Now if Smith is the Bishop over the churches, then BIBLICALLY he shares responsibility for their actions and failure to discipline them is his abrogation of BIBLICAL responsibility.
The only conclusion is that Smith is either a corrupt Bishop over his flock (the CC pastors) or he’s not a Bishop at all over them. CCites, pick your poison. He is not ruling well (again, the BIBLICAL standard by which a bishop/overseer is judged).
Let’s try and stick with the Biblical texts as if they are prototypes for the church of how we should behave in the house of God, rather than suggestions we can follow or reject. I suggest we work on developing a strong BIBLICAL case (as outlined above) which lays specifically out the requirements for Bishop (the only position Smith could potentially claim) and prove our case that he needs to be publicly tried on those grounds and removed from his role, or redefined as NOT THE BISHOP.
I suggest we start here with the assumption that the Scriptures are PRESCRIPTIVE of how the church should operate rather than DESCRIPTIVE and limited to the first century situation. Here’s the starting text:
1Ti 3:15 But if I tarry long, that thou mayest know how thou ought to behave thyself in the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth.
That was the purpose of 1 Timothy which is the banner passage of this page.
So, I pose this question to Chuck Smith, Dave Rolph or anyone who can answer from the CC organization.
Is or is not Chuck Smith the Bishop/Overseer of Calvary Chapel?
My opinion is that Chuck Smith is not the Bishop of Calvary Chapel. Then by what right does he ask men to associate with him? This is both sectarian (Scripturally like “some say they follow Paul, some say they follow Peter, others say they follow Jesus” and divisive because rather than being against divisions in the body as they claim (the body is already divided enough) it has become yet another division of the body. That alone is enough to declare affiliation UN-SCRIPTURAL.
I took a week off to think about all of this and do some business at the same time. I think the only right strategy is to strike at the head. Few will have the stomach to do this feeling more sympathy for an old man than for the people of the church. I think this is a misplaced loyalty and a form of favoritism (probably the main charge against CC/CS).
Chuck Smith in reality wants to control the franchise/trademark. The problem is that he can’t control whether someone names their church Calvary Chapel since there were other local churches with that name before CCCM. He can’t control the symbol (the dove) since it’s widely used before and outside of CCCM. The only thing Chuck can control is the list of affiliated churches (as seen on their website list). For potential attendees interested in the brand they can go to the official list and see if a local CC is on the list or not. Know that it is a brand name which is unprotected/unprotectable as well as one which has zero quality control over their product (hence in reality a useless branding).
In the end, all that Chuck Smith really controls is the list on a website of people who want to be listed on his website. Hence, he is not a Bishop but I think we need to keep asking the question of CCites. If Chuck is not the Bishop then by what SCRIPTURAL authority does he do any of these things?
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