34 Days And Counting (Down)

Per several news sources, the hearing on the creditors' proposed plan of reorganization for the Crystal Cathedral will take place on November 14. The creditors' plan will entail a sale of the worship center and adjacent campus to either Chapman University or the local Roman Catholic Diocese for something north of $50 million. In August the church's board of directors had tried to take the property off the for-sale block by claiming they could raise as much through donations. Yesterday I noted here the paltry results of those efforts.

To give the Schuller family something to think about, the Dow Jones DBR Small Cap reported today that

The unsecured creditors' committee of Crystal Cathedral Ministries is suing the California megachurch's founders, seeking to bump their claims to the back of the line of creditors waiting to be repaid. The committee launched a lawsuit last Friday against Robert H. Schuller and Arvella Schuller, the couple that founded the church in 1955, plus a number of family members and former employees of the church.

I suspect this lawsuit has less to do with demoting the claims of the master of positive thinking than to give him something to loose if the Schuller family continues to fight the sale.

Two thoughts. Succession in a family run business is always challenging. When that "business" is a local manifestation of the body of Christ, manipulation of the succession process is virtually guaranteed to fail. Apostolic succession was through doctrine, not procreation. And as Carl Trueman has regularly noted at the Ref21 blog, the American penchant for "celebrity" Christianity contradicts the ethos of the New Testament and brings discredit on the Church.