I recently saw a news item that recalled the career of Rex Humbard, the televangelist whose ministry once reached more parts of the globe than any other religious program. The Rev. Humbard died on September 21, 2007 at a South Florida hospital near his home in Lantana, at age 88. He founded the non-denominational Cathedral of Tomorrow ministry, which eventually included a $4 million building of the same name and a 23-story office tower. The 5,000-seat, futuristic Cathedral – located near Akron, Ohio – featured a hydraulic stage, a cross covered with thousands of red, white and blue light bulbs, velvet drapes, state-of-the-art sound technology, and complete facilities for television-production.
The article on Rev. Humbard’s ministry drew my attention because I actually visited the Cathedral in 1962, during a Midwest tour by our college choir. I recall the organist showing us all the whiz-bang stops on her electronic keyboard, and rolling her eyes at our stodgy, Wesleyan un-hipness. We recognized none of the modern tunes she was used to playing for services. (We were young people, but we were already musical old fogies, singing Bach and other ancient stuff.)
By all accounts, the Rev. Humbard was an exemplary man, with a heart for people and a true zeal for the Gospel. He started his ministry in the post-war era, along with contemporaries Billy Graham and Oral Roberts. Earlier than many, he realized the potential of the new medium of television. His Sunday services were first televised in 1953. By the 1970s he was known to millions, worldwide. His syndicated program eventually reached more than 600 stations.
The Rev. Humbard’s life and ministry were never scarred by the kinds of behavioral scandals that engulfed evangelists James Bakker and Jimmy Swaggart in the 1980s. But financial overreach hurt the Humbard-organization. Internal disputes and extensive borrowing damaged the ministry irreparably and caused its demise. In the 1970s Rev. Humbard came under the scrutiny of federal and state regulators who charged that the millions of dollars worth of notes he sold to ministry supporters violated securities laws. (It turns out that you can’t invent and sell your own bonds without submitting to oversight from Securities and Exchange authorities.) The Rev. Humbard was forced out of the Cathedral ministry in 1982. Thereafter, the congregation dwindled to as few as 75 people. In 1994 the Cathedral building and complex were sold to evangelist Ernest Angley.
The Cathedral of Tomorrow was a mega-church before the term was coined. The Humbard TV ministry featured a mixture of preaching and high-quality music. Mr. Humbard’s wife, Maude Aimee – an accomplished gospel singer – performed regularly on the broadcasts, as did the popular Cathedral quartet and the Humbard children. Large crowds of worshippers at the Akron Cathedral gave the ministry a cachet of success and quality that drew financial support and the admiration of many. Imitation – the sincerest form of flattery (even in church) – followed as night follows day. Ministers across the country dreamed of multi-million-dollar ministries and flying in private jets to conferences where listeners would hang on their every word.
Today, the Cathedral of Tomorrow model is a fixture of American culture. Although the CoT is gone, mega-church gurus like Bill Hybels (Willow Creek Church) and Rick Warren (Saddleback Church) write books and counsel the great and the near great. Legions of followers think they can do no wrong, and their churches gross millions. Rick Warren’s bestseller, The Purpose-Driven Life, has more currency in some churches than the Bible. Politicians listen to his proposed “solutions” for problems like worldwide AIDS and global warming, as though he really knows how to solve them. It is a heady time to be a mega-church leader.
In the saga of the Cathedral of Tomorrow we see how fleeting fame and fortune can be – particularly when they rest on the leadership of a single man. The CoT showed what can happen when leaders forget that a church is not about growth and bigness, but about personal ministry to God’s people and preaching the Gospel. The CoT tried to leverage growth by borrowing money, not by trusting God (and God’s people) for the funds to build the ministry. That attempt crashed.
This kind of error is easy to make when a leader of a huge ministry becomes convinced that he has a private line to God. Ministry officials often see the danger in this conceit, so they establish “accountability boards” to check the Top Banana’s adventurism. This can work, as the Billy Graham Ministries demonstrated. But when the head guy handpicks the board’s members, criticizing his vision and behavior becomes a risky challenge that might result in a board member being invited to serve elsewhere. The Bakker ministry’s accountability system failed when Jim Bakker got too big for his britches. The Cathedral’s internal dynamics were not revealed, but the ministry clearly lacked enough oversight to rein in plans that became overly ambitious.
The Cathedral of Tomorrow was also one of the first mega-ministries based on the idea of a church service being a “really big show” (in Ed Sullivan’s memorable words). An international network carrying the Cathedral’s high-quality church “spectacle” generated millions in donations for the ministry. This established the model that eventually grew into today’s mega-churches.
I have read about a mega-church whose annual budget is nearly $40 million. Its services feature “praise” music performed by high-quality pro-musicians. (The congregation can sing along, but participation is optional.) The preaching is top-drawer. The church foyer has a coffee shop. Membership exceeds 20,000. So much money is coming in that the church has established satellite churches linked to the “mother church” by a common message fashioned by the senior pastor and his staff. The church has essentially become its own denomination, accountable to no one and linked to no historical body of theological thought – except to the extent that the pastor chooses to do so. This is risky business for any church. So far, no problems, but a cloudy future.
Mega-church success stories are as American as apple pie. We love seeing an enterprise start small, fight to survive, then grow big and successful. That’s fine – all within reasonable bounds. But a church is not a business, and it’s not entertainment – or shouldn’t be. Almost inevitably, when a church (or ministry) gets too big, and too rich, its leaders either overreach or forget their essential mission. Without vigilance and constant correction, the ministry can devolve into squabbling factions. Members and donations simply melt away, as in the Cathedral of Tomorrow’s sad demise. Many people attend mega-churches because they love the bigness, the aura of success (and maybe the coffee). They don’t stick around when the aura starts fading.
My understanding – based on a lifetime spent in the Church – is that churches are not meant to become huge enterprises with mega-budgets and gigantic campuses resembling convention centers (with or without the coffee shop). Pastors are not supposed to be “executives” remote from their congregations. And worship services are not meant to be spectacles attended by thousands who don’t know anyone in the seats around them.
The church is meant to be a body of believers who minister to each other. The pastor looks after the spiritual needs of his people. The body looks after its members’ temporal needs and helps the community. The Gospel is preached; scriptures are studied. The church is about helping its people to become disciples who live out the gospel in their lives and occupations.
The mega-church is a modern construct based on marketing principles – as though the church is a saleable commodity, like entertainment. Its packaging – not its content – are the primary thing. That might work for a time, but eventually people are bound to look inside the package. For operations like the Cathedral of Tomorrow, that’s the beginning of the end. The CoT wasn’t a real church, in the sense of ministering to people at a personal level. It only looked like one on TV.
The Rev. Humbard did a lot of good things with his life. He preached the Gospel faithfully, which was worthy of respect. But the Cathedral, the Really Big Show, and all the rest of it – well, nobody’s perfect.
“We live in an age where people assume that the end justifies the means. But with God, this is never the case. It matters to God how things are done. That’s because the way we do something reflects on Him. It is possible to do the right thing, the wrong way… I have known churches that attracted large crowds, but they failed to build a church. When you serve God the wrong way, you present God in the wrong light. And God cares very much how you represent Him to a watching world.” (Henry T. Blackaby, Author of Experiencing God.)
