The Last Schuller Chooses to Split The Crystal Cathedral

Boy, things are really circling the drain at The Crystal Cathedral:

Sheila Schuller Coleman delivered her last sermon at the Crystal Cathedral on Sunday, announcing she is breaking away and taking the congregation to a new location under the name Hope Center of Christ.

But moments after her surprise announcement, a Crystal Cathedral pastor told congregants that regular Sunday services will continue in the striking building, leaving congregants to make a choice on where they will be next Sunday morning.

"We are very sad, very sorry about this," said Pastor Emeritus Juan Carlos Ortiz, who began the Hispanic ministry for the Crystal Cathedral. "I hope they both have success – those who stay and those who leave."

Her departure followed by a day the resignation from the Crystal Cathedral board of her parents, the Rev. Robert H. Schuller, and his wife, Arvella, who founded the church in 1955, preaching Sundays atop the snack shop of an Orange drive-in theater.

No Schuller family members are left with the Crystal Cathedral, some ousted recently by the board majority in the wake of a bankruptcy, sale of the grounds to the Roman Catholic Diocese of Orange and bitter controversy over money.

I can't believe how badly thing have gone at the big glass church, and I can't help but think that had there not been the split between Robert Sr. and his heir apparent Robert Jr., none of this would be happening today. Robert Jr. seemed like he could have kept the church growing and moving, though perhaps not in exactly the direction his dad thought he should go.

Now it's all fading away.