Loose Ends
To finish up on yesterdays article about Calvary Chapel and the Calvary Chapel Association a few more points need to be made clear.
Despite what some believe, there is no longer any person or persons with central authority over the movement.
There is no one person that all the affiliates would follow and the “Leadership Council” is as fractured as the movement as a whole.
Thus, there is no monolithic “Calvary Chapel”, no one leader who speaks for anyone but themselves, and no one leader who can be held accountable for anything other than what happens in their particular church.
There will be no policy changes, no doctrinal changes, no changes at all that require movement wide submission to a central authority.
They are (finally) completely independent of each other.
The only “penalty” the CCA can give is removal from the “church finder” database.
The only recourse in situations where there is spiritual abuse or corruption is to leave the fellowship or in cases grievous enough to merit it, hope that a blogger will take up the case to inform the public and shame the perpetrator.
That requires a lot of facts, proper documentation, and puts the blogger at risk.
There should be a better way…but the bloggers did a pretty good job with Mark Driscoll…
In other news…K.P. Yohannon was caught in another lie.
Warren Throckmorton has the goods on this, as usual.
Tullian speaks again…
Tullian Tchividjian showed up on Facebook yesterday with an interesting take on his situation.
Until we hear from his wife and kids, I’m not real interested in what he has to say…
The link to Tullian’s post doesn’t work….perhaps this will: https://www.facebook.com/PastorTullian?fref=ts
I thought his comments were pretty real, but what do i know. I would love to hear from his wife and family too, but they were never spokespeople anyhow…as far as I knew.
I did see a quote by Diane Coy surface on Fb the other day and found there is a group called Praying for Diane Coy https://www.facebook.com/prayfordiane?fref=ts
Thank YOU for being one of those bloggers who tackle the alligators in the sewer.
Paige, thank you for the link… the man is on his spiritual journey and i pray for him… i pray that he will find his niche and continue to teach – God has revealed so much to him and has given him the gift of teaching it… i pegged him early on as a bit of an egotist, but we all have our handicaps and, for sure we have egos – most of us anyway
sometimes, i forget to pray for pastor’s wives who are the ones who keep the show on the road, as it were… great pressure and very little support… God forgive me
I want Tullian to go away for a few years, at least. Toil in obscurity. Become a servant. He seems to be proving that he enjoys attention too much.
As far as the leader of Calvary Chapel…who hold the copyrights that were mentioned yesterday? In theory, that person is the final authority, as he could Legally go afther those he didn’t want to use the name.
Jeff S. could chime in and correct me but I think there is a principle in the law that if one does not enforce a copyright (especially one that was otherwise ‘earned’ at some point in the past) then they likely will not win in court if they change their mind. In some of my insurance work that issue has arisen (it was explained to me this is why some big dogs like Disney are so zealous in shutting down even an innocent 1st grade play that uses their stuff..so they will have no trouble shutting down other groups that they would really want to close)
As was said earlier, Josh, by Papias. Affiliation is with the pastors, not the church as an entity/location/building. So I replaced an affiliated pastor of a church with the CC name – it was needed for me to jump through the hoops (and this is when there were still lots of formal hoops which the CCA process has promised to reduce greatly) if our church was to retain the CC name and stay in the affiliated church list spoken of here.
And I did, and I got my letter which specifically gave us the “right” to the dove and the use of CC in the name. It seems like it would be hard to reverse that without some sort of compensation in return….
In fact, that is all we really got – other than the right also to an account with CC distribution for books and stuff (something I should have mentioned in that other post) and the right to be on the database and be invited to the different conferences.
“Tchividjian continued. “Nothing seems more appealing to me on most days than to simply vanish.”
Which he posted on Facebook….
(Where is the snarky smiley face)
Another thing Tullian said that bugged me terribly was “How do I steward this ruin?”.
I think your attempt to steward was what led to the ruin. If there will be anything salvaged, it will be by God. Don’t try to come up with ways to put a happy face on adultery.
And if you are to “steward the ruin”, don’t do it for our sake. He’s talking like we NEED to see him go through this. (Parallels with Bruce Jenner spring to mind). No. If anything positive should come through this awful situation, it should be within your family. Your public life has destroyed you. Go away. Be a private citizen. Crawl on your hands and knees through hot coals to save your marriage. Stay away long enough that you realize your public ministry does not matter.
Years…YEARS…from now, God may call you back to tell the story of how HE…HE, NOT YOU, made diamonds out of this turd. But that time is far off, and possibly non-existent. Tullian, we can live without you. I’m not sure you can live without us.
Steve, it is an interesting ecclesiology. I’ve got a feeling that we’ll really see it mature into what it will be (structurally) in the next 20 years. In a way, It’s like the day Chuck died, year two of the CC movement began. As long as he was alive, nothing was going to change. Now I am sure that this ecclesiolgy had formed over many years inside him, but it was delivered as a package to Calvary Chapel and managed throughout his lifetime. When he died, the first alteration began. Some of the things that happened while he was alive may not make sense when he’s not around, and only time will tell. Some of it will be uncomfortable, but God has always used those circumstances to further His kingdom. As in Acts 8, when the Christians were persecuted and scattered, they each took the Gospel with them wherever they went.
Josh, I agree with you, not just about TT but in all similar cases.
They seem to see themselves as the stars of their own TV programs. It’s a cliffhanger! Our hero took a bullet to the chest. Will he survive? Will he come back stronger than ever? Will his enemies be defeated? Stay tuned!
I can’t imagine wanting to tweet after such a devastating collapse. It is still a desperate “look at me” when, to fully agree with Josh (and Xenia), he should just go away for years from any sort of public spotlight whatsoever.
Nothing at all can be gained except to hear from the loyalists (he still retains) the applause and acclaim that led down this destructive road…..
regarding Tullian T., while i agree with all that you all are saying – he doesn’t belong in any pulpit, nor in any leadership position – the “inner circle” of church movers and doers that fosters his restoration as a leader is a symptom of what has caused so much facade and formulaic shallow Christian living today…
that said, Tullian has the gift of teaching, and we need teachers – pray for teachers, pray that Tullian lines up with God and uses his gift – perhaps, our MLD could teach him a thing or two about how to be useful as a layman
Michael, you did a fine job explaining CC. I hope you write a book some day on the entire movement from start till now with the good bad and ugly. Since I get very little info from the affiliates and the persona that CCA and CC gives off is very misleading, its only folks like yourself that can help some sort this stuff out. I hope that the completely independent affiliates will all start changing their names so they can start to be truthful that they are not really affiliated at all. Otherwise it appears to be perpetuating a deep misconception that is down right hurtful to many when the seek to appeal abuse at a local level. So I beg the CC affiliates on this blog that claim they are so independent to start putting disclaimer statements on their web site and start de-branding themselves from the brand they claim they are so independent of. Otherwise to me its lying.
I think there is a bit of confusion in the comments about “copyright”. Copyrights are on intellectual properties, such as books, songs, performances, software. You retain copyright unless you contractually sign it away (like in a contract with a publisher or doing something as work-for-hire). If someone copies your song or your novel without your permission and they get away with it, that doesn’t endanger your rights to copyright.
As I understand it, the Calvary Chapel name and the Dove logo are brands, so they are matters of trademark (and maybe service mark), which is a whole different kettle of fish. As Steve Wright implied above, trademarks must be aggressively protected or you can lose your rights to it, because it becomes a common term. That is why the makers of Kleenex tissues or Xerox copiers or Google search engine will pursue those who try to shorten it to “I used a kleenex to blow my nose” or “I xeroxed that” or “Just google his name”.
Just my two bits on the topic.
Ericl., i appreciate the very important clarification @ #12 – i used to know that… i think 🙂
Yeah, I’m really uninpressed with Tullian’s statement. It sounds like he’s just laying the groudwork for a return to a pulpit. He can be anonymous and still minister to people. Just because thousands of people don’t see him or listen to him doesn’t mean he can’t show people what grace in your most sinful hour looks like. It’s like he just fundamentally doesn’t understand how normal relationships and normal lives are–that because he’s famous he can’t understand that most people only have a handful of friends and several handfuls of acquaintances they interact with regularly, and that is their ministry field, and ministering in that private and “limited” way is at least as important if not more so than him getting up and talking in front of thousands of people on a weekly basis. The world survived just fine before Tullian was born and before he became famous. It has been unaffected by his sinfulness and his current exit from ministry. It will survive just fine if he never returns to ministry and when he dies.
Having said that, I don’t have a proble, with him talking about himself on Facebook. That’s what Facebook is for. But he disqualified himself from being a pastor when he had sex with a woman who was not his wife, and none of his talents, gifts, skills, or fame can change that.
Having been part of a ‘traditional’ church where the pastor visits and cares for parishioners one on one, to me that’s where the real work of a pastor lies — not in writing books, speaking, etc. In fact, I can’t help but wonder if someof these folks eschew the “nitty gritty” of parish life for the anonymity and glamor of a wider (yet, IMHO, a lot shallower) venue. To me, pastors/priests who care for their sheep are true heroes.