Compiled by Jim Fox
Last updated: 07-13-92
QUOTATIONS BY ROBERT SCHULLER
Note: This file is still being worked on, the Biblical refutations to
Robert Schuller’s statements are still in the process of being worked on.
I would urge any of you who read this file in this preliminary stage to
search the Scriptures as the Bereans in Acts 17:11 did.
1. Explains Philippians 2:7,8
“Jesus knew his worth, his success fed his self-esteem…. He suffered
the cross to sanctify his self-esteem. And he bore the cross to
sanctify your self-esteem. And the cross will sanctify the ego trip!”
(Living Positively One Day at a Time, p.201)
2. “A person is in hell when he has lost his self-esteem.”
(Self-Esteem, The New Reformation, pp.14-15)
3. Obviously he does not accept 1 Timothy 1:15, Luke 5:32
“I don’t think anything has been done in the name of Christ that and
under the banner of Christianity that has proven more destructive to
human personality and, hence, counterproductive to the evangelism
enterprise than the often crude, uncouth, and unchristian strategy of
attempting to make people aware of their lost and sinful condition.”
(Time, March 18, 1985)
4. “I discovered the reality of that dynamic dimension in prayer that
comes through visualizing….. Don’t try to understand it. Just start
to enjoy it! It’s true. It works. I tried it.” (The Fourth Dimension,
Foreword)
5. “Now-Believe and You Will Achieve” (Tough Times Never Last, But Tough
People DO, p. 161)
6. “You don’t know what power you have within you!… You make the world
into anything you choose. Yes, you can make your world into whatever
you want it to be.” (Possibilty Thinking: Goals, Amway Corporation
cassette tape)
7. “A variety of approaches to meditation…is employed by many different
religions as well as by various non-religious mind- control systems. In
all forms… TM, Zen Buddhism, or Yoga or… mediation… of
Judaeo-Christian tradition… the meditator endeavors to overcome the
distractions of the conscious mind….”
“It is important to remember that meditation in any form is the
harnessing, by human means, of God’s divine laws…. We are endowed
with a great many powers and forces that we do not yet fully
understand.”
“The most effective mantras employ the “M” sound. You can get the feel
of it by repeating the words, “I am, I am,” many times over….
Transendental Meditation or TM… is not a religion nor is it
necessarily anti-Christian.” (Peace of Mind Through Possibility
Thinking, pp. 131-32)
8. Robert Schuller was addressing a group of Unity ministers and ministers
in training, at the Unity School of Christianity (a Mind-science cult).
Schuller was asked, “Dr. Schuller, we hear a lot of talk these days
about the New Age, the Age of Aquarius, the type of New Age thinking
that we are involved in with Holistic healing and various other things
that are part of what is called the New Age. Will you describe the
role of what you might consider the New Age minister in the ’80s and
beyond?”
Schuller replied, “Well, I think it depends upon where you’re working.
I believe that the responsibility in this Age is to “positivize”
religion. Now this probably doesn’t have much bearing to you people,
being Unity people, you’re positive. But I talk a great deal to groups
that are not positive… even to what we would call Fundamentalists who
deal constantly with words like sin, salvation, repentance, guilt, that
sort of thing.”
“So when I’m dealing with these people… what we have to do is
positivize the words that have classically only had a negative
interpretation.” (from an address at Unity Village, Unity tape)
9. Schuller declares that this new reformation requires that a new
interpretation of the cross is needed.
“The classical interpretation of this teaching of Christ on ‘bearing
our cross’ desperately needs reformation….”
“The cross Christ calls us to bear will be offered as a dream… an
inspiring idea that would incarnate itself in a form of ministry that
helps the self-esteem-impoverished persons to discover their self-worth
through salvation and subsequent social service in our Savior’s
name…”
“So the proclamation of possibility thinking is the positive
proclamation of the cross!…”
“Christ was the world’s greatest possibility thinker. Do we dare follow
him?” (Self-Esteem, pp. 22, 117-19)
10. “If the gospel of Jesus Christ can be proclaimed as a theology of
self-esteem, imagine the health this could generate in society!”
(Self-Esteem, p. 47)
11. “Are we aware that theology has failed to accomodate and apply proven
insights in human behavior as revealed by twentieth- century
psychologists?” (Self-Esteem, p. 27)
12. “Self-love is a crowning sense of self-worth. It is an ennobling
emotion of self-respect… an abiding faith in yourself. It is sincere
belief in yourself.”
“It comes through self-discovery, self-discipline, self- forgiveness
and self-acceptance. It produces self-reliance, self- confidence and
an inner security, calm as the night.” (Self-Love, The Dynamic Force
of Success, p. 32)
13. Schuller describes a basic defect in modern Christianity.
“What is that basic flaw? I believe is it the failure to proclaim the
gospel in a way that can satisfy every person’s deepest need – one’s
spiritual hunger for glory. Rather than glorify God’s highest creation
– the human being – Christian liturgies, hymns, prayers, and
scriptural interpretations have often insensitively and destructively
offended the dignity of the person…” (Self-Esteem, p. 31)
14. “Where the sixteenth-century Reformation returned our focus to sacred
Scriptures as the only infallible rule for faith and practice, the new
reformation will return our focus to the sacred right of every person
ot self-esteem!” (Self-Esteem, p. 38)
15. “Real self-estem is real humility. Healthy pride and honest humility
are the same human qualities – just different sides of the same coin.
We all welcome affirmation and resent being insulted.” (Self-Esteem,
p. 174)
16. Schuller has decided that pride is this great thing that we all need
to strive for. However God lead Israel through the wilderness in order
to humble them and break them of their pride (Deut 8:2).
“A neurotic fear of pride has motivated the church too long…. In my
lecture to thousands of ordained clergy of the widest cross section of
historic Christianity, I have found it necessary to tell my
colleagues:”
“Dare to be a possibility thinker! Do not fear pride; the easiest job
God has is to humble us. God’s almost impossible task is to keep us
believing every hour of the day how great we are as his sons and
daughters on planet earth.”
“Don’t worry about humility. The easiest job God has to do is to keep
you an me humble. God’s biggest job is to get us to believe that we
are somebody and that we really can do something….”
“Remember, ‘If your pride is rooted in your divine call, your humility
is assured. The Cross will sanctify your ego trip.’… For the Cross
protected our Lord’s perfect self-esteem from turning into sinful
pride.” (Self-Esteem, p. 57, 74)
17. “Are we to believe that self-denial means the denial of personal
pleasure, desire, fulfillment, prosperity? For too long religious
leaders have suggested this with tragic results….”
“Such attitudes are dangerous distortions and destructive mis-
interpretations of scattered Bible verses grossly misread by
negative-thinking Bible readers who project their own negative
self-image onto the pages of Holy Scripture….”
“By self-denial Christ does not mean the rejection of that positive
emotion we call self-esteem – the joy of eperiencing my
self-worth….” (Self-Esteem, p.113-15)
18. Since self-esteem is of all importance with Schuller, he tries to draw
the conclusion that an object is worth what the price with which it
was bought, in our case since Christ died for us on the cross, we now
are of infinite value.
“I must be of infinite value in God’s sight” (Self-Esteem, p. 74)
“In his crucifixion, Christ has placed unlimited value on the human
soul.” (Self-Esteem, p. 102)
19. We now have a new definition of the atonement!
“If the deepest curse of sin is what it does to our self-esteem, then
the atoning power of the Cross is what it does to redeem our discarded
self-worth.” (Self_Esteem, p. 101)
20. “I may not deserve it [salvation] but I am worth it so don’t say that
I am unworth.” (Self-Esteem, p. 74)
21. No one is an unworthy sinner according to Schuller, see Luke 15:21 and
Romans 3:23 to see if this is true.
“The most serious sin is the one that causes me to say, ‘I am
unworthy. I may have no claim to divine sonship if you examine me at
my worst.'”
“For once a person believes he is an ‘unworthy sinner,’ it is doubtful
if he can really honestly accept the saving grace God offers in Jesus
Christ.” (Self-Esteem, p. 98)
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