Church shopping—excursus on Calvary Chapel Movement

[_Steve]

I'm not sure why this is on this thread, but I would sure like to hear what you found in the Bible to convince you of the pretribulational rapture. I began with that belief, but was led away from it by my study of the scriptures.

[Guest]

Crusader.....I have to part ways with you and your pastor on this matter of having "so many kinds of churches out there". I don't believe God started all these things...I think man did.

The Lord prayed that they we all may be one even as you (the Father) and I are one that the world may know that you have sent me. How on earth could all the divisions in christianity be an answer to that prayer. The apostle Paul strongly condemned the division in the church in Corinth.
When it comes to the unity of the body of Christ as described in the word, the church on earth is severely lacking.


Roger

[Guest]

Well some people like to wear suits and worship in traditional hyms while others come wearing t shirts and sandalsand strum a guitar...God looks at the heart of each.Division only comes when men say it must be done our way because we have the one true way. We cant see the forest for the trees..we cause division not God.It even gets to the extreme where Churches have contemporary services and tradtional one at 8am and one at 10am....its wild I tell ya...the Body isnt divided because its scattered throughout a city we all ( born again believers) worship the same God we just often do it in a different way. If we were to try to localize lets say every beleiver in L.A.and put them in one ginat building would that glorify God ???...I doubt it.

Crusader

[Guest]

Roger,

I couldn't agree with you more. I don't think God said to Himself "I'm going to make so many Baptists and so many Presbyterians and so many Methodists", etc.

A large church had been started by a pastor who, after several years, left to be involved in a mission. That did not work out so he came back to town and started a new church, drawing many away from the first church he started. Seemed selfish to me.

[Guest]

Well some people like to wear suits and worship in traditional hyms while others come wearing t shirts and sandalsand strum a guitar...God looks at the heart of each.Division only comes when men say it must be done our way because we have the one true way. We cant see the forest for the trees..we cause division not God.It even gets to the extreme where Churches have contemporary services and tradtional one at 8am and one at 10am....its wild I tell ya...the Body isnt divided because its scattered throughout a city we all ( born again believers) worship the same God we just often do it in a different way. If we were to try to localize lets say every beleiver in L.A.and put them in one ginat building would that glorify God ???...I doubt it.

You have argued your own point. God did not create the division and God has only one message.

Also, if a city of believers is united in Christ and is going about the work of the great commission, then it wouldn't matter about where to meet. Too many people already think that the 4 walls is all we need. You talked about a 300 count congregation dropping down to 30. This speaks volumes to me about what man thinks a Church is. What a difference the Christians in LA or any place would make if they left the 4 walls and stood on the street corners for a change.

[_Steve]

Crusader wrote (about his own experience at Calvary Chapel):

"Our Pastor actually is thankful there are so many different Churches for all of Gods people to go to out there. Its great because with all the different types of people everyone can find somwhere to attend."


This is, perhaps, a blind spot that Calvary Chapels have. They think they are being magnanimnous in saying, "Thank God that there are plenty of churches out there for the people who don't think like we do!" In fact, what this really means is, "Thank God our church doesn't have to put up with or accommodate the people who don't think like we do, and such folks can fellowship elsewhere."

It means, "Jesus may have to accept these people into His fold, but, thankfully, we don't have to let them into OURS! Let Jesus be gracious, we have an organization to manage!" This must seem like a win-win situation for the leaders, in that it allows Jesus to still have His "black sheep" somewhere else in the flock, but at least the power brokers in our organization can keep their machine running without fear of being challenged or corrected on any point. Of course, it's a silly thought even to suggest that our movement might need to be corrected about anything. We are the one group that already knows everything correctly—the arbiter of scriptural truth (we teach the Bible verse-by-verse, you know!)—so that we are actually the ones in the position to judge all other groups (with a concealed heart of charity, of course)!

True unity exists when a church says, "Thank God, not everyone has to think like we do—either in the body of Christ at large, nor even in our congregation! We love all of God's people enough that we don't have to send them to a different church than ours because of disagreements on minor doctrines." This is not the attitude of Calvary Chapels, as a movement.

Crusader wrote: "Division only comes when men say it must be done our way because we have the one true way." Amen! This is precisely Calvary Chapel's stance. "My way or the highway." Anyone who doubts this only needs to become a regular attender at a Calvary Chapel and begin to express views on eschatology contrary to those of the movement. They will soon learn that the elders are very versatile: they can become bouncers. I say this, not as one who dislikes Calvary Chapel. Apart from this glaring flaw, I like most everything about Chuck's movement. I was in leadership in Calvary, Santa Cruz, for many years, in the eighties. I would still be in fellowship there today, if it were not for their afore-mentioned policy. There are others at this forum who have the same testimony.

Calvary Chapels have a policy of sending people away to other churches—even if those people want to stay and fellowship with them—if they do not share their same narrow view on inconsequential end-times ideas, like the pre-trib rapture. In this respect, it has become one of the most divisive denominations I am currently aware of—and yet they congratulate themselves for being broad-minded in not condemning other churches (except, of course, the churches that teach "replacement theology," or who practice "deliverance," or some other "error").

Those in Calvary Chapel over a period of time, who do not question their narrow-minded viewpoints on peripheral doctrines, may not be sensitized to this policy, since it has never pinched them in any way. Perhaps they have not even noticed how many zealous Christians, who once fellowshiped among them, have quietly disappeared and ended up elsewhere. Or maybe they think these people left by their own choice. It takes a slick church leadership to keep their loyal members from noticing that the church has the same intolerant policies as do the Jehovah's Witnesses in handling disagreement in the ranks. This is not the spirit of unity that Jesus prayed for.

[Guest]

I may seem idealistic in my views concerning church unity but I believe what the scriptures clearly teach us concerning the church is that in the beginning there were NO divisions in the body of Christ. There were no "This" or "That" kind of church. All the believers were the body of Christ meeting in whatever locality they were in. Division of the one body of Christ into many denominations is contrary to the revelation of the one body in the writings of the apostles. We should not justify the many denominations that exist today as something that God has done to appeal to the characteristics of different people. It is these very differing characteristics and thoughts among Gods people that Satan uses and has used to bring about division in the church.

Eph. 4:3-4 " Endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called in one hope of your calling;"

[Guest]

Steve wrote

This is, perhaps, a blind spot that Calvary Chapels have. They think they are being magnanimnous in saying, "Thank God that there are plenty of churches out there for the people who don't think like we do!" In fact, what this really means is, "Thank God our church doesn't have to put up with or accommodate the people who don't think like we do, and such folks can fellowship elsewhere."

If your allegations are even remotely true,then why havent we ever heard about this practice before. Honestly it sounds to me like you wanted to teach preterism even way back then and somebody who knew what they were talking about said ..No!! Now Steve really in light of the fact that you beleive most of Revelation has already happened,and we are in some kind of cosmic extended mellimium...which even by a preterists own admission isnt to be taken literally... and is way past 1000 years...and the devil is bound ( which when we see all the evil around us I think is laughable) you really cant fault a Clavary Pastorfor adressing it if they even did as you claim. I mean you cant really blame them...Unity and acceptance isnt carte blanch license to just preach and teach whatever you feel like from the pulpit..main thing is brother..I would forget 1980...let go and give it to God...thats a long time ago and bitterness is a bummer if you have any...


Crusader

[_Steve]

Crusader,

I left Calvary Chapel in 1983 on good terms. The pastor and eldership (of which I was a part in very good standing) sent me, and six others off with the laying-on of hands, to start a school in Oregon. I have never been a part of the Calvary Chapel movement since—though they have never asked me to leave, nor hinted at that being on their minds. In those days, Calvary Chapel was still non-denominational and not very interested in excluding any portion of the body of Christ. That was just beginning to change at that time, as conflicts with the Vineyard Movement were causing Calvary to more narrowly define its boundaries.

I was an amillennialist (but not a preterist) in the three years I taught at Calvary Chapel in Santa Cruz. The pastor was a large-hearted man who was not offended by my amillennialism, and admitted that his brother, a Presbyterian amillennialist, knew the scriptures far better than did he, and he respected his (and my) right to believe and teach it. I was not removed from Calvary Chapel and my eschatology was not a problem in the church where I served (though it was in some of the neighboring Calvary Chapels who knew about me).

Leaving Santa Cruz, I moved to a town in Oregon which did not have a Calvary Chapel, which is the only reason I did not continue in the denomination after my move. By the time I had moved again to a town that had a Calvary Chapel, the movement had closely defined what doctrines they would and would not tolerate. By the early nineties, they would not tolerate any eschatology other than their own in the denomination. That did not affect me directly, since I was no longer in the denomination, but had they not closed down in this manner, I would probably have begun attending again, when I had the chance.

Now that I am back in Santa Cruz, after an absense of 23 years, I doubt that I would even be allowed to attend the very church where I was an elder, and from which I never had any falling-out. I would not mind visiting there, but I know my presence would make the leadership uncomfortable (they don't even like for their people to attend my Bible studies held in homes locally).

I am not bitter toward Calvary Chapel, since I never had any but positive experiences there, and never had any conflicts with them. My assessment of Calvary Chapel is completely objective.

You yourself have proved my case to be true in your last post. You have gone on and on about what you imagine my eschatology to be (you don't know what it is, because you have said you don't want to listen to it), and have indicated that it is no surprise to you that (as you wrongly imagined) I was kicked out of Calvary Chapel! In other words, you are confirming what I said in my previous post—that Calvary Chapel will divide the body of Christ over inconsequential issues such as eschatology...and you apparently agree with such a policy. I rest my case.

The irony is that, in deciding which eschatology to tolerate and which to exclude from their fellowship, Calvary Chapel has sided against the eschatology of historic Christianity in favor of a novel view introduced for the firtst time in 1830, which was denounced as heresy by mainstream Protestant pastors and theologians at the time of its appearance!

It may put this divisive stance into perspective when you consider that the following people would not be allowed to remain in Calvary Chapel, if they ever were to express their eschatological views there:

Irenaeus, Polycarp, Justin Martyr, Tertullian, any of the Christian martyrs prior to 1830, St. Francis of Assissi, Thomas a'Kempis, John Hus, John Wycliffe, Martin Luther, John Calvin, John Knox, Menno Simons, the King James Version translation committee, Madame Guyon, Count von Zinzendorf, the Puritans, George Mueller of Bristol, Charles Finney, Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd, William Booth, C.H. Spurgeon, Alfred Ederscheim, Andrew Murray, J. Gresham Machen, C.S. Lewis, Frances Schaeffer, A.W. Tozer, Richard Wurmbrandt, F.F. Bruce, J.I. Packer, Mother Teresa, Keith Green—ad infinitum.

A denomination that would not welcome such saints and conservative theologians into their fold is, without question, folded too tight.

[Guest]

Steve, just a quick question please. For many years I have had great respect for George Mueller and have been very impressed with the life of faith that he lived and the results of that life of faith. I was not aware that he was either amillenial or preterist. From my understanding he was a vital member of the "Brethren" movement under John Nelson Darby and later had some kind of split over "the recieving of certain brethren". This evolved into the closed and open Brethren.

I would like to find out what he believed on these issues. Could you please point me to a source on this.

Roger