Schuller Accused of Deceit in Fund-Raising Letter

A former employee of television evangelist Robert Schuller on Tuesday accused the pastor of the Crystal Cathedral of deceiving supporters in a 1981 fund-raising letter.

Timothy Waisanen, 35, said that a letter soliciting money that purportedly was written by Schuller while on a tour of China was dictated in Schuller’s living room in Orange months before the trip.

The letter, along with a photograph of Schuller standing atop the Great Wall, was mailed to 366,000 Schuller supporters and raised more than $278,000 in cash, Waisanen said.

The letter was composed in the spring of 1981 but mailed and dated in August, 1981, after Schuller completed the trip to China.

“I was an eyewitness in the room when he dictated the letter,” Waisanen said. “When the document came across my desk several weeks later I was shocked.”

Schuller had a local photographer fake a snapshot of himself at the Great Wall that was included with the letter, Waisanen said.

A note on the back reads: “Here I am standing on the Great Wall in China--holding up my book . . . published in Chinese! I want you to know that what has happened here in China is nothing short of a miracle!”

Waisanen, now a licensed minister and pastor of the Assemblies of God Church in Orange, worked for Schuller as a marketing director for the “Hour of Power” television program from August, 1980, until June, 1982, when he was laid off during a management shakeup, he said.

Schuller, a minister of the Reform Church of America, was scheduled to hold a news conference Tuesday in front of his all-glass Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove.

A Schuller spokesman, Mike Nason, acknowledged that the letter was written and the photo taken before Schuller’s trip.

“Robert H. Schuller did, in fact, travel to China in August of 1981,” Nason said. “The aforementioned letter was written before his departure and mailed in error. Although the picture was included prior to his departure, it was done in anticipation of his visit to the Great Wall.

“In fact, Dr. Schuller did visit the Great Wall and did have his picture taken, and thereby affirmed the integrity of the letter and all of its contents.”

Nason added, “This is a deliberate and libelous distortion of a clerical error reported by a fired and disgruntled employee. He is now exploiting the current wave of suspicion against televised religious ministries.”