Thursday, Dec. 09, 2010
The Bankruptcy of the Crystal Cathedral
The famed architect Philip Johnson designed the glass-paned sanctuary in Garden Grove, California, from which the Rev. Robert Schuller broadcast his Hour of Power Sunday sermons worldwide, making him one of the most popular Protestant clerics in the world -- indeed the most famous one from the Dutch Reformed Church of America after Norman Vincent Peale. But a family squabble over succession after Schuller's retirement and a dramatic fall-off in congregational support led to the church's decline. In October, the board of the Crystal Cathedral filed for bankruptcy.