Hey all!
The Sunday before last (June 7), my wife and I visited two megachurches as part of the Eucharist Project. One was part of our own denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention, so it technically didn't meet the requirements of our project, but I wanted to get a taste for some of the diversity of operation found in our convention. This was the famous Saddleback Church, headed by Rick Warren, who is a major national Evangelical leader at the moment (and who gave the invocation at President Obama's inauguration).
The other is what is known as the Crystal Cathedral, headed by the Rev. Dr. Robert H. Schuller for over 50 years. The church is part of the Reformed Church in America. We chose this church, partly because we hadn't shared communion with any Reformed churches yet, but also because the leadership had close connections to Fuller Seminary, where I currently attend, namely in that Robert A. Schuller (H.'s son) and Robert V. Schuller (H.'s grandson) both got their MDiv's at Fuller. Finally, Robert H. Schuller is originally an Iowa native (just like my wife and me).
So, we were able to attend their worship services (the Cathedral in the morning and Saddleback in the afternoon), and celebrate the Eucharist with each. I also had the priveledge of having an extended conversation with an Elder at the Cathedral and a Greeter at Saddleback, and had a pretty good tour of both campuses. What follows are the observations my wife and I made concerning each church.
The Crystal Cathedral
We attended the morning service at the Cathedral, and spent much of the early afternoon touring the grounds, which were absolutely beautiful! They've got a very artfully designed cemetary, a fully operational k-12 school, a tower for offices, the old Church building, built in the 60's (which is now the home of Robert V. Schuller's church, The Gathering), the Cathedral itself (which, with the Bell Tower/Chapel are truly monumental in their architecture) and a series of gardens, fountains and statues depicting biblical scenes. Inside the Cathedral, there are a row of fountains (which flow higher at pre-designated times during worship, mainly in conjunction with the organ and the opening sky light) and another statue as one enters the place of worship (which I'll get to in a moment). They've even got a little museum detailing the history of the church and are currently building a library.
Besides the exemplary art to be found in the architecture, sculpture, gardens, fountains, cemetary and paintings (they have a small gallery for those, too), the worship was a well-crafted artistic experience. It consisted of a rock-style worship team for contemporary songs, a full choir, a magnificent organ (maybe the largest I've ever seen), an acapella group and even a string ensemble. These were all professional in their quality and allowed for a varied, high class worship experience.
As Marcia and I sat there in awe of all this, things really began to fall through as soon as the teaching began. You see, Robert Schuller espouses what is called the "Positivity Gospel". It's not quite the "Prosperity Gospel", but it basically believes you can be restored and whole by "believing in yourself" and having a positive psychological disposition. The elder I spoke with after the service explained it this way: he said that when a cancer patient comes to church, they don't want to hear about how crappy they are; they're in need of uplifting, and this church provides that.
The problem is that this is really only part of the Gospel. Our salvation is mutlifaceted, and when we say to God, "I believe that your Son died for my redemption, please forgive and restore me," we recognize a number of things:
(1) Christ alone conquers sin, death, corruption and sickness. The brokeness in our lives cannot be fixed simply by our own "positive thinking", we rely totally and utterly on Christ to pick up the pieces and put us back together, restoring us in the process.
(2) Christ alone justifies us in the eyes of God. We don't just need to be made to feel better. That cancer patient does need encouragement in the face of their illness, but they must also know that they are a sinner (just like the rest of us) and that the consequence of sin is death (but that the sole remedy is the grace of Christ's forgiveness, found when we put our faith in Him). Even if we could heal their cancer, if we left them to rot in their sin, we (the Church) wouldn't be doing our job.
(3) We are called to take up our crosses the moment we become disciples. This means facing persecution, suffering and even death, fearlessly as we hold fast to our God. The problem with "positivity thinking" theology is that it doesn't prepare the disciple to willingly chose their own suffering so that others may be saved. It's a very "me" oriented society. It places the individual above the community, the self above others and self-fulfillment/happiness above obedience to God (all things Jesus preached against).
Sure, it's excellent to have confidence. And Christ can restore the confidence lost through a life of sin and broken relationships - but that is only a piece of the whole puzzle, to put all our weight on that little piece is foolish at best, heterodox at worst. Before we move on to the other observations, I noticed the main argument for the "rightness" of their teaching was to say, "look at this great building we've got, could we do this if God wasn't in our ministry?" i dunno, God blesses lots of people for lots of things, but having a great building and campus (no matter how spectacular) is still no substitute for the truth of the Gospel.
Finally, we noticed that the whole leadership and the church seem to be based around two things: the personal vision of Robert H. Schuller, and the collection of tithes, donations and offerings (i.e. moola). The sermon that morning was delivered by Sheila Schuller Coleman, (who is head of family ministries and the administrative head of church leadership and is the daughter of Robert H. Schuller), who's point was basically, "in my new post as leader of the leaders, i will make sure this church's leadership gets in line behind dad's vision." I think this was in reference to the recent schism between Robert H. Schuller and Robert A. Schuller (who is starting his own church and teleministry). I couldn't get a lot of details on the split, but from what I gathered it was due to a "lack of shared vision", and that A. wanted more focus on biblical exegesis, while H. generally relied on psychological principles. It really seems that the whole Church revolves around H., and now that his groomed heir is no longer heading the ministry (he took over as head pastor briefly in 2006), I wonder what the church will do when H. dies (he is gettin' mighty old).
Then there's the whole money thing. Literally every other sidewalk slab outside had a donor's name on it. The visitors' building (and bookshop/starbuck's) had a donor's wall three stories high (literally). The back of the sanctuary had a statue of the widow giving her last mite, as a reminder that we need to empty our pockets, and the offering plates were transparent (an odd detail, as most churches allow a little more privacy with solid metal or closed bag offertories). Finally each statue and piece of art was dedicated to the memory of somebody or another. Not only that, but you had to pay $5 for a little brocure that told the history of the church (and listed more donors). Even the starbucks alone would have bothered me (I don't like it when churches sell food, it separates the rich who get to stay and have lunch from the poor who have to go home to cook because they can't afford expensive churchy food).
The whole thing smacked a little of a big scam, but we still shared the Eucharist anyway. As misguided as the whole operation might be, the believers i talked to were genuine, so i felt they were truly my brothers and sisters in Christ.
Saddleback
After that experience, Saddleback was a breath of fresh air. Built on the whole "seeker" model of the church, which advocates those curious to get involved and slowly develop and grow their faith through small groups, the church is one of the largest in the US. They had multiple worship centers for different styles (contemporary, traditional, gospel choir, rock etc.) and the message was preached from the main building and pumped through a live feed to the others. The also had a recently build area called The Refinery, which is a completely green building (I liked that), though they still sold their food. They also had a skate park, play ground, and areas for families.
While outside I talked with one of the greeters for a while about the Church, and thought it was interesting that she used to be Catholic (as apparently a lot of the congregants had been). I can see why they'd be drawn to Saddleback, though I generally don't like church-hopping and I think people should try to change their communities from the inside, once they've decided to become disciples of Christ.
For the afternoon service, there wasn't actually a live speaker, it was a recorded video from the morning that was played on the big screens in the front of the main worship hall. I didn't mind that too much (the worship was live), though i thought it was funny when the guy told a little joke once in a while and everybody in the audience laughed. I mean, come on, you don't have to humor the guy. He's not even really there! but all in all the message was good (and solidly biblical). Afterward I prayed with one of the pastors for unity in the Body of Christ, and the whole church shared the Eucharist together.
Closing Thoughts
All in all it was a very interesting experience, and the differences I saw definately gave me quite a bit to reflect on. I don't think I would ever attend the Crystal Cathedral regularly (I really don't see myself even visiting again), though I think I could definately attend Saddleback. Anyway, we'll see what other observations our next trip out with the Eucharist Project brings. Next time, I kinda wanna visit a Moravian Church (the oldest Protestant denomination) and an Armenian Apostolic Church. I'll let ya'll know how things go!
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