Robert Schuller

USA TV evangelist whose 'Hour of Power' broadcasts pushed 'possibility thinking'

Robert Schuller delivering one of seven candlelight Christmas Eve services from the Crystal Cathedral pulpit in Garden Grove, California Photo: AP

Robert Schuller, who has died aged 88, was one of America's most prominent television evangelists, and the founder and presenter of Hour of Power, a relentlessly upbeat weekly religious programme which, at one time, broadcast to 20 million households around the world.

Schuller started his ministry in 1955 from the roof of a snack shop at a local drive-in cinema in Garden Grove, California. His motivational speaking and motto - "Come as you are in the family car" - struck a chord with the "baby boomer" generation that flocked to suburban Orange County in the late 1960s and 1970s.