Mark T. Mulder: Yeah, and family members and um, just
29:19
tremendously, uh, warm regard. Yeah. We interviewed
29:22
both, you know, Bobby, uh, the grandson who is
29:25
now. You can still watch Hour of Power from.
29:27
>> Loren: Yeah, yeah. I was fascinated to see that too.
29:30
>> Mark T. Mulder: And uh, and Robert a. The son
29:33
spoke uh, with us as well. And
29:35
um, you know, and
29:38
Bobby uh, actually told us that um, he
29:41
saw Joel Osteen as uh, the most
29:44
direct descendant of his grandfather.
29:45
>> Loren: Interesting.
29:46
>> Mark T. Mulder: But he said. And uh, but he said, but Osteen
29:49
is uh, more orthodox than my grandfather.
29:52
>> Loren: Interesting.
29:54
>> Mark T. Mulder: But despite that, you know,
29:56
um, they all wanted to
29:59
um, make. They wanted to
30:02
um, uh make sure that
30:05
his legacy would be one that was
30:08
uh, cherished.
30:09
>> Gerardo Marti: Mhm. And we're proud that Richard Ma, former
30:12
president of ah, Fuller Seminary, wrote
30:15
a wonderful forward for the book. Uh,
30:18
Rich Mao knew Robert Schuller personally
30:21
and um, he uh, feels very
30:23
sympathetic, uh, very warm towards him. Wrote
30:26
a very warm forward for the book
30:29
and he himself wrote in there. This is the
30:32
biography that Robert Schuller deserves.
30:36
Um, it's great to see that
30:38
there is a sympathetic portrait. I really feel
30:42
um, for Robert Schuller and for what he
30:45
was doing and what he accomplished. And
30:48
I really felt um, in those last
30:51
lines, in thinking about his passing,
30:54
um, the sadness of the
30:57
ministry and comparing that with the incredible
31:00
highs uh that he experienced, the
31:03
crisis. Incredible moments where you really feel
31:05
that there was this intersection between his
31:08
own um, hopes for the church and
31:11
his sense of what God wanted for the church.
31:15
M. There were moments in his life where I think he really believed
31:18
that those two um, had come together.
31:21
Um. Um. But things didn't quite turn
31:24
out that way. And so to really see uh,
31:27
that um, empathize with that and
31:29
then seek to understand it. I um, think
31:32
the book, Book uh, accomplishes that
31:35
um, to a greater extent than maybe I
31:38
even thought was possible.
31:40
>> Loren: Yeah. Yeah, I think so.
31:41
I want to spend a moment just on legacy. When we think about
31:44
the legacy of Schuller from the grand
31:47
architecture, I mean I think that's one
31:50
thing that megachurches have not gotten is the grand
31:53
architectural visions he had. Uh, but
31:55
also the megachurch model, the thinking about
31:59
spectacle and performance. Uh,
32:02
what do you all have thoughts about? Just like the
32:04
legacy. And maybe this is also the question,
32:07
like do even
32:10
similar stature pastors today understand
32:13
how much like their
32:16
current status stems from the legacy of
32:18
Schuller?
32:22
>> Mark T. Mulder: My guess is that they don't.
32:26
I don't think they see the lineage uh in the ways that
32:29
we do. Um, we highlight in both books that, that
32:32
you know, as of 10 years ago, Rick
32:35
Warren and Bill Hybels were probably two of the most high
32:38
profile pastors in the United States. Both of their stars have
32:41
fallen a bit Hybels, uh, um,
32:44
but they're both disciples of Schuller.
32:47
They both went to the institute to learn from Schuller. And
32:50
Hybels, um, was so swept away that
32:53
he was a mentee of Schuller. He was flying out
32:56
once a month for a while. He took his entire staff out to
32:59
the Leadership Institute. And so
33:02
um, I think there's not a lot of pastors today who would,
33:05
who would make that, draw that line from
33:08
Schuller to themselves. But I think the
33:11
shadows of uh, men like
33:14
um, uh, Hybels and
33:17
Warren, um, they
33:19
learned so much from Schuller. Right. Even
33:22
Hybels kind of mimicked um,
33:25
Schuller's Leadership Institute with his conferences on
33:28
leadership and church mammoth management. And
33:31
so I think there's that Shuler's
33:34
fingerprints are all over how
33:38
uh, pastors, not just megachurch pastors, but pastors of
33:41
all congregational sizes, how they
33:44
think about management and leadership,
33:47
um, and how you actually do Sunday
33:50
mornings. Shuler put a
33:52
template out there for 40 years non stop
33:55
that this is how you do worship. And
33:58
um, uh,
34:01
that's a lasting legacy.
34:03
>> Gerardo Marti: Mhm. Well I think we can spend a lot of time
34:05
focusing on architecture and we do
34:08
because Schuller emphasized architecture. But
34:11
I think that there's a deeper principle that is also
34:14
written in uh, how we understand
34:17
Schuler and that is he sought for ministry
34:20
to be nimble in relation to
34:22
changing circumstances. Okay.
34:25
And that sense of being nimble is part of why he moved away
34:28
from denominational structure. Uh, because
34:31
he found them to be too slow,
34:34
too deliberative. Um, he called an
34:36
albatross. Um, it's the word
34:39
that Mark uses as a metaphor to
34:42
describe um, Schuller's relation
34:45
to understanding denominations. And
34:48
so the issue of moving away from
34:50
denominations was not out of a hatred of
34:53
denominationalism or anything like that. It was in order
34:56
to allow the pastor to have executive authority,
34:59
authority to make decisions. And that also
35:02
propelled uh, a sense of authority over
35:05
the governance of the church. So that even though
35:08
you have uh, a board or an elder or those
35:11
kinds of things, it's still the idea that the full
35:14
time professional uh, pastor
35:17
is the one who should be making the decision.
35:20
Right. And also the idea of how
35:23
you work with money, ministry, hiring,
35:25
uh, bringing people in, arrangement, it's all about
35:28
being nimble. Now, because you
35:31
can take that principle as perhaps more core
35:34
in many ways to his approach to
35:37
church ministry and church leadership. We can
35:40
see how pastors today are
35:42
negotiating the need for buildings or land
35:45
on the basis of whether it gives them that
35:48
nimble quality that Schuller
35:51
advocated. See, so there are people who
35:53
are giving up their, uh, buildings.
35:56
There are people who are diversifying into,
35:59
to multiple campuses. There are people who are
36:02
doing a number of different things, saying that
36:05
having one big building and investing in
36:08
one large structure actually
36:11
puts, uh, too many assets and too many
36:13
dynamics in one basket. And so if we're
36:16
going to create a nimble community,
36:19
a nimble leadership structure, then we may need to
36:22
renegotiate whether this is the way to do it or
36:25
not. And so as we look at, um,
36:27
seminaries, uh, that are selling their buildings,
36:30
uh, many churches who are, um, only renting or
36:33
going from here to there, they're accepting other kinds
36:36
of challenges because they think that the challenge of
36:39
investing in one piece of real estate,
36:43
that risk is too high. Right. So I think that
36:45
there's more to read into and to engage with
36:48
as you read, rather than seeing it only
36:51
as the template of ministry, to see what are the things that
36:54
were guiding that template template, and how is that
36:57
then seeping into the way in which we see
37:00
decisions being made even today?
37:02
>> Loren: Uh, well, let's take a quick break here and let's come back with
37:05
some closing questions.
37:09
I want to ask this question first with you, Gerardo,
37:12
and then go to Mark.
37:16
I'm thinking about one of the things I appreciate about the book was you kind
37:19
of end the book, at least one of the final chapters with
37:22
Wizard. Hopefully I'm getting this name right, Hartmund Rosa.
37:25
And talking about Resonance, I was
37:28
thinking about one of the
37:31
authors and scholars I've appreciated, Nandra Root,
37:33
who I think wrote about Rosa in his book,
37:36
I think the Congregation in the Secular Age. If I remember, he talked
37:39
about the speed and the challenge
37:42
being the speed at which we have to do in daily life
37:45
and we're no longer, uh,
37:48
things change so much. And certainly
37:51
I think that's where Schuller was exactly right
37:54
with the denominational structures. They're just
37:56
slowing us down and we have to move quicker and we don't have
37:59
time for all this. So what do you want to say
38:02
about residence and this idea of
38:05
the change in speed of life right now?
38:08
>> Gerardo Marti: Well, I had the great pleasure of meeting
38:10
Andy and Hartmut Rosa, uh, last
38:13
year at ah, Princeton Theological Seminary
38:16
where, um, Andy gathered everybody together
38:19
Uh, a group of us, uh, to talk. I was the only non
38:22
theologian there, but was able to
38:25
think about these things because I had been persuaded
38:28
um, as we were working on the project that maybe Hartmut
38:31
Rosa had something to say. Theologians
38:33
and pastoral leaders have been paying attention to
38:36
Rosa because in a very intriguing way
38:39
Rosa uh, has defined um,
38:42
the social problem of our age. And that
38:44
is the problem of acceleration. The idea
38:47
that things are speeding up and they keep speeding up.
38:50
So the problem is uh, the problem of
38:53
obsolescence. Whether it's planned
38:56
obsolescence or the fact that you're trying to outpace
38:58
obsolescence, uh, through constant
39:01
reworking and re. Innovation and going
39:04
faster and accelerating yet again. Um,
39:07
uh, he concludes that this is absolutely
39:09
unsustainable, um, that the speed or
39:12
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?
39:18
Um, and he makes this super clear. Andy picks
39:21
this up and then redirects it for a
39:24
theological, religious, uh, uh, audience. Hartmut
39:27
Rosa himself is agnostic, but he has seen
39:30
how much resonance his concept of
39:33
resonance has taken because Rosa is saying that
39:36
in a time when we cannot
39:39
keep pace, we have to find
39:41
some way of achieving, achieving a
39:44
truer humanity or a fuller humanity. And
39:47
that is by being able to find some deep sense
39:50
of connection with things, with the environment,
39:54
with nature, uh, with ourselves, with
39:56
other people. And he uses this concept of
39:59
resonance as his sort of
40:02
um, stopgap. It's just a big concept to sort of
40:05
say acceleration is the problem, resonance
40:08
is the solution. Um, and, and
40:11
Rosa himself does not necessarily believe that
40:14
religion is capable of actually providing
40:17
this, um, that religion may never actually be
40:20
able to do it well. Um, and they're too self
40:23
concerned and they're also stuck in tradition.
40:26
So Rose himself never imagined a person
40:29
like Schuller. Schuller does not fit
40:32
into Rose's conception of
40:34
what religion could ever accomplish. And
40:37
it's a challenge, uh, which we discuss directly.
40:40
Um, but in its own way there's a sense in which
40:43
a lot of other people who are church leaders
40:47
also say we've got to get off of the speed
40:49
bandwagon and try to
40:52
tap into whatever this resonance thing. In my
40:55
mind the difficulty is that many pastors mean
40:58
that they can ignore social change
41:01
and just rest in tradition and hope that they
41:04
can achieve resonance through whatever
41:06
they think they grew up with or some
41:09
cobbled together sense of tradition like
41:12
hymns or, or a prayerful
41:15
space or something like that. And I'm not sure that
41:18
that's what Andy's saying. I don't think it's
41:20
what, uh, Hartmut Rosa is saying, and it's certainly
41:23
not what Schuller is saying. So. Because
41:26
resonance may or may not be a pathway for
41:29
considering how to address acceleration, I'm
41:32
not sure that we can readily say that
41:35
just pursuing resonance by
41:38
moving back into tradition is the answer. So
41:41
that's where being able to play on this, to be able to
41:44
use ros language for
41:47
highlighting something that Schuller never needed
41:50
to be explained. Right. Schuller
41:52
intuitively understood change was
41:55
happening. You could not ignore it that we have
41:57
moved into a different societal sphere and
42:00
we're never going to move backwards. Okay. But
42:03
at the same time, Schuller had also an incredible
42:06
optimism that worship, um,
42:08
and being in the sanctuary and church grounds and
42:11
the architecture of church would provide the resonance
42:15
that was possible and we can still evaluate. Well, is
42:18
that true? We don't know. But we can also
42:21
say, by the way, that as another part
42:24
of the rest of the story is that Schuler's
42:27
grounds and building were sold. It is now
42:30
a part of the church Diocese of Orange. Right.
42:33
>> Loren: Yeah.
42:33
>> Gerardo Marti: A Roman Catholic church. And that by
42:36
embracing the local Vietnamese community,
42:39
by creating space for the local Latino community,
42:42
as well as just being the bishop seat. Right.
42:45
Of Roman Catholicism in the area, uh,
42:48
there is a lot of evidence of vitality.
42:50
And last time I looked, they were saying
42:53
something like 12,000 people
42:56
attending mass services every
42:58
weekend. So you can sort of say, okay, there
43:01
is something that is still holding, still
43:04
resonating in that place. Even
43:07
if it's not what Schuller intended, it is
43:10
still what Schuller would rather have. So
43:12
when it was being sold, and it could either be an extension
43:15
campus of a local university, or it could
43:18
be a Roman Catholic church, um,
43:21
Schuller expressed a desire that it remain a
43:23
church. And to that extent, the building
43:26
and the grounds has actually lived up to
43:29
the legacy that he had hoped it
43:32
would have.
43:33
>> Loren: Yeah. Mark, let me ask you too, about that, because I think
43:36
that was the most fascinating thing. And Gerardo,
43:39
I'm fascinated by your point about how
43:42
Schuller sort of understood residence there through,
43:46
um, through the architecture and the campus, like you
43:49
said. But like, uh, Gerardo mentioned it. But like
43:52
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
43:58
of Christ. And if I read the book and understood
44:01
correctly, like the family didn't want it to go to them, because
44:04
as happens, and has happened in
44:07
many higher Education
44:10
colleges that even were associated with my tradition,
44:13
like, they've gone secular and the family, they didn't want
44:16
the risk of the campus going secular, the
44:19
cathedral going secular. So Mark, like, uh,
44:22
again, I just find this whole, this
44:25
thing fascinating. Any other thoughts you have about that,
44:28
the campus and even that transition?
44:30
>> Mark T. Mulder: Yeah. So, um,
44:33
for some folks, the Trapman, uh,
44:36
bid was much more attractive. It was comparable
44:39
in the millions of dollars. Um, but there was also
44:41
a very good, uh, opportunity
44:44
for the congregation to continue to
44:47
worship in the cathedral.
44:51
Perpetuity.
44:52
>> Loren: Mhm.
44:53
>> Mark T. Mulder: Um, but they chose against that. Uh, Schuller
44:56
described it as returning it to the mother Church
44:59
for it, um, to be
45:02
returned to go to the Roman Catholic, uh, diocese.
45:05
Um, and so to me, it's remarkable
45:08
that, that, you know, I grew up in roughly the
45:11
same tradition. I'm Christian Reformed. Um,
45:14
Schuller is Reformed Church in America. Outsiders can't tell the
45:17
difference. We're both Dutch. Um, but
45:20
it's a tradition of restraint, right?
45:22
Modest church buildings, lack of drama
45:25
in the service. And
45:28
so for him, um,
45:31
to intuit, as Gerardo said,
45:34
different forms of resonance to me is just quite
45:37
remarkable. Remarkable that someone from his background and
45:40
with his theological preparation was the one
45:43
who intuited. Oh,
45:46
what about biorealism? You know, that we're going to worship
45:49
in a sanctuary where you can see God's
45:52
nature. Um, and it's going to be a spectacle
45:55
because God is grand. We are going to have a grand,
45:58
as grand a cathedral. And it's also very
46:01
unreformed to call it a cathedral.
46:04
Just all these flourishes and
46:07
drama. Ah. But yet he also found
46:10
a way to maintain his dignity. You know, one of our favorite
46:12
stories is, you know, part of the drama is the costume.
46:15
Right. The vestments. And, you know, one
46:18
person I interviewed told us, well, that's because, you know,
46:21
in the Presbyterian tradition, Reformed tradition, it's about the office
46:24
and so you don't get distracted by, uh, the person underneath and what they're
46:27
wearing. So this real noble idea.
46:30
And then I think it was his son, Robert A. Who told.
46:33
Well, my dad struggled with his weight. Yeah.
46:37
It hid girth. But he also liked to eat between services.
46:40
And so ketchup and mustard on the tie was
46:43
no big deal.
46:44
>> Loren: M. It's funny because I've heard that before. It's.
46:47
>> Gerardo Marti: It's true. It's practical.
46:48
>> Mark T. Mulder: It's true. Yeah. And so for
46:51
us, it was just, um,
46:54
connecting him with Rosa just made so much
46:57
sense in the ways that,
47:00
uh. And if putting these two
47:03
together, you almost think like well Shuler was ahead of his time for what
47:06
he was doing.
47:08
>> Loren: Right.
47:09
Well this is such a great conversation and unfortunately
47:12
I'm out of time. Uh, so can I give you both an
47:15
opportunity? Just kind of share what other projects you have
47:18
working on and then how folks can connect with you.
47:20
Jordan, if you want to start.
47:23
>> Gerardo Marti: Well Mark and I are continuing in our work
47:26
together with another colleague, Kevin
47:28
Dorrit. And we have been looking at
47:31
anti racism in churches that
47:34
have been committing themselves to anti
47:36
racism. White progressive
47:39
congregations who um, have said
47:42
look, we stand behind these issues
47:45
of justice and um, yet
47:48
there is no playbook, there is no formula,
47:50
um, there's no sense exactly of how to accomplish this.
47:53
And so what happens um, in
47:56
churches when, when they commit to
47:59
anti racism, uh, the most progressive
48:02
and almost exclusively white
48:05
congregations do so. Um, we have a
48:08
contract with Oxford University Press for that
48:11
book. It's been a five year project with uh, a million
48:14
dollars of grant money from Lillian Dauman
48:17
and that um, is on its way towards
48:20
completion in this year. Uh,
48:22
so you can expect that in another year or so.
48:26
Um, ah, in addition, uh, there's
48:28
always something going on right in terms of just keeping up
48:31
with different uh, commitments and service
48:34
opportunities. And in terms of a
48:37
little bit of presence that I have online, bluesky, uh
48:40
is where I'm at now. You can just look at my name. Gerardo
48:43
Marty know uh, spaces. You should be able to find
48:45
me there.
48:47
>> Loren: Great Mark.
48:48
>> Mark T. Mulder: Yeah. And I just want to reiterate what an important
48:51
project we think this, this is that we're this
48:54
anti racism with uh, uh a white progressive
48:57
denomination. Because you know there's been a
48:59
lot of uh, academics in our field
49:02
who have looked at white evangelicals and issues
49:05
of race and racialization and uh, racial
49:08
justice. And so uh, we think we're going to be
49:11
uh, in an important space
49:14
for thinking about uh, what is
49:17
probably technically you know, a white mainline
49:19
Protestant denomination in the way that it functions.
49:23
I also just submitted a manuscript, uh, that
49:25
considers
49:27
um, uh, American Christians and
49:30
how they think about poverty. So that will
49:32
be a 20 ah, 26 book,
49:35
um, that should be out I would think in the spring, but
49:38
maybe in the fall of 2026. So American
49:42
Christians and Poverty Myths. Uh, and the subtitle is
49:45
uh, beyond the Veil of Meritocracy. So it's an interrogation
49:48
of um,
49:50
uh some um,
49:53
assumptions we have about poverty in the United
49:56
States. And I'm sorry to say Loren, I am not
49:59
on Blue sky or Facebook and
50:01
so uh, they can, people can email me
50:04
and that's easy enough come.
50:05
>> Gerardo Marti: Knock on his door at the office.
50:08
>> Loren: Well, I look forward to reading that book and hopefully
50:11
having another conversation with you all in the future. So thank you so much for your
50:14
time. Really appreciate the conversation. We always leave
50:17
folks with a word of pleasure. Peace. So may God's peace be with you.
50:20
>> Mark T. Mulder: And with you.
50:28
>> Loren Richmond: Thanks for joining us on the Future Christian Podcast.
50:31
The Future Christian Podcast is produced by Resonate
50:34
Media. We love to hear from our listeners with
50:37
questions, comments, and ideas for future episodes.
50:40
Visit our website at, uh, future-christian.com
50:44
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