I attended Calvary Chapel just to be in Walter Martin’s classes. I first attended his classes in the Anaheim circle theater near Disneyland. After Mr. Martin started teaching at Calvary Chapel I went there. I attended for about two years driving the 220 mile round trip from Santa Barbara every Sunday. Dr. Martin would sometimes come up to SB to CC’s seed church. I don’t remember Pastor Smith very much.
“I think that Chuck was speaking out of compassion to this woman (whether right or wrong) as a father and grandfather given her predicament. Pastor Chuck is not perfect (nor is any pastor) and if you look for perfection in any teacher then there is no one left to listen to but yourself.”
You win the moral relativism award for the day. What a pass you just gave this guy. Lemme guess....you were ok with starving Terri Schiavo to death, too, right? After all, it was the “compassionate” thing. */ sarc
About a decade ago, I heard a Chuck Smith / Calvary Chapel radio series on the Book of Revelation, in which he claimed that during the millennial reign of Christ, there will be a restoration of animal sacrifices in the rebuilt temple. He admitted this view (temple-based animal sacrifices post-Second Coming) appears to be in conflict with Jesus' once-for-all sacrifice, but he maintained that the millennial-timed offering of animal sacrifices is taught in the Bible.
I stopped listening to Chuck Smith after that. No one has offered me a good reason to start again.
When an organization as large and powerful as Calvary Chapel is utterly devoid of checks and balances or doctrinal, financial, and moral accountability, the results will not be surprising: abuse, power-struggles, and the oft-unspoken fear of raising even the smallest objection to the whims of the powers that be.Related threads:
-- from the thread Chuck Smith, Calvary Chapel, and their Ignorance Fest on Calvinism"...the Calvary Distinctives are a whole lot different than the Westminster Confession. Anyone who reads the Calvary document should be troubled that Chuck Smith makes no reference to God as a Trinity, or to the Deity of Jesus Christ. You can believe in almost anything so long as you behave in the right way."
-- Alex Murphy, Post #48 on that same thread