Calvary Chapel Association
Calvary Chapel is an international association of charismatic evangelical churches, with origins in Pentecostalism. It maintains a number of radio stations around the world and operates many local Calvary Chapel Bible College programs.
Beginning in 1965 in Southern California, this fellowship of churches grew out of Chuck Smith's Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa. It became a hub of the Jesus Movement in the late 1960s through connections with Lonnie Frisbee and John Higgins, attracting thousands of young converts and fostering contemporary Christian music through Maranatha! Music. Known for its verse-by-verse Bible teaching, casual style of worship, and emphasis on expository preaching, the movement expanded into a worldwide fellowship of independent churches. Calvary Chapel identifies as neither a denomination nor strictly Pentecostal. It holds to evangelical doctrine with charismatic practices like tongues and prophecy while maintaining a strong pretribulationist, premillennialist eschatology.
The movement faced controversies, including leadership disputes that led to the split between the Calvary Chapel Association and Global Network, and controversies around accountability and sexual abuse cases.
Calvary Chapel remains influential through its Bible college, radio stations, and Harvest Crusades.
Many well-known pastors and musicians, such as Greg Laurie, Skip Heitzig, Switchfoot, and P.O.D., have roots in Calvary Chapel.
History
The association has its origins in the founding of a Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa in 1965 by pastor Chuck Smith of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel with 25 people.In 1968 they broke away from Foursquare Church. Prior to Smith, Costa Mesa members spoke of their own vision of becoming part of a massive church movement.In 1969 Calvary Chapel became a hub in what later became known as the Jesus movement when Smith's daughter introduced him to her boyfriend John Higgins Jr., a former hippie who had become a christian, and who went on to head the largest Jesus freak movement in history, the Shiloh Youth Revival Centers.
John Higgins introduced Smith to Lonnie Frisbee, the "hippie evangelist" who became a key figure in the growth of both the Jesus Movement and Calvary Chapel. Frisbee moved into Smith's home, and he would minister to other hippies and counter-culture youth on the beaches. At night he would bring home new converts, and soon Smith's house was full. Frisbee became leader in a rental home for the steadily growing crowd of Christian hippies and he named the commune "House of Miracles"; other Houses of Miracles would develop throughout California and beyond. As Calvary Chapel grew "explosively", a tent was erected during the construction of a new building.
The converts included musicians who began writing music for praise and worship. This became the genesis for Jesus music and Christian rock concerts. Maranatha! Music eventually formed to publish and promote the music. The services led by Frisbee usually resembled rock concerts more than any worship services of the time.
Frisbee featured in national television-news reports and magazines with images of him baptizing hundreds at a time in the Pacific Ocean. The network of House of Miracles communes/crash pads/coffee houses began doing outreach concerts with Smith or Frisbee preaching, Frisbee calling forth the Holy Spirit and the newly forming bands playing the music. By the early 1970s Calvary Chapel was home to ten or more musical groups that were representative of the Jesus people movement.
In 1982 John Wimber, a Calvary Chapel pastor, and the Calvary Chapel leadership mutually agreed to part ways. Tension had been mounting over Wimber's emphasis on spiritual manifestations, leading Wimber to withdraw from Calvary Chapel and to affiliate with a network of churches that would become the Association of Vineyard Churches.
In 2012, Pastor Chuck Smith founded the Calvary Chapel Association to unite all of the movement's churches around the world.
On October 3, 2013, Pastor Smith died of lung cancer after a long illness. Smith remained as the senior pastor at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa throughout his illness; this included preaching at three services on the Sunday before his death.
Statistics
According to a 2022 census of the association, it had 1,800 churches.Beliefs
's "Calvary Chapel Distinctives" summarize the tenets for which Calvary Chapel stands. Calvary Chapels place great importance on the practice of expository teaching, a "verse by verse, chapter by chapter, book by book" approach to teaching the Bible.Typically, Calvary Chapels operate under a senior pastor-led system of church government, also known as the "Moses model".
It presents itself as a "fellowship of churches" rather than being a denomination.
Affiliates of Calvary Chapel believe in the doctrines of evangelical Christianity, which include the inerrancy of the Bible and the Trinity. Within evangelical Christianity, they say that they stand in the "middle ground between fundamentalism and Pentecostalism in modern Protestant theology". While they share with a belief in the inerrancy of the Bible, they accept charismatic spiritual gifts. However, they feel that Pentecostalism values experience at the expense of the word of God.
Calvinism and Arminianism
According to Calvary Chapel literature, the association strives to "strik a balance between extremes" when it comes to controversial theological issues such as Calvinism's and Arminianism's conflicting views on salvation. Calvary Chapels hold the following views on the five points of Calvinism:- Regarding total depravity, Calvary Chapel affirms that "apart from God's grace, no one can be saved," and that "mankind is clearly fallen and lost in sin."
- Regarding unconditional election, Calvary Chapel affirms that God, "based on his foreknowledge, has predestined the believer," and that "God clearly does choose, but man must also accept God's invitation to salvation."
- Regarding limited atonement, Calvary Chapel affirms that Jesus died "for the whole world" and that the "atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ was clearly sufficient to save the entire human race."
- Regarding irresistible grace, Calvary Chapel affirms that "God's grace can either be resisted or received by the exercise of human free will".
- Calvary Chapels "believe in the perseverance of the saints but are deeply concerned about sinful lifestyles and rebellious hearts among those who call themselves 'Christians'."
Spiritual gifts
Similar to other Pentecostal or Charismatic movements, Calvary Chapel holds that the baptism of the Holy Spirit does not take place during conversion, but is available as a second experience. It is their understanding that there are three distinct relationships with the Holy Spirit. The first is that which is experienced prior to conversion. In this relationship the Holy Spirit is convicting the person of their sin. In the second relationship the Holy Spirit indwells believers during conversion for the purpose of sanctification. The third relationship is the baptism of the Holy Spirit which Calvary Chapel believes is for the purpose of being a Christian witness.
Baptism and Communion
Calvary Chapels practice believer's baptism by immersion. Calvary Chapel does not regard baptism as necessary for salvation, but instead sees it as an outward sign of an inward change. As a result, the Chapels do not baptize infants, although they may dedicate them to God. Calvary Chapel views Communion in a symbolic way, with reference to 1 Corinthians 11:23–26.Eschatology
Calvary Chapels strongly espouse pretribulationist and premillennialist views in their eschatology. They believe that the rapture of the Church will occur first, followed by a literal seven-year period of Great Tribulation, followed by the second coming of Jesus Christ, and then finally a literal thousand-year reign of Jesus Christ on Earth called the Millennial Kingdom. Calvary Chapel also rejects supersessionism, and instead believes that the Jews remain God's chosen people and that Israel will play an important part in the end times.Interest in one event during the Tribulation—the building of a Third Temple in Jerusalem—led in the early 1980s to associations between some in Calvary Chapel and Jewish groups interested in seeing the temple rebuilt.
Return of Christ in 1981
During the late 1970s and early 1980s, Chuck Smith wrote and published a prophetic timeline that declared the imminent return of Christ.In the book Snatched Away!, published in 1976, Smith wrote:
the generation that was living in May 1948 shall not pass until the second coming of Jesus Christ takes place and the kingdom of God be established upon the earth.
In a 1978 book, Smith wrote:
I believe that the generation of 1948 is the last generation. Since a generation of judgment is forty years and the Tribulation period lasts seven years, I believe the Lord could come back for His Church any time before the Tribulation starts, which would mean any time before 1981.
The reasoning had to do with the idea that the seven-year Tribulation would end in 1988, forty years after the establishment of the state of Israel. In his 1978 book, Smith reasoned that Halley's Comet in 1986 would result in problems for those left behind:
The Lord said that towards the end of the Tribulation period the sun would scorch men who dwell upon the face of the Earth. The year 1986 would fit just about right! We're getting close to the Tribulation and the return of Christ in glory. All the pieces of the puzzle are coming together.
Disappointment resulting from the prophecy not materializing in 1981 caused some to leave the church.