Hour of Powerlessness

Robert Schuller, the host of the nationally televised "Hour of Power" and the founding pastor of the Crystal Cathedral, found himself powerless to stop Johnnie Carl from committing suicide in one of the Cathedral bathrooms. Carl, 57 years old, was the Crystal Cathedral Orchestra conductor and has been employed there for about 30 years.

Mr. Carl, who composed or arranged over 3,500 musical pieces, entered the church at around 5pm Thursday evening and began opening fire. Only two hours before the Cathedral's Christmas program (The Glory of Christmas), Mr. Carl barricaded himself in the bathroom and then around 2am shot himself to death.

Schuller, a strong advocate of self-help Christianity, was called in to offer a recorded message to Mr. Carl in hopes of staving off his death. While not wanting to exploit a grievous tragedy for the Carl family, one does wonder what the Rev. Schuller said to Mr. Carl. Police said that they were not able to play the recording in time for Mr. Carl to hear. Would it have helped anyway? Schuller is not known for a gospel centered ministry but a "self-centered" ministry. His theology is all about what you can do for yourself and not what God can and has done for you in Jesus Christ.

If Schuller offered Mr. Carl only the means to pull himself out of his own situation through his own self-power than Carl was truly doomed. The only hope for those downcast and depressed is to renounce the trappings of self and to look solely to Christ. The death of Mr. Carl is a sad testimony to the powerlessness of a self-centered gospel, but a tried and true testimony to the ultimate power of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.