Criticisms
Various criticisms of the organization and of the pastorate role in the organization exist. For example, journalist David Templeton described intense peer pressure during his time as an active participant in Calvary Chapel ministry. Chuck Smith has been criticized for drawing connections between disasters (e.g., earthquakes, the September 11 attacks) and divine wrath against homosexuality and abortion.
Calvary Chapel leaders, including Smith, are the subject of a currently pending lawsuit alleging that they knew or should have known that a minister named Anthony Iglesias was prone to sexual abuse when they moved him from ministry positions in Diamond Bar, California, to Thailand, to Post Falls, Idaho. Iglesias was convicted of lewd conduct with two 14-year-old boys in California in 2004, and the current lawsuit stems from events in Idaho, but all alleged abuse occurred in or before 2003.
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Famous quotes containing the word criticisms:
“The sway of alcohol over mankind is unquestionably due to its power to stimulate the mystical faculties of human nature, usually crushed to earth by the cold facts and dry criticisms of the sober hour. Sobriety diminishes, discriminates, and says no; drunkenness expands, unites, and says yes.”
—William James (1842–1910)
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—Sigmund Freud (1856–1939)