Reverend to Ministry: You Owe Me Millions

Rev. Robert Schuller's old ministry may be bankrupt, but he says they still owe him millions—and he's fighting for every cent. The once-powerful preacher showed up smiling in a crisp black suit today on the first day of the Crystal Cathedral Ministries' bankruptcy trial, the LA Times reports. His argument: Yes, he let the ministry use his intellectual property, but that would not have included selling his recordings online. "We did not understand it," Schuller said in a court statement of the Internet.

He "would never" have allowed the ministry to use his work "in ways that I could not understand," added Schuller, who once hobnobbed with President Clinton and was mentioned in his State of the Union address. But ministry attorneys say Schuller already milked the church for millions in "lavish compensation and perquisites" before Crystal Cathedral Ministries went bankrupt in 2010. And "if they pay everything they are asked, then there will be no money for the cathedral," says the ministry's chief executive. (More Robert Schuller stories.)