Robert H. Schuller

Robert Harold Schuller (September 16, 1926 – April 2, 2015) was an American Christian televangelist, pastor, motivational speaker, and author. In his five decades of television, Schuller was principally known for the weekly Hour of Power television program, which he began hosting in 1970 until his retirement in 2010. Schuller began broadcasting the program from the Neutra Sanctuary, with the encouragement of longtime friend Billy Graham after Schuller visited him in 1969. He was also the founder of the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove, California, where the Hour of Power program was later broadcast. 2Early years Robert Harold Schuller was born on September 16, 1926, near Alton, Iowa, the second son of Jennie (née Beltman; 1891–1970) and Anthony Schuller (1882–1964). He was the youngest of five children. All of his grandparents were Dutch immigrants, and he was raised on his parents' farm nearby in a small-knit community of Dutch-Americans, without running water. As a 6 month old infant, Schuller wore the gown on the day of his baptism at a Reformed Church, in Newkirk, Iowa, where he was raised. In 1931, just weeks before his 5th birthday, a visiting uncle, who was a minister, told him to be an evangelist. Schuller called it the "single most defining moment of my early life." After graduating from Newkirk High School in Newkirk, Iowa, in 1944, Schuller studied at Hope College, located in Holland, Michigan, and received a Master of Divinity degree from Western Theological Seminary, which follows the theological tradition and Christian practice of John Calvin, in 195