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| Robert Schuller |
It's extremely disrespectful to speak poorly of the deceased. So, I'll say this about the Rev. Robert Schuller who died recently after a long career as an evangelist: He was a popular preacher who commanded a large following.
Having said that, Schuller was one of the biggest heretics in the modern church. He was a positive confession preacher who masterfully mixed psychology and PMA (Positive Mental Attitude) with the Bible to create his own unique gospel.
Actually, it really wasn't Schuller's gospel. It originated with a preacher named Norman Vincent Peale who began preaching the positive-possibility thinking gospel in the early 1930s as the pastor of the Marble Collegiate Church in Manhattan, N.Y. Schuller became a disciple of Peale's after he graduated Western Theological Seminary in 1950.
Though WTS was modeled after the teachings of John Calvin, Schuller found those teachings inadequate and sought after a different theology that he believed could better explain human nature. When he was introduced to Peale's teachings, he found his theology.
Peale taught that people sinned because of poor self-esteem rather than rebellion. Build up their self-esteem and they would stop doing bad things. Though the Bible never taught such nonsense, Peale did and it caught on with his followers.
Peale's heresies were inspired by Freud, Jung, Maslow etc. His teachings completely contradicted what the Bible reveals concerning self-esteem. Rather than too little self esteem, the Bible states that human beings have too much self-esteem. Christ acknowledged that human beings are lovers of themselves when He revealed the two greatest commandments: "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second one is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself." (Matthew 22:37-39)
Schuller not only taught Peale's heresies, he embraced them in his own life. Here's what he said after he published his book, Self Love in 1969: "After the Holy Bible, this book might be the greatest book you'll ever read, if it leads you to make life's most exciting and constructive discovery: your own latent self-worth, which is something greater than possibility thinking."
Though Peale, Schuller, et. al. didn't invent the ideology of positive self-esteem, they successfully mainstreamed it into the Christian church and opened the door to the dangerous heresy of "Christian Psychology" that offers a rival gospel to the biblical gospel. In some churches, Christian Psychology has replaced the biblical gospel.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul warned that in the end times preceding the return of Christ, false doctrines would plague the church. This is what he wrote: "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
The counterfeit positive-possibility thinking gospel is one such myth. It teaches that mankind's salvation is attained through high self esteem rather by faith in Christ's death on the cross for all sin and His resurrection from the dead. Schuller redefined sin as "Any human condition or act that robs God of glory by stripping one of his children of their right to divine dignity...I can offer still another answer: Sin is any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self esteem." http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/robert_schuller
Paul revealed another truth: That those who know the truth but reject it for a lie are given over by God to be destroyed by their own fantasies: "They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness." (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12)
I don't pretend to know where Schuller is spending eternity. However, if he didn't awaken from his delusion before he died, he's really feeling pretty lousy about himself these days.
Nearly 2,000 years ago, the apostle Paul warned that in the end times preceding the return of Christ, false doctrines would plague the church. This is what he wrote: "For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths." (2 Timothy 4:3-4)
The counterfeit positive-possibility thinking gospel is one such myth. It teaches that mankind's salvation is attained through high self esteem rather by faith in Christ's death on the cross for all sin and His resurrection from the dead. Schuller redefined sin as "Any human condition or act that robs God of glory by stripping one of his children of their right to divine dignity...I can offer still another answer: Sin is any act or thought that robs myself or another human being of his or her self esteem." http://www.jesus-is-savior.com/Wolves/robert_schuller
Paul revealed another truth: That those who know the truth but reject it for a lie are given over by God to be destroyed by their own fantasies: "They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved. For this reason God sends them a powerful delusion so that they will believe the lie and so that all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in wickedness." (2 Thessalonians 2:10-12)
I don't pretend to know where Schuller is spending eternity. However, if he didn't awaken from his delusion before he died, he's really feeling pretty lousy about himself these days.
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