Robert Schuller: Television preacher who built up a global audience of millions but saw his church collapse into financial ruin

Schuller: ‘Come as you are in the family car’ was his motto when he preached from the roof of a drive-in cinema ap

Popular US preacher Robert Schuller (Kevork Djansezian/AP)

Robert Schuller was a televangelist who beamed his upbeat messages about faith and redemption to millions from his landmark Crystal Cathedral, only to see his empire crumble. Once a charismatic and well-known presence on the TV circuit, Schuller faded from view after watching his church collapse amid a disastrous leadership transition and sharp declines in viewership and donations that ultimately forced the ministry to file for bankruptcy.

The soaring, glass-paned Crystal Cathedral was sold to the RC Diocese of Orange in 2011, and Schuller lost a legal battle the following year to collect more than $5m from his former ministry for claims of copyright infringement and breach of contract.

His evangelical Protestant ministry, part of the Reformed Church in America, was a product of modern technology. He and his wife, Arvella, an organist, started a ministry in 1955 with $500 when he began preaching from the roof of a concession stand at a drive-in film theatre south-east of Los Angeles.

The church’s motto – “Come as you are in the family car” – tapped into the burgeoning Southern California car culture and the suburban boom of postwar America. By 1961 the church had a “walk-in/drive-in church” and Schuller began broadcasting the Hour of Power in 1970. In 1980 he built the glass-and-steel Crystal Cathedral in Orange County to house his TV ministry, which was broadcast live each week from the cathedral’s airy and sunlit 2,800-seat sanctuary. At its peak in the 1990s, the programme had 20m viewers in about 180 countries.

Robert Harold Schuller, televangelist: born Alton, Iowa 16 September 1926; married 1950 Arvella De Haan (died 2004; four daughters, one son); died Artesia, California 2 April 2015.