Schuller Takes His Case to Congregants

Nearly a week after the Rev. Robert H. Schuller told the nation that he’s being investigated for allegedly assaulting an airplane flight attendant, he again raised the subject in his Sunday church service, asking about 3,000 congregants for their support.

“I am a hands-on person. I bless, I hold, I hug. My therapy has been physical and verbal,” Schuller said, unleashing an uproarious applause from the audience that virtually packed the Crystal Cathedral, the Garden Grove church he founded. “I know you will believe the best about me.”

He acknowledged having had physical contact with the male flight attendant but said it had been misinterpreted and wasn’t an exercise of force.

“In all my growing up as one of five children, we touched, we hugged. But we never hit, we never used fists, we never pointed fingers,” he later said. “I have never in my life been in that kind of physical encounter with anyone. No one, never ever, not once.”

In an attempt to preempt any legal action against him, Schuller initiated publicity about the alleged scuffle by holding a televised press conference last Tuesday at the Crystal Cathedral, where church members and his staff sat on the sidelines supporting him.

Schuller spoke again of the allegations Sunday, but this time in a 40-minute sermon.

“What happens to good people when bad things happen to them?” he rhetorically asked the congregation. “They only become stronger, more compassionate and more understanding.”

He was not an attacker, Schuller insisted. Rather, he’s being attacked by evil, he said.

“I find it so interesting that the way Satan would choose to attack me would be through the use of one of my most powerful instruments of healing I’ve been using all my life: A touch. A physical contact.”

The airplane incident, which he called “humbling,” has taught him to refrain from extending himself and to reserve his “touchy” tendencies with people.

Schuller was flying to New York for the funeral of Betty Shabazz, widow of the late Malcolm X, when the incident occurred.

The airplane disagreement began with a dispute over where in the plane to hang Schuller’s trademark blue robe and continued, Schuller said, when the United Airlines flight attendant refused to serve him a plate of fruit without cheese.

Somehow, physical contact resulted and the attendant later told federal officers he had sustained injuries inflicted by Schuller.

Agents with the FBI and federal prosecutors are involved in the case because the incident took place in midair. The 35-year-old flight attendant, whose name officials have not released, could not be reached for comment Sunday.

Schuller’s attorney, Terry Giles, said Sunday that no charges have been filed against the pastor. If any are forthcoming, they will likely be of assault or interference with a flight attendant’s duties, Giles said.

“There are no new developments in the case. We’re simply waiting to see what will happen. There’s nothing else for us to do now,” he said during the service.

Meanwhile, most who attended the sermon sided with Schuller, saying he had committed no wrong.

“I’m convinced that he is not at fault,” Ken Aleida, 65, of Santa Ana said confidently.

Another churchgoer, Winston Covington, agreed but added that he was a bit surprised that the scuffle was the focus of the Sunday sermon: “I didn’t expect this kind of response.”

A group of exchange students, however, denounced Schuller’s approach Sunday.

Louise Dibetta, 25, an Australian student touring the Crystal Cathedral, said: “He used the words of God to save himself. I found it offensive.”