Robert Schuller Interview (page: 3 / 7) Crystal Cathedral	Print Interview

Did you feel that you were different from other kids, when you were a child?

Robert Schuller: I think I did.

I always felt different, partly because I was overweight and very non-athletic. In a sense, they might have called me, I don't know that they did, but they might have called me a fat boy. I think I felt different. I definitely did not feel like I was in the winning group. When they'd go to the playground, they would draw up sides. Two persons would be picked, and then they would pick from the rest of us. I was always the one that never got picked. "You get Schuller." I was the left-over one. "You get Schuller," they would say. I don't blame them, they did a good job. I was non-athletic. I didn't care about it.
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Wasn't that a devastating experience?

Robert Schuller: Probably. Probably it was another gift of God, because my life has been so successful. I look at the pivotal periods of my life, and gee whiz, I didn't choose them, they shaped me. I think that's probably where the compulsion arose that would later on take me into the study of self-esteem theology. I was the first person in the history of theology to write a systematic theology built around self esteem. Deep in my consciousness as a little child, I probably felt rejected.

An article I read recently talked about the central issue of self esteem in your writings, and there was a hint that you had lacked it.

Robert Schuller: Oh yes, I know. There's a saying about great preachers. Probably I'm immodest to think I'm a great preacher, but at the risk of being immodest, I suppose I'm a great preacher.

They say great preachers only have one sermon. That's all they have. It's true for Billy Graham, it's true for Norman Peale, it's true for Robert Schuller. Also, there's a profound teaching: You can tell what a preacher's personal sins are, by what he preaches against all the time. I preach against people who treat others with indignity, I preach against people who insult people, I preach against people who embarrass people. I preach against those who peddle guilt and shame.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Integrity

Maybe it started when I wasn't accepted on a team: "You can have Schuller." In that little society of a country school, people were applauding the athlete, the one who won the races, the one who could hit the ball the hardest, and that's not where my gifts were. I suppose I've subsequently sensed that culture can set up artificial bases for applauding, which might be very unfair to others who might be gifted as a writer, or as an artist.

Let's talk a little bit about the building of this magnificent edifice, the Crystal Cathedral, and how you envisioned that. It must have seemed like an impossible dream, and yet you've realized it. What did you have in mind?

Robert Schuller: All I had in mind was a building. I needed a building. I came to begin this church in California, at the age of 28, with only $500. My denomination asked me to start a church there. It is the oldest denomination in the United States of America, started in 1628, when the Dutch colonists bought Manhattan Island. All of it belonged to the state church in Holland which was, and still is, the Reformed Church.

I came to start a church. Couldn't find an empty hall, made a list of ten places where I thought I would be able to find a place, like a school or a Seventh Day Adventist church (they're closed on Sunday), or a Jewish temple. "I'll rent your building for Sundays," you know, make a deal. But, number nine was "Use a drive-in theater." And that was the only option left to me, and I did. And, I think I felt at home under the sky because I was raised on a farm. And so, 25 years later, I would have 10,000 members.
[ Video ] Low High    [ Audio ] Quicktime	[ Key to Success ] Perseverance

I needed a building to seat at least 3,000 people, to protect us from the wind and the rain, and the birds -- who never did learn good manners. So I went to Philip Johnson, I said, "Can't you make it all glass? I tell you, in my mind, this is a building where we are to experience communication, to receive and to extend creative thinking as the high point of authentic religion and true spirituality, and I should be in the environment."

I had already learned bio-realism from the architect Richard Neutra. No one understands that better than I. I gave a lecture on it to 5,000 architects in St. Louis a few years ago. I received standing applause, so I know I'm very, very aware of bio-realism in architecture. Bio-realism says that every organism has its own natural habitat. I was doing this 40 years ago, while Richard Neutra was working with René Duboce, who was the founder of sociobiology, and the three of us prepared notes. Renee Duboce said that if you change the environment of a living thing -- whether it's an insect, a plant, or an animal -- that form of life will become extinct. It will do anything it can conceivably do to survive, but if it survives, it will be a deviate, it will not be its authentic self.

The human being was designed to be a creative person, a communicating person. Tension obliterates or stifles the capacity to be really hearing, honestly listening. So Renee Duboce and Richard Neutra say that the human being therefore should live in an environment that is peaceful, calm, tranquil. If we decide to live where nature's sounds are dominated by sirens and engines, and the grass gives way to cement, the human being is out of his natural habitat. He will be affected, he will become a deviate before he allows himself to become extinct. I contend that atheism -- I'm not talking about agnosticism, I respect the agnostic who has serious questions -- but the atheist is an emotional deviate. That's caused to a great degree by getting out of our natural habitat.

So we created this structure. When we think about God, and think about religion, we are wrapped around with natural space. So the crystal cathedral is not an attempt to be an architectural ego-statement. It's probably the ultimate spiritual and psychological statement that could be made in architectural terms.

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