A History of Calvary Chapel:
Calvary Chapel
began about 40 years ago. It started as an alternative Christianity for
the dropped-out generation. Chuck Smith, its
founder,
adopted the hippie "peace-truth-love" slogan for an upbeat Christian
approach. He was trying to reach a generation that had been taught to
love itself above all gods and religions; and he was going to reach them
with love. They preached love - so did he. The love he preached was
bigger and better than their love, and he set about to prove it with a
gospel that was hip and cool. He, like a lot of people during the Jesus
Movement, tried to incorporate the hippie message of "tune in, turn on,
and drop out" into the message of Christ’s redemption. His gospel was
tailored to the tastes of that time: Let it all hang out. And of course
they stressed the Beatles’ mantra: "All you need is love."
They passed out tracts with the character "Ben Born Again," sported T-shirts that said "Everything goes better with Jesus" and repeated phrases like, "Truckin’ with Jesus."
Somehow, the Calvary Chapel gospel catapulted into mainstream Christianity. Part of it had to do with the fact that as the hippies grew older, they became the older generation. They became schoolteachers and pastors. But mostly, it was because of their gospel. They presented Christ as a "fix-it" for the problems of this generation. In other words, they preached a social gospel. Unlike many social gospels, their gospel stressed the end of the world. This may seem like a contradiction for a gospel that’s trying to change the world, but due to Dispensationalist theory, this make-over of the earth takes place during the Millennium. Before that, the world was going to go through some heavy stuff called the Tribulation, and the only way out was to get raptured. The Calvary Chapel gospel consisted (and still does) of how to avoid the Tribulation by believing in Jesus. Instead of presenting the gospel as a means of escaping eternal judgment of God on judgment day, they preached the rapture, a way of getting out of here before the turn of the century, by which surely the Tribulation would have started. After all, it had been two thousand years and they are Dispensationalists, you know. Please my article "Dispensationalism in a Nutshell." The modern gospels, Calvary Chapel’s included, use catastrophe as a means of proselytizing, promising the proselytized a grand view from ringside seats, close to but removed from the action.
According to the Calvary Chapel doctrine on the cross of Christ, one must bear one’s cross as long as it is cool to do so. The "Keep on Truckin’" motif needed a little adjustment to make it Christian, so a cross was added. The dude, along with Ben Born Again, is smiling all the way (with a little perspiration). But even this was too painful, so the motif changed to a stylized dove in a nosedive, spiritually neutral. Could mean peace, could mean spirit-baptism, could mean anything. The cross of Christ became a happy thing, light-hearted, revamped for the surrogate generation. Our suffering in Christ is minimalized; Jesus is the only one who needs to suffer. He paid for our sins and we are healed. This doctrine came straight out of Pentecostalism, to which Chuck owes much of his theology. Our suffering is only a result of our own foolishness, which could be easily cured by attending Calvary Chapel concerts.
Chuck Smith could have not done this on his own. He credits God with everything, and this is what all good Christians are supposed to say. But in truth, he had to hire a guy named Lonnie to make it happen. Chuck found Lonnie Frisbee in the Haight-Ashbury district. That’s right, the heart and core of hippiedom San Francisco. This is where all the flowers in the hair and the homosexuals came out of. These were the drugged out, sexed out animals who were going to change society by releasing us from the oppressive morality of the right-wing churches. But there were converts among these people, Lonnie Frisbee being one of them. Chuck knew that Lonnie had an attractive message of love.
This is what Chuck Smith needed. Some new fire on the dying embers of washed-up Christianity. So he brought Lonnie to his church in Costa Mesa and the rest is history. Lonnie himself cannot be contacted because he died of AIDS. He was a "bisexual" according to the church. I think that means he was a fornicator and a homosexual, but those are words the church avoids. He evidently didn’t practice "safe sex," either, even after he helped form the Vineyard movement with John Wimber. Calvary Chapel, for its part, gives no credit to the late Frisbee.
But Lonnie did exist and did put Calvary Chapel on the map during his tenure from 1968 to 1971. In this short time, Calvary Chapel became a social phenomenon in Southern California. They had the music. They had the tracts. They had the hippie look. They were riding the crest of the Jesus People movement. They even take credit for starting it.
They preached their
end-time scenarios. It was almost inconceivable that the 21st
Century would be reached before the Tribulation started (with the
easy-does-it church raptured out first). The music stressed a lot of
love and a lot of rapture. That’s also when Hal Lindsey’s Late
Great Planet Earth hit the book stands. The word Millennium has
a special effect on Dispensationalists, and it was used effectively to
sell the new religion of "God loves you and you don’t have to go through
the Tribulation," or "God loves you and you can live a thousand years
here on this earth (after you have been raptured to heaven then come
back to eat vegetarian pizza and drive
pollution-free
Toyotas)."
This has resulted in several embarrassments, not the least of which is this is now 2004, but the Secret Rapture holds sway nonetheless. The so-called Jesus Movement dwindled into faded memory like other ’60's graffiti, but the Dispensational doctrines were now carved in stone. Many groups were lost, like Shiloh Ministries, and others formed, like the Vineyard (after he was forced to leave Calvary, Lonnie found John Wimber amenable to his Pentecostalism), but the rapture remained the central theme of modern Christianity. To Chuck Smith’s credit, he strategized and found it necessary to tone down the end-of-the-world stuff. He needed to recover his reputation after he found he had been duped into promulgating the hoax that Griffon Vultures were laying seven eggs instead of one, anticipating the coming feast at Armageddon. (True Bizarre Griffon Vulture News: They remain an endangered species along with other vultures, and the Jerusalem Biblical Zoo is trying to raise them and reintroduce them into the wild. In 1998, the Zoo discovered a pair of their "mating" vultures were actually homosexual males. They wondered if the loving couple would raise a chick and they did. This seems in keeping with the present direction of the world. As of 2001, the couple "divorced" and went on to form heterosexual relationships with the females, so the homosexuals out there who love to tout this sort of behavior in nature judge themselves as remaining perverted).
Over the years, the Calvary Chapels have become the new establishment. They are more concerned about the day to day affairs of this life than our eternal hope. They stress Sunday school for children, ministries for women, and retreats for men. Like other denominations, Calvary does not like their members to disagree with their pet theories, especially the rapture. But its main doctrinal weakness is the avoidance of preaching the judgment of God. This results in a rank antinomianism in their ranks, in keeping with the rest of the church. They frown on any use of the Law to convict sinners of their ungodly ways. They are strong believers in the once-saved-always-saved doctrine, to the point where they will condemn anyone who questions another’s faith based on their evil works. They do not practice shunning, unless it is against critics, in which case you are dead to them.
They own a castle in Austria, which suits their other Disneyland aspirations.
That leaves about 30 years of Calvary Chapel history untold. I have several personal stories I could tell, but they are about shallowness, covetousness and adultery. Chuck Smith, who likes to praise himself as non-judgmental, tolerant and loving, is an otherwise decent preacher who limits himself to one-half of the gospel. Dave Hunt frequents his churches. Dave preaches hard against psychology and new age philosophy, both of which have infected Calvary Chapel from the beginning. Dave does pretty good, except that he is consumed with the Pre-Tribulation rapture (which is why Calvary lets him teach) and incensed against Calvinists (which is why I don’t buy into a lot of his theology). Bob Hoekstra is their best preacher. There is much more to tell, of course. This somewhat distorted history of Calvary Chapel merely focuses upon the modern church’s disregard for personal holiness and the fear of God, which I hope has offended the evil and encouraged the good.
The following is not history, but it really is...
The pastor of the Calvary Chapel I used to attend has said this about me: "That’s your problem: You always look at the faults in others instead of your own. You always look at the negative and not the positive. You need to take care of your own problems and leave it up to the Holy Spirit to take care of theirs." This is nothing less than worldly psychology and hypocritical to boot (he was trying to modify my behavior, having seen my fault, which was pointing out his fault).
My Bible says to deal with the faults of others. If they are brothers, we are to bring it to their attention and forgive them if they repent. If they are false prophets, we are to judge them by their fruit, not by outward appearances. Even a casual reading of the New Testament will show how to do this. The enemy hides behind a veil of "non-judgmental, tolerant and loving" appearances, all the while leading his victims down a path of disregard for the holiness of God, without which no one will see God. Casual Chapel and others like them have the charm of Disneyland about them. But our gospel says, "Love not the world, neither the things of the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world." Millennium or no.
- Chris Simonson
We encourage you to email the author to prove or disprove, from the Scriptures, the intent, meaning, purpose or doctrine of this piece. email Chris
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Mr. Smith, Sun. 4 Jan 2004,
My name is Steven; I
am with InformationGospel.net. The article below was submitted to us for
publication on our site. I would like to give you the opportunity to
review this article and post your reply; we'd be happy to publish both
the piece and your reply unedited, as is our policy.
"yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou
mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou
art judged." Romans 3:4
Thank you,
Steven, fellow brother and worker in Christ
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Mr. Smith, Sun. 18 Jan 2004,
Two weeks ago I sent the
following article to you for comment on it's accuracy and now do so
again before it's publication. We will publish it the first week of
February as well as our two attempts to contact you and the results of
said attempts. If we do not hear from you we will assume the article is
accurate and publish it along with the following: "We have emailed a
copy of this article to
Chuck Smith, or a representative of Calvary Chapel, twice and in one
month's time have receive no response; neither Chuck Smith, Calvary
Chapel nor any of it's representatives would comment on the article nor
would they dispute it's accuracy."
"yea, let God be true, but every man a liar; as it is written, That thou
mightest be justified in thy sayings, and mightest overcome when thou
art judged." Romans 3:4
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Thank you,
Steven,
If Calvary Chapel wishes to respond to this article, they can contact us here.