Interview: Robert Schuller
Crystal Cathedral

When did you first have a conception of what you wanted to do with your life?

Robert Schuller: I was four years and 11 months old. My mother's brother, who was a Princeton graduate, came home from years of working in China, met me, ruffled my hair, and said, "So you're Robert are you? You are going to be a preacher when you grow up." I said, "Oh, thank you, Uncle Henry." And, I took it as a divine declaration. It wasn't a question. It was a prophetic statement, and I bought it, hook, line and sinker.

What do you suppose he saw in you at that age that moved him to say that?

Robert Schuller: I have no idea. I think it was Providence. I don't think there's a more intelligent answer than the one religion gives: divine destiny.

Do you feel you were chosen for this work?

Robert Schuller: Oh, absolutely. I'm a Christian, and there's a chapter in the New Testament where Jesus says, "You did not choose me, but I have chosen you."

What kind of childhood did you have? What experiences were important to you as a child?

Robert Schuller: I was raised in the country on a farm. I was the last of five children, so I grew up in a great deal of solitude. I could walk to the river, and sit on the riverbanks and watch the river quietly move. It was tranquil water, not dramatic water. I could watch the clouds sliding silently through the soundless sea of space, and fell in love with the sky. And so, a quarter of a century later, when I went to California to begin a new church, I picked the drive-in theater as a place to hold church services, because I liked the sky. I didn't have to look at a ceiling. And I think that affected me subconsciously. I think I choose windows and no ceilings.

Do you think you were attempting to duplicate Iowa in southern California?

Robert Schuller: Probably, on a subconscious level. The subconscious is ahead of the conscious, and we never know what really drives us.

Were there particular events in your youth that shaped your choice of career?

Robert Schuller: Not that I can instantly recall, except for my calling into my profession.

After my Uncle Henry told me I'd be a preacher, he said to me the next morning, "That means, Robert, that you'll have to go to school for 20 years." I said, "Really?" He said, "Yes, first eight grades, then four years of high school, then four years of college, then three years in seminary. That's about 20 years." I said, "Fine, no problem." And I think what happened there was, I was imbued with the noblest quality of character development a person can receive. And, I say I was imbued with it; I didn't choose it. I didn't know it was being given to me. It was the power of delayed gratification. I set a 20-year goal. It was phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal.

I thought you were going to say patience.

Robert Schuller: Delayed gratification is more than patience, we now know. I got a psychology course in my undergraduate days, and then I chose to go into theology instead of psychology because I wanted the right to impose my value system on people if I felt their value system was the core of their neuroticism and, it is in many cases. But, the delayed gratification was phenomenal. Then I would -- later on, having accomplished that 20-year goal -- I would now find myself at the age of 23 and I would set a goal of creating a great movement, and build a church. I went to California with a 40-year goal, and they're few people that believe that. Well, now they do because I've spent 41 years there, but again, the power of delayed gratification means patience to wait for the big thing to come along, but you're going to keep working on and never, ever give up.

It takes a certain optimism to believe you have the power to make something happen.

Robert Schuller: Yes. I write about it in my new book, If It's Going to Be, It's Up to Me. I say optimism is enormously powerful if it's controlled by a person, not a group; by an individual, not a collective organization; by a person who is committed to integrity and excellence.

That's all that it takes. If your idea has integrity, you know it. And then if you are committed to developing that idea -- with excellence, never compromising to mediocrity -- by golly, the world will get out of your way. Because the world is made of up people who are not committed to integrity, and are not committed to excellence.

How did your parents react when you told them what you wanted to do?

Robert Schuller: I remember, when I announced this at the breakfast table, my father looked at me and cried. He didn't explain the tears to me until 20 years later, when I graduated from the theological seminary, the post-graduate school of theology. He told me that this was his dream when he was a boy, but he was orphaned, dropped out of school to earn his own bread and clothing, and gave up on the dream.

He prayed that he'd have a son who could fulfill it. Four children were born to him, and none were targeted for the ministry. His wife passed the years when she should have a child, but he prayed for another child, a son. And my mother became pregnant.

My uncle in China was so shocked that there was another baby, and it was a boy! I guess that's why, when he saw me, at four years and 11 months old, he saw me as an answer to prayer. I was destined for it. Nobody can deny the fact that my father prayed. Nobody can deny the fact that my uncle told me this, nobody can deny the fact that I followed it. I believe in God. Definitely. Completely. Nothing else can explain my life.

Did you have support from your mother as well, for this calling?

Robert Schuller: Oh, yes. Very much so. She was Holland-Dutch; we lived in a Holland-Dutch ethnic community. In that culture this person would be called a dominie. That's a Dutch word, from the Latin word Dominus. It's a very highly respected profession, so my mother was very honored.

What books were important to you when you were young? What did you like to read?

Robert Schuller: I wish I could give an answer that would be more impressive. I'll just have to be honest. I think Buffalo Bill. I always tend to psychologically analyze things. How could that book have affected me? He was a solitary character who got on his horse alone and delivered the mail against tremendous odds! I think you could see a Buffalo Bill streak in my life, starting with nothing, and getting on a horse, and later on, at the age of 70, writing a book entitled, If It's Going to Be, It's Up to Me. Okay, Buffalo Bill.

Were you clearly gifted as a child? Did you excel academically?

Robert Schuller: No, I never did excel academically. I did excel early on as an articulating person. In fact, when I was in the first grade, because I knew I was going to be a preacher, I asked the teacher if I could memorize a poem to deliver at the Christmas program, because I had to learn how to speak.

When it came to speaking, it was a natural for me, a gift. If you are exercising what you know is a gift, there can never be anything but humility, because a gift is something that was given to you. You can't, in the silence of your own solitude say, "Boy, did I do a great job!" I'm just gifted, and I've been faithful to the gift. Awareness that you're faithful is not egotism, it's authentic humility.

You mentioned a teacher who allowed you to read a poem. Was there a teacher that particularly challenged or inspired you?

Robert Schuller: I'd say my high school English literature teacher, Miss Ailes. That was the most impressive course I took in high school. Tennyson, Browning, classic English literature we had to memorize.

"Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold."

I won't go through the whole thing. And Shakespeare, we had to memorize this stuff. Fabulous. It's still a part of me. The beauty of words that incorporated powerful, positive thoughts that would be classical and not merely fashionable, that would transcend cultures and centuries.

What high school was this?

Robert Schuller: Newkirk High School, which no longer exists. It had about 74 persons in all four grades. In the senior class, there were 14 of us. It was the largest class in the history of Newkirk High School.

What town are we talking about?

Robert Schuller: It's a town that's unincorporated. It's called Newkirk. There's a church -- the church where I was baptized -- there was one country store, and a school, period.

Did you feel that you were different from other kids, when you were a child?

Robert Schuller: I think I did.

I always felt different, partly because I was overweight and very non-athletic. In a sense, they might have called me, I don't know that they did, but they might have called me a fat boy. I think I felt different. I definitely did not feel like I was in the winning group. When they'd go to the playground, they would draw up sides. Two persons would be picked, and then they would pick from the rest of us. I was always the one that never got picked. "You get Schuller." I was the left-over one. "You get Schuller," they would say. I don't blame them, they did a good job. I was non-athletic. I didn't care about it.

Wasn't that a devastating experience?

Robert Schuller: Probably. Probably it was another gift of God, because my life has been so successful. I look at the pivotal periods of my life, and gee whiz, I didn't choose them, they shaped me. I think that's probably where the compulsion arose that would later on take me into the study of self-esteem theology. I was the first person in the history of theology to write a systematic theology built around self esteem. Deep in my consciousness as a little child, I probably felt rejected.

An article I read recently talked about the central issue of self esteem in your writings, and there was a hint that you had lacked it.

Robert Schuller: Oh yes, I know. There's a saying about great preachers. Probably I'm immodest to think I'm a great preacher, but at the risk of being immodest, I suppose I'm a great preacher.

They say great preachers only have one sermon. That's all they have. It's true for Billy Graham, it's true for Norman Peale, it's true for Robert Schuller. Also, there's a profound teaching: You can tell what a preacher's personal sins are, by what he preaches against all the time. I preach against people who treat others with indignity, I preach against people who insult people, I preach against people who embarrass people. I preach against those who peddle guilt and shame.

Maybe it started when I wasn't accepted on a team: "You can have Schuller." In that little society of a country school, people were applauding the athlete, the one who won the races, the one who could hit the ball the hardest, and that's not where my gifts were. I suppose I've subsequently sensed that culture can set up artificial bases for applauding, which might be very unfair to others who might be gifted as a writer, or as an artist.

Let's talk a little bit about the building of this magnificent edifice, the Crystal Cathedral, and how you envisioned that. It must have seemed like an impossible dream, and yet you've realized it. What did you have in mind?

Robert Schuller: All I had in mind was a building. I needed a building. I came to begin this church in California, at the age of 28, with only $500. My denomination asked me to start a church there. It is the oldest denomination in the United States of America, started in 1628, when the Dutch colonists bought Manhattan Island. All of it belonged to the state church in Holland which was, and still is, the Reformed Church.

I came to start a church. Couldn't find an empty hall, made a list of ten places where I thought I would be able to find a place, like a school or a Seventh Day Adventist church (they're closed on Sunday), or a Jewish temple. "I'll rent your building for Sundays," you know, make a deal. But, number nine was "Use a drive-in theater." And that was the only option left to me, and I did. And, I think I felt at home under the sky because I was raised on a farm. And so, 25 years later, I would have 10,000 members.

I needed a building to seat at least 3,000 people, to protect us from the wind and the rain, and the birds -- who never did learn good manners. So I went to Philip Johnson, I said, "Can't you make it all glass? I tell you, in my mind, this is a building where we are to experience communication, to receive and to extend creative thinking as the high point of authentic religion and true spirituality, and I should be in the environment."

I had already learned bio-realism from the architect Richard Neutra. No one understands that better than I. I gave a lecture on it to 5,000 architects in St. Louis a few years ago. I received standing applause, so I know I'm very, very aware of bio-realism in architecture. Bio-realism says that every organism has its own natural habitat. I was doing this 40 years ago, while Richard Neutra was working with René Duboce, who was the founder of sociobiology, and the three of us prepared notes. Renee Duboce said that if you change the environment of a living thing -- whether it's an insect, a plant, or an animal -- that form of life will become extinct. It will do anything it can conceivably do to survive, but if it survives, it will be a deviate, it will not be its authentic self.

The human being was designed to be a creative person, a communicating person. Tension obliterates or stifles the capacity to be really hearing, honestly listening. So Renee Duboce and Richard Neutra say that the human being therefore should live in an environment that is peaceful, calm, tranquil. If we decide to live where nature's sounds are dominated by sirens and engines, and the grass gives way to cement, the human being is out of his natural habitat. He will be affected, he will become a deviate before he allows himself to become extinct. I contend that atheism -- I'm not talking about agnosticism, I respect the agnostic who has serious questions -- but the atheist is an emotional deviate. That's caused to a great degree by getting out of our natural habitat.

So we created this structure. When we think about God, and think about religion, we are wrapped around with natural space. So the crystal cathedral is not an attempt to be an architectural ego-statement. It's probably the ultimate spiritual and psychological statement that could be made in architectural terms.

There was a crucial moment in your fundraising when you asked John Green for one million dollars. I think you described it as the most ecstatic event of your life.

Robert Schuller: Yes. It was Maundy Thursday in the year 1977, I believe.

When I hired the architect, Philip Johnson he said, "You need a building to seat three thousand." "Yes." "And you want it all glass?" "Yes." "How much money can you afford to spend?" I said, "Nothing. I don't have anything. But," I said, "It's your job to design a masterpiece. If you do your job, the masterpiece will attract financial support - smart people, sophisticated people, successful people. They'll take a look at it and say, 'That building must be built! It should stand on planet Earth.'"

When he submitted the plan, I took a look at it and said, "Wow!" I say no idea is worthwhile if it doesn't start with a "Wow!" If it's got a wow, it'll go. I just had to find the people who would be turned on by it. I went to this man, John Green, whom I'd never met. I knew he was wealthy, I knew he gave a million dollars to the YMCA. I showed him the plans, and he said "Wow!" He may not have used that actual word, but his reaction was a wow.

I said to Mr. Green, "I have no money. It will cost probably seven million. I've got to raise that money, but people won't take me seriously. If I had a lead-off gift of a million dollars, I think they would. Would you give the million?" He said, "I'd like to, but I can't." So, I said, "May I pray before I leave?" "Sure," he said. And out of my mouth came one of the most remarkable prayers. I did not coin it, I did not create it, I was just a spokesman for the Eternal Spirit. I said, "Dear God, I'm so thankful that he wants to do it. He said he'd like to, but he can't. Can you figure out a way for him to do what he'd like to do but can't? Amen." And the next morning, he called and said, "I don't know how, I don't know when, but the building's got to get built. I'll give you the million, somehow, sometime." And in 60 days, he did. And so I was off and running. It was the most ecstatic event of my life.

It's quite a phenomenon that the Crystal Cathedral was paid for before it even opened, wasn't it?

Robert Schuller: Yes, because I am a very good business person. I started with $500 dollars. Today, after 40 years, I'd say our property is worth well over $100 million, and we have no debt. That's the reason I have succeeded.

I have said this to every President in the Oval Office, starting with Nixon, and to President Clinton only three weeks ago. I have said that we should never plan long-term debt if we're running a non-profit business, because the interest of the debt doesn't have value. You don't report it to the IRS. Profit making corporations are a totally different ball game.

So we never did have debt. When we came to building this cathedral, I was stuck with having to practice what I preached. I just set a goal, that we would raise the money, and that we would be debt free when we dedicated it. It darned near killed me, because this was 1977, and inflation was 30 percent that year, then another year at 30 percent, and then another year 33 percent. The prime interest rate went up to 22 percent while we were trying to keep the cathedral debt-free. If you can't borrow the money, then you have to go out and collect it.

So the building, instead of being seven million, it was 20 million. I said to President Carter, whom I respect and love, I said, "I'll take the blame for the first 10 million, but the second 10 million is our country's fault." Inflation -- 30 percent of 10 million -- boosted it to 13, and then 30 percent, you're up to 16 million, so we went to 20. Not my fault. And, I had taken the first million dollars from a man, and promised I'd build the building. If you take cash from somebody, you have to deliver, or you're ruined for life as a person with no integrity, no character.

It was unbelievable pressure, and I had to deliver.

What was it like the first day you preached in the Crystal Cathedral?

Robert Schuller: I really can't remember. I think I was numb. There was a media event, such as I had never been involved in, and I had to perform. I didn't have the privilege of being able to sit back and look and watch and listen and applaud, or laugh or cry. I was on-stage.

I wanted to talk a little bit about your work with the Presidents, because I can't imagine a more important role than as spiritual advisor to the leader of the most powerful nation in the world. You've received a certain amount of flak for your relationship with President Clinton. How do you see that relationship? What are you doing for the President?

Robert Schuller: I don't think I'm doing anything more for the President than I would do for anybody else. I've only been in one profession all my life, and that's as a pastor. There are different roles in the clergy, you know? There's the role of the religious professor, there's the role of the religious journalist, there's the role of the evangelist, there's the role of the chaplain, and then there's the role of the pastor. These roles are distinctive, and I'm a pastor. I think I fulfill that intuitively, instinctively, maybe impertinently, when I'm talking to people, regardless of who they are.

Tell us how you first contacted President Clinton. What prompted that?

Robert Schuller: My closest aide and associate, who travels with me, and has been closest to me, said to me one Christmas Eve, "You know, you should call the President and wish him a Merry Christmas." I had never met him; I had no reason to connect with him. He was not on any list of people I wanted to meet for personal reasons. That's not a negative statement. I said, "Mike, why should I call him?" "Well," Mike says, "he is your President, and he's been through some bad times these past few months, and I think you're just the kind of a guy that could give him a lift. That's your gift. You give people a lift when they listen to you, you make them feel good. I think it would make him feel good on Christmas to get a call from you out of the blue. He could take a call from you, and he'd know you're not asking for favors. You're just being who you are."

So I said, "Mike, he'd never even answer. I'd never get through." Mike said, "Try it." So I called information for the telephone number of the White House, got the number, and said I was calling for the President. They said, "What's your name?" I told them my name, and they said, "Just a minute." Didn't take long, and they said, "I'm sorry, the President is not available to talk to you right now, can we have a number where you can be reached, if he chooses to return this call?"

I gave them my telephone number. And this is Christmas Eve. I have seven services, one right after another. He returned the call while I was up in the pulpit preaching, and they had to tell him, "I'm sorry, Mr. President, but Dr. Schuller can't come to the phone right now, can he call you back?" Then he called me back, and I got him on the line, and I remember thinking, "Oh my gosh, what am I going to say? Here's the President of the United States, and I've never met him." No memory to tap into. I wished him Merry Christmas.

I said, "You've had some bad press, but I have a line I use a lot: God loves you, whether you're right or wrong. God loves you whether you're good or not good. And God loves you, whether you believe in him or not." Something like that. "So Merry Christmas, Mr. President." Something I said hit, I guess, and that was the beginning of a relationship.

I believe you provided him with a line from Isaiah, that he used in the inaugural.

Robert Schuller: Yes, and I'm suddenly wondering, why did I give that to him? Intuitively? Instinctively? It is in my nature, it is my character. I want to give people a lift. I want to encourage people. It probably goes back to not being picked for the team as a kid. It is true that in love's service, only broken hearts qualify. I'm credentialed. I've had my hurts.

I think I gave him that text because I wanted to encourage him. It was the text that I put my hand on when I took my ordination vows in the year 1950, Isaiah 58:12. "You shall be called the repairer of the breach, the restorer of paths to dwell in." That Bible verse has shaped my life. It has made me want to bring people together. The President was talking about building a bridge to the next century, this was his big thing. Those words turned me on. I think I've been a bridge builder. I still want to be a bridge builder. And the President, I thought, had better be a bridge builder.

I'm sick and tired of this country being divided left and right, conservative and liberal, communist, pro-communist and anti-communist. I've lived my whole life that way. I'm 70 years old. And by God, now it's time for a President who can bring us together. I don't care what party he belongs to.

So that's what motivated that text. Boy, it grabbed hold of me, like you wouldn't believe.

That's what you do, creating a space for the restorer of paths to dwell in. Creating a space, as you've created with the Crystal Cathedral. Creating a space where people can be themselves, their best selves.

Robert Schuller: I think we're at an era when smart people are coming to understand that you're not a very decent person if you try to indoctrinate people, or manipulate people, or attack people, or live with a confrontational paradigm in your personal behavior. I think this is a new era, where people respect you if you say, "I want you to be my friend. We don't agree on a lot of things, and you may not even have the character that I like, but you're fun. Let's be friends."

You refer to your credential, the sense of a broken heart. What setbacks have you gone through along the way?

Robert Schuller: We're not talking about challenges now. We're not talking about physical pain.

I could talk about losing everything in a tornado, and escaping with your life, and I know what it's like to be homeless, and that's nothing. No big deal. I know what it's like to have my home burned, and all the papers, and I'm a student in college, living in a private house. I would fail an English course because of it, but that's no big deal. And, a daughter whose leg was amputated, when she was our athlete. She was 13 years old. That was a pretty big deal. My wife, having amputations of breasts because of cancer, that was a heavy deal. Or my having an accident and being 20 minutes from being DOA at the hospital in Amsterdam, having two brain surgeries in eight days. That was nothing, that was a piece of cake, because I didn't even know what was going on.

That didn't hurt the heart. I'm talking about heartache, or heartbreak. I've had that. That's the biggest deal. That's doing what you know you have to do, being committed to integrity and excellence, and expecting that you'd be applauded for it. And instead, you are condemned for it. You are rejected by the organizations you respect the most, like family.

My family never did that, but my denomination did. I belong to the oldest denomination in the United States. I respect it. Take a history course of America, start in 1628, and you'll see it's small, but very significant, very proud and properly so. You'll see the Vanderbilts, the Roosevelts, the great names that belong to this denomination, the Dutch families of America.

My denomination shunned me when they heard I was preaching in a drive-in theater. That was rather embarrassing. Then, it wasn't long and I began preaching a theology centered around self esteem. I was attacked by this. They would have accused me of heresy, but I was too good a theologian. I did not commit a heresy, and they knew it. I did nothing that was heretical. So, when they couldn't accuse me -- because I was too well educated, frankly -- I was shunned.

Up until my work, I think, the history of theology would say that Christian theology taught that sin is a free choice that we make to rebel against God. And, I did not accept that. It did not make sense. I said, "Why would intelligent people -- educated people, smart people -- rebel against a God that we say, loves us? It doesn't make sense." So that led me to a theology of self esteem and more arrows in the back. You can tell who the leader is; he's got the arrows in the back.

This hurt. It hurt until only six days before I taped this interview with you. Six days ago was the highlight of my life. The theological school that had shunned me, that attacked me, six days ago conferred upon me an honor that they had never in their 126 years conferred upon any graduate. I received the first Distinguished Alumnus award. It made me cry. I was right, and finally they see it. I think I'm shaping Christianity. Jesus treated people beautifully. The church hasn't always treated people beautifully. "I'll love you if... I'll love you when... I'll love you after..." And that's not Christianity. Authentic Christianity says, God says, "I'll love you." Period.

Was this the seminary that you had gone to, that gave you the award?

Robert Schuller: The award came from the seminary that I graduated from 47 years ago, Western Theological Seminary in Holland, Michigan.

Apart from what you've just said, how would you describe the contribution you've made to your field?

Robert Schuller: I think it is trying to purge the faith of its negative factors. I think the unbelieving world, or the secular world, have been very unfair in their criticism. When they attack Christianity for its hypocrisy, they forget something very important. We have chosen, as our mission statement, to reach out and gather to ourselves, into our circle of friendship, the worst people in the world. Remarkable. We spend billions of dollars to go to the bad people, hoping we can turn them into good people. We go for the sinners. So don't say we're a lot of hypocrites. We've got a lot of hypocrites, of course we do, what would you expect if you went for the bad people?

You've said the cross is a minus turned into a plus.

Robert Schuller: Yes. I think that's what faith is, trying to take the minuses and turn them into pluses. We try to take bad people and turn them into good people, try and take negative people and turn them into positive people. We're trying to take selfish people and make them unselfish people. That was the focus of Judaism, and that's where Jesus came from, and where he belonged. As I say, he turned his scars into stars.

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?

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.

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.

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:

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.