[Gamecock]

I honestly don't know much about CC. Please share your expiriences with this Church in supporting or refuting this article.

[Maximilian]

"This is not religion," we were told, and quickly parroted to our wide-eyed friends and family, "this is a relationship!" That relationship with Jesus was further expressed, and distanced, from the incense-and-icon atmosphere of Catholicism and other formal expressions of divine longing by the instantly recognizable symbol that had become Calvary's logo: not a cross or crucifix (too negative, too brooding), but a dove, an oddly misshapen outline of a descending dove that resembled a melting B-52 on a suicide dive. We loved it, dutifully scribbling the shape in the margins of our Bibles, wearing it on T-shirts, and dangling it from chains around our necks.

I wonder if this is where the Cleveland diocese got the inspiration for their gay logo?

[Gamecock]

Comments like these make my wonder about the fruit being tilled:

We even held communion services, using peanut-butter sandwiches and grape soda for the sacraments.

and

I remember Sandy, a fierce 10th-grade convert. While out on a "harvesting trip" at the local mall, she once chose to literally soil herself rather than locate a restroom and risk letting the couple she was preaching to escape. Later on, during an emotional prayer meeting at the church, she stood up to testify, stating ecstatically, "I wet my pants for Jesus!"

Not once did anyone suggest that perhaps she was losing perspective.

Will our Arminian friends agree with me, seeing how by their theology one can scare people away from Christ by wetting themselves?

[Wrigley]

Do new Calvary Chapels pay a "franchise" fee to Chuck Smith's church?

[PetroniusMaximus]

I'm not defending this church but this man sounds like a surface conversion.

No change of heart.

No mention of repenting.

[lockeliberty]

Thanks, that explains a lot.

[fishtank]

"The bottom line that led to my escape, however, is a less philosophical question: If Jesus truly lives in my heart, I asked, why do I still feel so god-damned empty?"

King David wrote down lots of his frustrations - with and about God, but I don't think he ever cursed Him. Correct me if I'm wrong.

[fishtank]

"But I will never again believe that I am so wretched that no one but Jesus can love me."

Hmmm. I'd put this another way. An individual can be so bad that no one but Jesus would love him.

[fishtank]

For the record, I don't know enough about CC to comment on them. My comments were about Rick Ross's attitudes.

[drstevej]

This is a hit piece. I give it no creedence.

I am unfamiliar with Calvary Chapels, but this isn't the guy I want for a tour guide.

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

Regretabbly, this sounds as if it's a hit piece on Calvary Chapel in particular, and churches in general. While not in a "charismatic" group, i am a member of a Reformed Denomination that has several "Mega-Churches" (Large amounts of parishioners, >5,000 every Sunday). The fact of the matter is that as many people are going out the back door as come in the front, and Growth is stagnant, or vvvvvveeeeeeeeerrrrrrrryyyyyyyy slow.

The psychobabble presented can be made to apply to any church, denominational or nondenominational, and i would be slow to accept what the critics don't know the first thing about in spite of their "past experience".

It appears that Calvary Chapel is guilty of nothing more than human failure, and that is hardly unique to any congregation of the Christian Church.

i seem to remember Jesus saying

"Many are called, but few are chosen"

Which is the best explanation that i've heard for those who "fall away".

[P-Marlowe]

...allow me to explain that "backslider" is born-again slang; it means ex-Christian. It's not a compliment.

I've never heard the term "backslider" to refer to an "ex-Christian." I've been a member of this "Cult" for over 30 years. My pastor always refers to backsliding as what we do when we stop moving forward in the Lord. When we sit stationary in our walk we backslide. His phrase is "if you are not moving forward, you are sliding back."

If someone refers to themselves as an "ex-Christian" they are not backsliding. They are off the slide altogether.

This guy apparently thinks that because Calvary Chapel did not fill his "needs" that Christ has failed him. But its not about filling his "needs" is it? It is about Christ changning us so that our will and his will are in conformity.

I suspect that this guy always wanted a God that would fill his needs and he never found it. IMO he never found it because he wasn't looking to find God, he was looking to find himself. Well you won't find yourself if you are looking for God. You will lose yourself.

He never learned that lesson. It's no wonder he didn't find what he was looking for at Calvary Chapel. They don't sell that there.

[P-Marlowe]

A man is known by his friends.

Here's some stuff from a site friendly to Telmpleton but unfriendly to Calvary Chapel. What does this tell you?

Chapel of the Skull (a.k.a. Calvary Chapel): A Ministry of Lying Spirits? A very little known fact is that Calvary is from the Latin Calvaria, meaning skull).

---

When finished, this page will contain links and other pertinent information concerning Calvary Chapel Christian Ministries and their deceptive and bitter campaign against the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In the course of the last few years, it has been remarked that CCCM has begun actively persuing filing lawsuits against people who put CCCM in a bad light and tarnish their open public image (quite similarly to the Church of Scientology but see Disclaimers below).

Indeed, there are a good number of persons who are affiliated with Calvary Chapel who are very good Christian people (one of my cousins and his wife among them). Unfortunately, in my many years experience with others of this group, together with recent "encounters" with some of the leadership and others of CCCM, there is a dark and relatively unknown intentional campaign of deception and misinformation at the roots of this organization. Some are under control of lying spirits.

Again, there are a great many Pastors and adherents of Calvary Chapel who are good, honest people, but there are also many who are actively involved in deceit of their flocks, spreading misinformation and fear amongst those who would seriously investigate the LDS faith by repeated showings of the Godmakers films (many Calvary Chapel bookstores make these readily available for rent), spreading of stories about Mormons without checking out their validity, presenting the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the worst possible light, etc.When the pages are finished, we believe the open-minded reader will see this for him/herself.

---

David Templeton, Losing My Religion

Anonymous, I've Discovered a Whole, Big World Outside Those Doors

Cult Research Website Visitor Stories about the cultic nature of Calvary Chapel

More to come...

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

We all prayed that an experience that overpowering, that mystical, that cool, might someday happen to us.

You wanted to drown people? You thought that was cool?

Don't know anything about Calvary Chapel although I have been to Vineyard services a few times but this kind of over-dramitazation tends to make me think that this young man has a problem still.

If he was overly dramatic then and he is telling his story in such a overly dramatic fashion now maybe just maybe it is all part and parcel of the same thing.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

I've been to Calvary Chapels in Kali and Ark. I found them to be aimed at the younger people in both music and preaching.

As I listened very carefully to the preaching I did not find anything amiss or "cultic" in it.

In looking over their bookstore I found them to be well filled with really good reference and study books on various bible doctrines. There was even several copies of Martin Luther's "BONDAGE OF THE WILL" there.

As I am not a member I still haven't seen anything out of the ordinary and would go visit them again when I visit my friends in Kali.

[maherwoman]

I myself started going to, and attending the high school of, Calvary Chapel Downey at the age of 14. I went there for about ten years. I was one of those in the intimate circle of Calvary Chapel of Downey. I was friends with many that worked in the church, and was known by many of the 10,000+ that go there, as well as many of the pastors, both old and new. I started having my own questions and concerns about their particular way of "teaching" the Word, and became completely outcast when I decided to leave their church altogether.

It was great to read and relate to so many of the same things in this article! I've emailed it to my one and ONLY friend from high school. I experienced the same losing of friends when I decided to leave the church. The only reason she and I are still friends is because she held the same beliefs about the church that I do...that they're judgemental, cruel, and expect the unobtainable goal of perfection from each and every one of it's members/church-goers in order to actually receive the salvation that was originally promised them from a simple prayer. It's a cruel game, this one. They start out by saying, "All you have to do is say this simple prayer, and you are guaranteed your place in heaven." What they DON'T say is that they will then require you to listen exclusively to Christian music, ONLY hang out with the best Christians as friends, go to church at least two times per week (the more you go, the better the Christian), and if you decide to question ANYTHING in the church, you are backslidden and/or your faith has weakened and you must pray for the Lord for forgiveness and mercy. Slip up once, and you are labeled (I should know, I'm a single mom and lost MANY friends when I wound up pregnant, and gained many long stares and whispers and gossip). It's amazing to me that anyone would subject themselves to this lifestyle.

For those that are reading this...I still believe in the Word of God, and in Jesus, but I DO NOT believe in expecting spiritual perfection from people, something which no human, even Pastor Jeff, could attain. I feel for those that are still going to that church, or any of its affiliates.

[bperiwinkle7]

I have listened to teaching from Calvary Chapel teachers for years. I attend a Christian Church with elder governance.
One of the "sayings" of one of the pastors at my church is "...No book but the Bible and no creed but Christ..."
I have found Calvary Chapel teaching to be Bible based and sound. It takes a lifetime to know Jesus and grow into Him. Christians are seeking to know and follow Christ. "cool spiritual experiences"..... can be managed with help from the hot place, and are not a sign of spiritual maturity at all. I agree with our brothers on this post who detect that this person probably never knew he needed a Savior, and never knew the Savior. He described a disappointing social experience, which will ALWAYS happen when you follow a man and not JESUS.