Robert H. Schuller’s ministry—including the architectural wonder of the Crystal Cathedral and the polished television broadcast of Hour of Power—cast a broad shadow over American Christianity. Pastors flocked to Southern California to learn Schuller’s techniques. The President of United States invited him sit prominently next to the First Lady at the State of the Union Address. Muhammad Ali asked for the pastor’s autograph. It seemed as if Schuller may have started a second Reformation. And then it all went away. As Schuller’s ministry wrestled with internal turmoil and bankruptcy, his emulators—including Rick Warren, Bill Hybels, and Joel Osteen— nurtured megachurches that seemed to sweep away the Crystal Cathedral as a relic of the twentieth century. How did it come to this? The Glass Church examines the spectacular collapse of The Crystal Cathedral to better understand both the strength and fragility of Schuller’s ministry. The apparent success of the ministry obscured the many tensions that often threatened its future. 

MARK T. MULDER is a professor of sociology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Mulder’s scholarship focuses around urban congregations and changing racial-ethnic demographics. He is the author of Shades of White Flight: Evangelical Congregations and Urban Departure (Rutgers University Press) and coauthor of Latino Protestants in America: Growing and Diverse. Mulder has published numerous peer-reviewed articles in academic journals, including Social Problems and The Journal of Urban History. He has also published pieces for church audiences and won awards from the Evangelical Press Association and the Associated Church Press for his writing.
 
 
GERARDO MARTÍ is the L. Richardson King Professor of Sociology at Davidson College in Davidson, North Carolina. He is the author of A Mosaic of Believers: Diversity and Innovation in a Multiethnic Church, Hollywood Faith: Holiness, Prosperity, and Ambition in a Los Angeles Church (Rutgers University Press), Worship across the Racial Divide: Religious Music and the Multiracial Congregation (Oxford University Press, 2012), and coauthor of The Deconstructed Church: Understanding Emerging Christianity and Latino Protestants in America: Growing and Diverse (Rowman & Littlefield, 2017). Among several research collaborations and professional roles, he served for many years as the Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Sociology of Religion: A Quarterly Review.
 

Contents
Preface
Chapter 1        Constituency, Charisma, and Capital
Chapter 2        The Imperative of Church Growth
Chapter 3        Migrants to Orange County, California
Chapter 4        The Possibility Thinker
Chapter 5        No Hippies in the Sanctuary
Chapter 6        Dig a Hole, Schuller
Chapter 7        Always a New Project
Chapter 8        When the Glass Breaks
Coda               Ends and Beginnings
Appendix        Research Methodology
Notes
Bibliography
Index