We know it’s common for overzealous shoppers to get in trouble with creditors after Christmas, but the Crystal Cathedral? Come on, Reverend Schuller’s Garden Grove ministry has more money than God, right? And how much can it cost to put on a little Christmas pageant in that glass monstrosity every year? Really,what’s the cost to rent a couple of donkeys — especially without the girls?

Apparently too much, for it was the 2009 production of the church’s beloved “Glory of Christmas” spectacle that got the CC in hot water with many a vendor, until the megachurch finally dropped to its knees and cried out to no one in particular, “Father, why hast thou forsaken me? I shall now be forced to seek the protection of the Chapter they call ‘Eleven!’”  And so it did. And it was good. For now.

No, seriously. Dr. Sheila Schuller Coleman, the most recent offspring of church founder Dr. Robert Schuller to try her hand at making the church not suck so bad, said pretty much the same thing: “Our announcement today to file for the protection of Chapter 11 is just one more chapter in the book that He is continuing to write, and we know that God’s plans are good, we have no doubt His chapter will be good!”

Wait. He’s still writing The Book? That book?  The one in all the motel room drawers? We thought He finished that snoozer a long time ago. Correct us if we’re wrong, but doesn’t it end with something really bad happening to Israel so Jesus can come back and call all the dead people out of their graves like in a George Romero movie so they can fight the vampires before they go to heaven on the back of that thing from The Neverending Story? Or was that an acid trip? Regardless, a lot of folks are going to be upset when they find out The Bible is actually a cliffhanger.

That said, though the Lord does work in mysterious ways, you didn’t need to be omniscient to see the writing on the crystal walls. We knew the end days were upon us when they canceled their equally splendid “Glory of Easter” production (again, we suspect the donkeys had something to do with it) for the first time in 27 years, fired a bunch of staffers, and sold off 170 acres of prime Orange Country land. Not to worry, however. The Schuller family has announced they will take a voluntary 50% pay cut for two months. Two whole months!  That’s longer than it took God to make the Earth!

We hope the Schullers get back on their feet soon. After all, the original drive-in church that Schuller christened in 1961 was designed by none other than Richard Neutra, and the Crystal Cathedral was the handiwork of Mr. Modern himself, Phillip Johnson (as if you couldn’t tell with all that glass). Do you see the divine connection and where it leads? Without the church’s salvation, there will never be the completion of what can only be the final phase of Reverend Richard Schuller’s architectural trinity: an enormous aluminum donkey-shaped cathedral designed by Frank Gehry.

One can only hope.

So endeth the epistle.