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Richard Mouw Appears on Hour of Power

On Sunday, Nov. 17, President Richard Mouw was a guest with Dr. Robert Schuller II at the Crystal Cathedral. Shuller's interview with Mouw aired on the Hour of Power television program on Sunday, Nov. 24.

Robert Schuller II: Please Welcome with me, Dr. Richard Mouw. Dr. Mouw, welcome.

Richard Mouw: Great to be here. It's a special pleasure to be talking this morning to a distinguished graduate of Fuller Theological Seminary. We want you to know how grateful we are to the Lord for the important ministry you're doing, as well as for your service.

RS: Thank you, I'm very, very pleased to be an alumnus of that tremendous institution. I had a great education. I want to thank you for your continued efforts. Now, you came to Fuller after I already graduated. I graduated in 1980, and you came around a few years later. So we weren't there at the same time. But Fuller gave me a great education, and for that I am eternally grateful.

Now, you've written a book. Well, you've written many books. But your latest one is He Shines in All That's Fair: Culture and Common Grace. Tell me about it.

RM: The title I took from a very well-known hymn ... This is my father's world: he shines in all that's fair. I really wrote this book for Christians who tend to focus almost exclusively on what God is doing in the church, in the believing community, often operating with very negative or suspicious attitudes toward everything that is going on out there in the larger world. I wanted to explore theologically how we can understand the fact that God is at work in the larger creation. That wherever we find people promoting beauty, justice, truth, righteousness, that there the Spirit of God is at work. And the church needs to discern the workings of God in the larger world, and appreciate all of the marvelous things going on in the world.

RS: So is this a book for laymen or it for pastors and church leaders?

RM: Oh, I think it's a book for pastors and church leaders, but I think it's a book for lay people, too. I try to relate these things to very real issues and things that are going on in the contemporary world. So recommend the book!

RS: Good idea! You know, when I went to Fuller Seminary, there were about 2,000 students. And when I went to high school, everyone was basically my age. When I went to college, everyone was basically may age. But when I went to seminary, there wasn't anyone my age! I was the youngest one in the seminary! Most of the people were in their 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, and 80s. There was wide mix. I also received a list of all the denominations represented at Fuller Seminary. I never realized that there were that many denominations.

RM: We have 120 denominations represented in our evangelical seminary, also students from 71 nations of the earth. It's a very exciting place to be.

RS: What is Fuller doing to equip ministers for being everything God has called them to be and for leading the church in the future?

RM: We're facing some tremendous challenges in theological education today. Ministers today really need to know some things about the psychological dimensions of the human spirit, they need to know something about other religions. What we used to hear about from missionaries are now daily realities in our lives, and even in our neighborhoods, and in the cities in which we live. We need to know something about the popular culture.

RS: How do you create the education that's necessary for these people to do their jobs?

RM: We're looking at a time when the delivery of theological education is a crucial challenge. And at Fuller Seminary we make it possible for people to study in many different ways. You can come full-time to our campus in Pasadena. You can come part-time. You can get a whole master's degree after 5:00 in the evening. You can study at several of our extension sites. You can take courses online. You can take courses that primarily have you listening to tapes, exchanging e-mail with a professor or a teaching assistant. We're looking at a plurality of ways of making it possible for people to pursue God's calling, wherever the Lord is calling them to serve.

RS: It's amazing how many different ways that people use the education they receive from Fuller Seminary.

RM: Our purpose statement is "To educate men and women for the manifold ministries of Christ and his church." And we do a lot of manifold at Fuller Theological Seminary.

RS: What are some of the challenges the seminary faces today?

RM: One of the increasing realities in the world, of course, is the global dimension. That's a very exciting thing, because the Lord has promised that the gospel would be a force for bringing together people from every tribe, tongue, and nation of the earth. And we're experiencing that with our students from 71 nations at Fuller Seminary. But all of us need to be thinking in new ways about what it means to be global members of the Body of Jesus Christ.

RS: So when you look at the global Body of Jesus Christ, it truly is international in its truest form, representing every different race, representing different denominations, to be able to glorify the kingdom of God.

RM: We just returned from China, where we're beginning some new partnerships with the church in China. And to see thousands of people coming to church, even in the government-registered churches. Thousands of people are coming to Christ. God is doing exciting things. But we need to be thinking about what it means for us to relate to a vibrant church that sometimes exists under very different conditions from the ones that we experience in our own local context.

RS: Tell me about your early Christian life. Have you always been a Christian? Or was there a time when there was a real transition when you really knew you were a Christian?

RM: That would be an appropriate thing for me to talk about in this congregation because I was raised in a minister's home, in the Reformed Church of America, which is the denomination of the Crystal Cathedral. From an early age I knew -- as the Apostle Paul said to Timothy, "You have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise unto salvation, which is in Christ Jesus." But as I grew older, I had to struggle with doubt, I had to struggle with questions about the things that I'd been raised to believe. But all of that was an important time of strengthening my faith and convincing me that the Christian message and worldview is a worldview that can really equip us for life in the 21st century.

RS: You may or may not realize that you are probably one of the most influential Christian leaders in the world today -- influencing pastors, leaders in church denominations, church heads, and congregations in a dramatic way. I don't think I could pick up a church leader magazine without seeing an article from Richard Mouw. The impact you're having on the church today is profound.

RM: God is doing great things around the world, and we're humbled to be a part of it all.

RS: It's exciting, isn't it? To be a part of the fruits of God's labor. Do you have some final words you'd like to share with us, comments you'd like to bestow upon us?

RM: As a person who's been given the gift of leadership in theological education, which many people think is far removed from the daily struggles that ordinary Christians have, I just want to say that this is a very exciting time to be in theological education, because it's an exciting time to be a follower of Jesus Christ. We've learned in the past couple of years some new things about what it means to experience real fear, vulnerability. We've learned in very concrete ways what the Scripture refers to when it talks about the "terror by night and the arrow that flies by noon day." But as followers of Jesus, we know in the deep places of our heart, that there's really only one safe place in the whole universe. And that's the place where we're leaning on the everlasting arms, which is made possible for us because we can name the name of Jesus. And it's a great privilege to be educating men and women for what we describe in our mission statement as the manifold ministries of Christ and his church. To be educating men and women to bring people into a knowledge of Jesus Christ, bring them to that safe place. But also to bring them into that kind of life that is regularly proclaimed from this pulpit, and that is the abundant life that we can have in Jesus Christ. These are exciting times to be a follower of Jesus Christ.