Robert Schuller Interview (page: 6 / 6) Crystal Cathedral	Print Interview

For someone who is intrigued by your calling, but knows nothing about it, how would you explain what makes it so exciting, to be a pastor and a preacher? What drives you?

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Robert Schuller: What drives me is the compulsion to encourage people. And I have, at my disposal, professional techniques that only we, as pastors, can use. And, that's a device called giving people a blessing, locking eyes, connecting hearts. And, as a professional pastor, I have the freedom to touch them, gently, soft fingers on the skin, and lock eyes and say, "May God bless you where you need the blessing most. Amen." That's just fantastic.

[ Key to Success ] Passion

Pastors are the luckiest and the most privileged professionals in the world, as long as they remain pastors. Many of them don't. They get caught up in the pursuit of all of the secular values. It's very tempting in our world, whether it's fame or fortune, or God knows what else.

Like a physician, I think you're also about pain relief.

Robert Schuller: You bet we are, at the deepest level.

Get the Flash Player to see this video. Mother Theresa, who I claim as a friend, said to me once, "Dr. Schuller, you and I are in the same business. We're both trying to bring hope and dignity to the dying." She said, "I, Mother Theresa, I bring it to those who are dying of physical starvation. You bring it to those who are dying from emotional starvation." And I said, "That's so true. But, who do you think's got the toughest job, Mother Theresa, you or me?" "Oh," she said, "You do. People that are dying physically, they'll grab for food and devour it. People who are dying emotionally don't dare to grab the food when it's offered to them."

They're suspicious, they're cynical. And that keeps them from taking what can emotionally nourish. "No, you've got the toughest job," she said.

They may not even know they're dying.

Robert Schuller: They don't. I was the first person who was invited to preach a sermon about God on the atheistic channel number one, out of Moscow, in 1989, before the cold war was over. This was with Gorbachov's blessing. His ministry office said, "Well at least, Dr. Schuller, you can know you'll go down in history as the first foreigner ever to preach a sermon about God to everybody in the USSR plus Eastern Bloc countries. "I'll tell you," he said, "We're atheists. Always been atheists. But after 70 years, we've come to see that there are some positive human elements to personality that only seem to come from a religious rootage. So we're open to going back to religion."

Looking back, what can you say about making things happen in your life, that perhaps you didn't realize when you were younger and had these distant goals? What are the surprises, or unexpected challenges, of great achievement?

Robert Schuller: I've had many surprises, many insights. I don't think I'm that intelligent, but I think I have the ability to be perceptive, and observe principles that are operating. I've been told this by very powerful people: the late Dr. Karl Menninger, one of the great psychiatrists of this century; Viktor Frankl, a great psychiatrist from Vienna, maybe the greatest psychiatrist of the 20th century. Both said, "Schuller, you're the most intuitive person I've ever met." And I said to both of them, "What is intuition?" And both answered, "We don't know." I have some theories of what intuition is, but I don't know either. I think I see, intuitively, universal principles that are operating. I'm able to spot them, and articulate them. Like, one:

Get the Flash Player to see this video. There are no problems. I don't believe in problems anymore. What we call problems are nothing more than decisions. Decisions that we didn't make and if that's the case, then decisions that we have to make now. And, that's the basis for tremendous optimism, because if problems aren't problems, but they're just decisions that have to be made, wow! That means I can be optimistic because I can make a decision until I'm dead! I can choose my reaction.

I learned that from Viktor Frankl. I can decide how I'm going to react to the worst thing that happens. That's probably one of the major perceptions in my life. I've always said goal setting is absolutely essential. I didn't originate that, I think that's just a part of human nature too. I never realized it, because I've always been a goal-dominated person. At four years and 11 months old, I set a goal to become a minister, a 20-year goal. I graduated, and after a few years of experimenting with the church in Chicago, I decide I'm going to spend 40 years and build a great church that'll change the world. It has happened, a 40-year goal. That would take me to the age of 68.

Between the age of 68 and 70, I had two of the most disturbing years of my life, because I thought I should retire. If I retired, I would no longer be goal-dominated. There were about two years where I had the experience of living without being goal-dominated. In my book, If It's Going to Be, It's Up to Me, I wrote that 20 basic psychological positive powers are released when you set a goal. You have a direction. You're pulled out of ambiguity. Indecision no longer dominates you. I don't need to preach the whole sermon, but by golly, goal-domination makes all the difference in the world. Now I'm young again. At the age of 70, I feel like I'm 40 years old.

You've obviously decided not to retire.

Robert Schuller: Yes, I set new goals, a ten-year goal and a 20-year goal. My grandpa lived to age 95, my uncles lived into their 90s. I think I'm going to be very bright and very alert at the age of 90. I think people are going to listen to me like they never did before. And I think there are going to be young people who will be attracted to my age and to my wisdom and to my success. So I'll have an opportunity I did not have when I was only 70 years old.

What do you see as your next great challenge?

Robert Schuller: Isaiah 58:12. To be a "repairer of the breach" still drives me. And what is that? That breach is in religion. I want to be a strong influence in bringing together the positive people who are at the centers of the faiths, so that we form a coalition, and move from what I call collision to coalition. I'm very interested, for instance, in seeing how all theists can agree on the central factors.

I'm in a position to do this because of my global television audience. I was shocked to find out that I have a heavy, heavy following in Muslim areas: over a million Muslims a week that wouldn't miss my show, it's been estimated. I go to Muslim territories, and I'm shocked at how people want to be photographed with me, and they want my autograph. So I think I'm being put in a position where I can be a force for creating a positive movement where Christians and Muslims won't see each other as enemies, but as possible partners, in bringing motivation and morality into our secular world. That's a very important part of my life right now.

Somebody said that if Jesus were here today, he would have to be on television. This would have to be his medium to reach the world. How do you see television?

Robert Schuller: I see it as an opportunity to share the positive values of my faith with people who don't embrace faith. I think I'm onto something that is reality, not fantasy. I've experimented with it by living it for 70 years. I've written books, I've made claims. My work is exposed, check me out. If I've been living a fantasy, and it's not reality, you have one heck of a job explaining the truth of the life I have lived.

Many people are raised in a secular, cynical environment that starts in the home life. They don't have respect for religion, and they're missing something. That's what I ran into in Russia, they said, "We think we're missing something." Sharing the faith with those who think it's only a farce, until they realize it's a force, not a farce.

Dr. Schuller, what does the concept of the American Dream mean to you? It seems to me that you may be the embodiment of it.

Robert Schuller: The American Dream? It's believing that if you have freedom, integrity, excellence, and intelligence -- if you can dream it, you can do it. And it's what I would call compassionate capitalism, "Earn all you can, invest all you can, and then, share all you can." That's the best American Dream.

Thank you so much, Dr. Schuller.

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