Do Chuck Smith’s False Predictions Of The Rapture Undermine His Credibility?
Q: How should we understand and respond to claims that Chuck Smith predicted Christ’s return in 1981? Do they undermine his teaching or the credibility of Calvary Chapel today?
A: Chuck Smith was a great man who was mightily used of God. He was a unique man that God used, not only by extension in the founding of a couple thousand Calvary Chapel churches, but in his significant influence on thousands of other churches and pastors beyond the name of Calvary Chapel. Chuck Smith was remarkably used by God. I think history has recorded it wonderfully.
All that being said, he wasn’t perfect. Lance and I are Calvary Chapel pastors. We love the Calvary Chapel movement. We would never say that Chuck Smith was a perfect man. So, what was Chuck Smith wrong about? I would say that Chuck Smith was wrong to predict that the Rapture of the church would happen in 1981. Now, we understand why he said it. We understand the biblical calculations that he went through to arrive at that conclusion. He would probably justify it by saying that he didn’t set a day or an hour; he only suggested the year of 1981. His numbers were based on the founding of Israel in 1948 and the fig tree, adding this and subtracting that. But I think Chuck was wrong to make that prediction. He did not prophesy it, but he did predict it, and I believe he should not have done that.
I didn’t have a lot of conversations with Chuck Smith, but even if I did, I don’t think I would have had the courage to ask him, “Hey, Chuck, what about that prediction?” I think Chuck would have said, “Yeah, I shouldn’t have done that.” There are a couple reasons why I think that. First of all, Chuck never doubled down on his prediction. He didn’t say, “Oh, it wasn’t 1981; it’s 1982 instead.” No. You know what he did? He dropped it. Some people might say that he should have publicly repented. And maybe that would have been better. But I think he demonstrated a kind of repentance. His repentance was, first of all, not doubling down, and secondly, never doing anything like that again. Thirdly, as we heard often in his subsequent teaching, he was always saying that it’s not good for Christians to set dates.
So, while I don’t think it was good that he made that prediction, but I do think that he showed a kind of repentance. Maybe it wasn’t up to somebody else’s standards, but that’s their problem. I guarantee that Pastor Chuck is not worried about it right now. This example shows that even though he was a great man, he wasn’t infallible.
Let me say one more thing. I was at Calvary Chapel Bible School in the fall of 1980. It wasn’t a Bible college at that time; it was a Bible school. It was a three-month course that they repeated three times a year. So, there I was at Calvary Chapel Bible School in the fall of 1980, just a few months right before 1981, the year it was all supposed to happen.
First, there was not much talk about it. I know some people recall hearing more about it, but at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa’s Bible school in the fall of 1980, there was not a fervor about 1981.
Secondly, I had an instructor at that Bible school who I really appreciated. He was a man named Mike Russ. He disagreed with Chuck Smith’s take on those passages. He was one of the teachers at Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa’s Bible School in Twin Peaks, California. And he disagreed with Pastor Chuck’s prediction. Now, he didn’t do so arrogantly. When I heard him talk about this, he did it very respectfully. He just said, “I disagree with how Chuck has come to this conclusion.”
Mike Russ also told our class that a few months earlier Chuck had found out that he disagreed with him. Chuck called him into his office, which, as you might expect, would be scary. So, in came Mike Russ, this teacher at the Bible School, to answer about his disagreement with Chuck Smith. And he said, “Yes, Chuck, I do disagree with you, and here is the biblical reason why.” And he laid it all out for Chuck. Mike Russ told us that Chuck Smith simply responded, “Well, we’ll find out who’s right.” I thought that was a cool and godly response at that time. He didn’t fire him for disagreeing with him. That example showed that however Chuck saw this issue, he didn’t hold it so tightly that he would forbid any other opinion to be voiced.