The Rev. Robert Schuller, whose religious television...

The Rev. Robert Schuller, whose religious television program emanates from the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, has never been a member of the evangelical National Religious Broadcasters but said he would join if the organization were to relax its theological requirements.

“If there were a broad organization that admitted Catholics and Seventh-day Adventists, I would join today,” Schuller said in an interview.

The National Religious Broadcasters, which Schuller said “should be called the National Fundamentalist Broadcasters,” is at a difficult turning point this year.

In the wake of the televangelist scandals, the group has required all large, nonprofit broadcast members to reapply for membership and submit to certain financial accountability standards. Some previous members have not reapplied.

On the ABC-TV program “Nightline” early this month, Schuller accused the broadcasters organization of being anti-Catholic.

In response, Jerry Rose, president of the Morristown, N.J.-based organization, told Catholic News Service that Schuller’s accusation is “simply not true.” Rose said the National Religious Broadcasters does not admit Catholics because membership is limited “to those who subscribe to the evangelical statement of faith.”

A spokesman for the Seventh-day Adventist media center in Thousand Oaks said that Ad-ventist broadcasters have attended the annual National Religious Broadcasters convention in Washington and have applied to join, but “we’ve always been denied membership.” Many evangelical leaders consider the denomination a sectarian body.

Schuller said the Crystal Cathedral ministry is financially accountable to his denomination, the Reformed Church in America. That, he said, accounts partly for why he has never joined the 10-year-old Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability or the newly revamped broadcasters association.

But Schuller added that the doctrinal limits set by both organizations have been the main obstacle for him. The pastor said he spoke once at the religious broadcasters convention at their invitation, “but I found myself very uncomfortable, ill at ease.”

INTERFAITH

More than 100 seminarians from Catholic, Protestant and Jewish schools will gather Sunday at a Malibu camp for a two-day exchange of views during the 12th annual InterSem sponsored by the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Richard Mouw, new provost at Fuller Theological Seminary, is serving as the faculty chairman this year. Among the topics is the question of whether God can be referred to in gender-specific terms.

PEOPLE

Eminent theologian John B. Cobb Jr., 64, will retire next June from the School of Theology at Claremont faculty after 32 years. Cobb will remain at the United Methodist-related school as director of the Center for Process Studies, which he founded in 1973 to explore a metaphysical religious philosophy pioneered by Alfred North Whitehead. A wide-ranging thinker, Cobb was the first president in 1986 of the Society for Buddhist-Christian Studies. He will give a public lecture at 10:30 a.m. on Nov. 21 on the seminary campus, marking his long tenure in Claremont.