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Founded by Chuck Smith in 1965 in the midst of the “Jesus Movement” among the hippie culture of Costa Mesa, California. Chuck Smith and a small group of about 25 broke from the International Foursquare Gospel Denomination and began a ministry to hippies, surfers, and drug addicts. This small movement spread like wildfire and now the denomination has grown to over 1000 churches and counting. In government, this group is primarily a pastor-led congregation but often times a Calvary Chapel church will be more of an episcopal or presbyterian elder-led style of government.
Whereas Calvary Chapel does not consider itself to be a “denomination”
i.e. they claim to be a non-denominational ‘movement’, they do accept
the idea of other denominations but rightly reject the over emphasis of
denominational creeds and practice.
Calvary Chapel allows some leniency in the non-essentials of the Christian faith when it comes to a church or Pastor aligning itself with the denomination so it is hard to pin down their exact ecclesiology and liturgy. There will be some variation from church to church – but I’ve found the essentials to be consistent at every Calvary Chapel I’ve personally attended and what I see on the whole nationally from its speakers.
With regards to their soteriological framework, they are somewhere between Calvinist and Arminian theology leaning more toward the Arminian side probably owing to Chuck Smith’s Foursquare upbringing. Perhaps the best description for their soteriological position might be Provisionism whereby they believe in God’s sovereign choice to provide mankind with the responsibilty (able to give a response) of either responding to God’s provision of salvation through His Son Jesus or rejecting it outright; thus leaving mankind culpable for his choice. This is similar to most forms of Arminian theology but provisionism allows for the eternal security of the believer which Chuck Smith preached in favor of multiple times over the years. This is a biblical rejection of the “Once Saved Temporarily Saved” position of the Arminian.
Provisionism Graphic from soteriology101.com, Leighton Flowers. Accessed 2025
Calvary Chapel Pastors have referred to themselves as existing directly between Baptists and Pentecostals (Assembly of God, Church of God, Foursquare etc). This is fairly accurate as the average Baptist Pastor would consider Calvary Chapel to be “Pentecostal” and nearly all Pentecostals consider Calvary Chapel to be identical to “Baptists”. The fact is that most Calvary Chapels are Pentecostal in their pneumatology but more similar to Baptists in their liturgical practice.
Calvary Chapel might consider consider the doctrine of sufficiency of Scripture to be important but unfortunately, this is not carried out in practice as I have experienced first-hand a consistent teaching and practice whereby believers are taught to listen for God’s voice via a ‘still small voice’ within them. This inner voice is thought (and taught) to provide the believer with ongoing revelation.
This is a mystical practice not found in Scripture as the only passage used to support it has nothing to do with the believer’s communication with God (1 Kings 19:11-13). In fact, the inner still small voice mysticism was introduced into Christian practice in the 17th century by the Quakers. Thereafter, the practice was picked up by the Pietists and passed to John Wesley and the Methodists who then passed it to the Holiness Movement, which then passed it on to Pentecostalism which then passed it on to Chuck Smith and Calvary Chapel on the whole.
The Trinity, Deity of Jesus, Salvation by Grace, etc just as fundamental evangelicals do. The difference is that Calvary Chapel believes in the perpetuity of the spiritual gifts (i.e. tongues, prophecy, word of knowledge etc) as a theological position, but they do not believe in practicing the gifts in their church services. It is this position that caused a friendly “split” by John Wimber and others who broke off from Calvary Chapel to form the Vineyard pentecostal denomination (formerly a ‘movement’)
Lonnie Frisbee
Post-Chuck Smith Split