Prasch’s Trash On Calvary Chapel
The video below is Jacob Prasch’s rant on the current Calvary Chapel split.
In this epic bloviation, Prasch claims God told him this fissure was coming and why.
Amazingly, it follows the same narrative that the Calvary Chapel Association is trying desperately to sell, a narrative that is far more fiction than fact.
Perhaps God was just messing with Jacob and he misunderstood, but in any case, we will once again do what too many CC pastors won’t do, which is to point out the lies and demand that Don McClure & Co. repent.
This screed is called a “A Fleet Without A Flagship” and is a long rant against Brian Brodersen.
After denying that he is a “prophet,” Prasch then tells us how he prophesied the coming split after the death of founder Chuck Smith.
After a brief, (but odd) explanation for the “Moses Model” of church governance, Prasch claims he pleaded with Chuck (through Smith’s brother Paul) to raise up a “Joshua” to take over both Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa and the movement..
Otherwise,” a bad guy with “mal motives” would get control.
This, according Prasch, would be the end of Calvary Chapel as we know it and the end of CCCM as well.
According to Jacob there was no Joshua… instead, there was Brian Brodersen.
It’s obvious Prasch thinks that was icky…
Now let’s deal with some facts.
The facts are that Chuck Smith had every opportunity to keep Brian Brodersen from taking over CCCM.
Even under intense pressure over many years he refused to do so.
Chuck Smith made his choice and I for one believe that Chuck Smith fully understood all the ramifications of that choice.
“The flagship of the fleet has been hijacked!” bellowed Prasch.
No… no it wasn’t.
There was a Joshua, but his name is Brian…
“Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa isn’t even a Calvary Chapel!” roared Jacob in stunning ignorance.
CCCM and thus Brodersen and his board owns the name “Calvary Chapel” and the “dove” symbol.
CCCM is Calvary Chapel and all the other CC’s now use those brand markers by the grace of the trademark holders.
Deal with it, boys.
Jacob (I can’t find my comb) Prasch then lies out loud.
He accuses Brodersen of teaching doctrine in opposition to what Smith taught and of following Rick Warren’s line of thinking to avoid the subject of eschatology.
These are lies.
This is slander.
Brodersen is still teaching classic CC doctrine, you just don’t get an end times enema every time the church is open.
This is the narrative that the CCA has tried to use to defend it’s actions…it’s demonstrably false.
He then lies again repeating that Costa Mesa is not a CC.
If they chose to be, they could legally be the only CC except for those using the name before 1999.
This must be part of a new CCA narrative in which they posit themselves as those who declare who is and isn’t a Calvary Chapel.
They aren’t even a legally registered corporation and if they were, they still own neither the name or the dove.
To make things even stranger, Prasch cites George Bryson as one of his like minded allies…and Bryson was the first to protest that the CCA was not endorsed by Chuck in private.
Next, Jacob (I can’t find my iron, either) Prasch plays Paul Smith’s video where he presents his narrative of how Brodersen stole the church.
What Paul Smith fails to tell you in that video is that Chuck Smith grew so weary of Paul and friends pressure to bounce Brodersen that he was asked to move out of Smith’s home.
Smith and Skip Heitzig gave it their best shot and it was the last shot Smith tolerated.
Prasch then turns his belching toward Greg Laurie.
Greg Laurie doesn’t care.
Greg Laurie has his own board and his own ministry and is far too busy for such drama.
Prasch then claims that there are those in the movement that are into everything from ‘Calvinism to Bill Johnson”.
Names?
In conclusion, this is one of the more ridiculous and slanderous attacks on Brodersen yet.
It’s a lot of lies and a lot of garbage.
Prasch claims he predicted all this…as far as I know I’m the only person that has been in print actually documenting the split as it started and then happened.
The reality is that this split is about two things.
One is Brian Brodersen becoming tired of all the abuse over all the years despite making every effort to be conciliatory.
The second is the effort by one man and his friends to take by force what Chuck Smith refused to give him.
That’s very simple…and it is how I see it after all these years and all the people I’ve talked to.
You can believe that or not…but in any case it’s far closer to the truth than this video.
phoenixpreacher@gmail.com
Classic PP
Great job
Thank you, BD…sometimes I have to test and see if I still have the chops… 🙂
Most of all thank you for sparing us a Prasch rant with your blow by blow… we’ve all endured his mania. I’ll take hours of Rick Warren over minutes of Prasch anyday. At least I’ll be warmed by the heart of the former.
BD,
I suffer for my readers… 🙂
I concur about Warren over this angry snorting.
Everything that makes me sick about church today.
Noelle,
Amen…and all so unnecessary…
Jacob who??
DavidM,
He’s a favored teacher among some CCites… he’s a hoot.
Did Prasch “do” the sixties and that’s why he ended up this way?
JM,
There appears to have been some sort of trauma… 🙂
Too bad he didn’t end up like the ones who chased butterflies.
It must drive the CCA boys nuts that the other side is just basically ignoring them. Unless I’ve missed it, I know of no rants or ultimatums from the Brodersen camp.
It is just the good ol’ boys and their buddies fuming and cursing the others, who ain’t real, true, genuine, CC guys according to their definitions. They seem determined to destroy it all rather than share any of the limelight with Brodersen. Sad.
Can’t we debate politics instead? Oh wait, this is politics 🙂
Carpetbagger – “a person perceived as an unscrupulous opportunist.”
Seems an apt description.
I’ve only seen one other video by Prasch, and that was one too many. So, thanks Michael for taking one for the team.
And Bill Johnson? Seriously?!! You can’t name one CC pastor who is into that. If he were, his own congregation would run him out of town on a rail.
Nice my friend!! Reminds me of the good old days!!
From https://www.moriel.org/about/19-general/5992-about-jacob-prasch.html
“Jacob and Moriel are committed to the conviction that we are in the Last Days approaching the return of Christ and that contemporary events in the Middle East, the moral deterioration of society, the destruction of the environment, the globalization of the world economy, the rise of a pseudo-democratic federal Europe and, above all, the apostasy in the contemporary church, are all events of prophetic significance eschatologically.”
I’m surprised he’s not on CCA already
IN all honesty, is this guy well?
And Bill Johnson? Seriously?!! You can’t name one CC pastor who is into that. If he were, his own congregation would run him out of town on a rail.
________________________________________________________________
Well, I can think of a few CC pastors that have hosted worship pastor Kim Walker Smith from Jesus Culture from Bill Johnson’s ministry.
“According to a 2011 Pew Forum study on global Christianity, 285,480,000 or 13.1 percent of all Christians are Evangelicals. These figures do not include the Evangelical movements of Pentecostals and Charismatics; 584,080,000. The largest concentration of Evangelicals can be found in the United States, with 28.9% of the U.S. population or 91.76 million, the latter being roughly one third of the world’s Evangelicals”
CCA was on its way to becoming a side-show… It is now running the risk of becoming the side-show of a side-show…
“And Bill Johnson? Seriously?!! You can’t name one CC pastor who is into that. If he were, his own congregation would run him out of town on a rail.”
I can’t think of any Christian who could follow Bill Johnson and remain a Christian. Bill Johnson is the gateway drug to giving up your Christianity.
Dread loves Bill Johnson.
40 minutes long, and the opening is like something from South Park making fun of stuff like this.
Not, you know, not that I’ve ever, like, seen one of those, things.
So full of himself. Barf. (Yeah, I watched…)
Michael, “End times enema” ? (And I know exactly what that means!)
Seriously, this guy is a pastor…? Keeps me running in the “away from church” direction…
He’s literally the guy with a webcam ranting in his basement.
Another pop culture reference.
You know that bit in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where the villagers find what they think is a witch? There are tests to prove whether she is a witch. Ultimately the logic goes like this.
– What do you do with a witch? Burn them.
– What do you burn apart from witches? Wood.
– Why do witches burn? Because they are made of wood, obviously.
– How do we tell if she is made of wood? THIS IS THE EVALUATION QUESTION.
– Build a bridge out of her. But you can also build bridges out of stone, so that’s out.
– Does wood sink in water? No, it floats. Throw her into the pond.
– Wait, what also floats in water? Among other things, bread, apples, very small rocks, and churches.
– The correct answer is a duck.
– SOLUTION. Logically, if she weighs the same as a duck, she’s made of wood, and therefore a witch.
Impeccable logic built on faulty information and a desired outcome. This is the kind of thinking going around all this CCA stuff, not to mention in politics and social media.
Corby using the Holy Hand Grenade!!!
Love.
It.
Is it any wonder why some folks outside of the bubble call it Chrislam?
Why all the enthusiasm for a strong central leadership? Why the desire to adhere precisely to the leader’s theology? Why the desire to conitinue with leader’s traditions?
If this is what they really want, they might as well become Roman Catholics.
“She turned me into a newt!”
Chuck was a charismatic guy–even when he was doing wrong–and Prasch is a loyalist who could never see the wrong even when it was right in front of him. (Prasch defended the way Chuck handled David Hocking even though it definitely paved the way for a lot of the immoral rot we are now seeing.) He like soooooooo many is as blind as a bat because of his idolatry.
apply as needed
http://68.media.tumblr.com/5d0c8afd8c6bf76ce6c7a1aea20383f7/tumblr_okt7q5G6I11sh491mo1_1280.png
“I got better.”
Why does anyone care about Prasch? He is just one more guy with a webcam. Even Jackie distanced herself from him when I questioned her on the Calvin’s Corner thread.
I think we alone keep him alive here.
btw, when I watch him, he always reminds me of the guy who has his lunch spilled on his shirt.
I think Xenia hits on a significant ironic point at #29. This same group that decries Catholicism and denominationalism and sometimes Eastern Orthodox, too, now decries any supposed deviation from its founder and the way things are “supposed” to be done in a Calvary Chapel and wants to have ruling control through one central leadership (made up of just the one “Joshua” that Prasch speaks of or a very small group of men).
Prasch said there should have been an appointed Joshua to continue to rule but says now that that didn’t happen, all the CC’s should become completely independent and adopt a leadership model of a plurality of elders. Ha! Don’t quite see that one ever happening.
Hi Angel voice!!! always good to see your smiling face!
Michael, I understand how long this has been going on but it’s sad to read what you have described. In the midst of a chaotic time in our nation I would hope we could see the church coming together at some level that would glorify Jesus. I know that there are so many doing just that.
I was over the exposing of everyone and everyone years ago. Yet we don’t seem to learn. BB doesn’t deserve this.
Believers need to be built up. Those who are hurting need tending to. We don’t need this.
MLD, per your #34….
Because it’s entertaining! Lol
Prasch isn’t calling for a Joshua, he’s calling for a king … 1 Samuel 8:7-8.
This whole screaming fit over the leadership of Calvary Chapel reminds me of another hissy fit playing out since the election. It is what it is. Let’s move on.
it seems to me this morning that Erunner and Linnea have a point, there’s a lot that needs tending to both in the Church and in our troubled world… saw a headline stating that some crazy celebrity or other is calling for the military to take out Trump – that became a legitimate news item? – like the guy who is the subject of this thread, isn’t it time for the adults to just call a halt to irresponsible grandstanders, call crazy for what it is and run the show again?
Prasch-bash used to be one of my favorite PP things…now I can’t even watch him with the sound off. I must be slipping.
Three words.
Posture. Camera angle.
MLD #21
“Bill Johnson is the gateway drug to giving up your Christianity.”
Amen. And is the gateway to New Age mysticism and demons.
Tl, what is?
Linnea re#39
#notmycalvarychapel 🙂
sitting here reading this thread brought back an early childhood memory… my grandparents had begun their ministry in the Holiness Movement early in the last century and later were early players in the founding of the Nazarene church… but even after they’d left the Holiness crowd, they’d have occasional guests from that era drop by and one fella, i swear his mother must have been frightened by a flea when she was carrying him, zeroed in on me and asked me if i wanted one of his pins that he only gave to special people – sure i’d take one, and he gave me a small brass screw with a ball attached and congratulated me on now being a bona fide member of the screwball club… :
i was not happy with that honor, not one bit… looks like the club is still going strong, tho…
🙂
Donna…LOL
John 20:29…love your screwball story!
Donna @45
ROFL!!
(Now I just need to not give into the temptation to use it on social media)
Dusty #44 , MLD’s comment at #21
“I can’t think of any Christian who could follow Bill Johnson and remain a Christian. Bill Johnson is the gateway drug to giving up your Christianity.”
I agreed and added that Bethel Church is the gateway to New Age mysticism and demons.
They are a part of the NAR movement. (New Apostolic Reformation) My friend’s daughter is caught up in it.
The first thing the new worship leader did at our CC was to introduce several Jesus Culture songs; there was an admiration for Kim Walker as well. When I spoke up about it, the pastor told me to keep quiet and not say anything else about anything related to music choice. (I was still part of the worship team.) You can’t know how shocking this was since he was the one who warned against apostasy…
Honest question: Is it acceptable to sing worship songs by Jesus Culture or whatever other cult-ish groups are out there without the songs being associated with that group? I ask because our church (a CC) sings some of these, and they are wonderful and theologically sound. Also, no one ever brings up where the songs come from, who writes them, or whatever. We just use them because they’re great songs that help us express our adoration to God.
CK,
Whenever some talks about anything being “a gate to New Age mysticism” or “apostasy,” I immediately want it. 🙂
The guilt by association meme is getting old…if it’s good and theologically sound, have at it…
As a worship leader myself, I do cringe at using any Jesus Culture songs. I carefully evaluate each song I choose to learn for the church. I honestly try NOT to use any song associated with Jesus Culture. BUT, if I find one that is theologically sound and I think ministers, I will use it. Sometimes they are not even written by the Jesus Culture artist but other artist. So when I post the CCLI information on the lyrics screen showing the author, I can honestly put a name not associated with it. Most of the time my song sources are from Reformed church camps.
It was relevant at the time because the pastor had really been ranting about false teaching in the church (I know, shocking for a CC). As the former leader, I too was very careful with music selection. I felt responsible for what I was leading people to sing about.
If you’ve never researched Bill Johnson/Jesus Culture, you should. This isn’t about slapping the word “apostasy” on someone for watching an R rated movie or not dressing up to code; it’s about embracing a spirit that is not from God. Their “fire tunnels” are enough to send me running…
I live three hours from Johnson’s church and have had to deal with the fruit of his nonsense personally.
I don’t know that he’s apostate…certainly would call him and his teaching “aberrant”.
I can hang with “abhorrent.” Lol. Fitting.
I like Prasch.
Bethel Church –
working crowds into altered states of consciousness, babbling nonsense as tongues, laying hands on and prophesying over Todd Bentley, Twice and once after his adulterous marriage,
Dollar Store glitter as the Glory of God
I would say apostate, false, aberrant.
People can listen to Brian Broderson theirselves and make the proper judgement. Just by listening to his interview of Rick Warren should be enough. Why did he hang around if he was so bored and disenfranchised with Chuck’s methods? If he could no longer agree with the Church it was time for him to leave, not hang around like a buzzard waiting on Chuck to die so he could take over and change everything. His actions are affecting many people. He is going the way of the Ecumenicals. There can be no unity with false brethren. Don’t hold the faithful members of Calvary Chapel Churches in limbo. He wants to be like the modern day church of this world. Whoever wants to follow him let them follow him but don’t destroy the 50 year work of the Lord and try to persuade people to go with him.
Cathy Bachand
Brodersen is not solely responsible for destroying Calvary Chapel. ALL factions that remain of Calvary Chapel are being destroyed by their own ill-fated desire to not deal with sin in the camp. No one’s hands are clean.