Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, the church Chuck Smith founded, announced it will ordain women as pastors. The man who read the statement was Char Brodersen, Smith’s grandson. He did it from the pulpit of the flagship, in defiance of the ministry his grandfather built and in defiance of the Apostle Paul.
On November 1, Brodersen told the congregation:
“Calvary Chapel, Costa Mesa believes and practices the ordination of both men and women to pastoral ministry as a recognition of the priesthood of all believers. And the unique gifting of individuals by the Holy Spirit to continue the ministry and mission of Jesus in the church and in the world. We believe that both men and women are created by God, made in his image, and are called by God from the beginning of creation to partner with him in building for his kingdom.”
Then he classified the whole thing as optional.
“This is a topic that falls under the category of secondary issues. It’s an open-handed issue that many faithful, Jesus-loving, biblically grounded and convicted people hold differing views on.”
He finished with the line every liberal uses when he is about to discard a text: “In essentials, unity. In non-essentials, freedom, liberty. In all things, charity.”
Paul did not write 1 Timothy 2 and 3 as a non-essential. The ground is creation, not Corinthian custom, not a local problem with loud women, not a verse that expires when the culture changes its mind. Adam was formed first. That order still stands.
The qualifications follow in the next chapter. An overseer must be above reproach, the husband of one wife, sober-minded, able to teach. Husband of one wife is not a suggestion and it is not a metaphor. A woman is not the husband of one wife. Titus 1 says the same thing. The office is male because God made it male.
The priesthood of all believers does not erase that. Every Christian is a priest. That means access to God through Christ, not a pulpit and a title. Peter did not ordain the women of the dispersion as elders when he called them a royal priesthood. Paul did not either. Brodersen is using a true doctrine to cancel a clearer one. That is not interpretation. That is a dodge.
Chuck Smith knew which text governed the office. In Calvary Chapel Distinctives he quotes the qualification himself: “A bishop must be blameless, the husband of one wife.” He writes that the church is to appoint elders who are men of prayer, men seeking God, and that a man not abiding in Christ is disqualified from the office of episkopos. He did not leave a blank for his grandson to fill in with the spirit of the age.
Smith also used to say that rarely does a work of God flow into the second generation. Costa Mesa is the illustration. Brian Brodersen, Smith’s son-in-law, took the flagship, left the Calvary Chapel Association council, and launched a competing network, the Calvary Chapel Global Network. The Association said the new network lacked commitment to the distinctives and would dilute the movement. They were right. The dilution is now a policy.
The Calvary Chapel Association Heartland Regional Team answered Brodersen in public. “This represents a significant departure from the biblical convictions that have historically shaped our Calvary Chapel family.” They called it grievous. They said Costa Mesa has departed from convictions Smith taught and modeled. They affirmed the ministry of women and refused the office. “We do not affirm the ordination of women as elders or pastors as biblically sound or consistent with the Calvary Chapel distinctives.”
That is the minimum. Calling it a departure is accurate. Calling it a secondary issue, the way Brodersen wants, is the lie.
Salvation is not earned by getting church government right. Brodersen hides behind that. So does every man who wants the reputation of charity while he guts an apostolic command. Righteousness is not the cause of salvation. It is the evidence. A pastor who reads “I do not permit” and answers “we practice the opposite, and please don’t judge us” is not confused. He has chosen feminism over the text.
This is what feminism does inside a church. It does not arrive announcing that Paul was wrong. It arrives announcing that Paul is a secondary issue, that gifted women must not be “limited,” that the image of God requires identical office, and that anyone who objects is less charitable. Then the statement gets read on a Sunday, and the grandfather’s distinctives get filed as a relic.
Costa Mesa was the center of the Jesus Movement. It is now a church whose pastor tells 1,800 other Calvary Chapels that their reading of 1 Timothy is optional. The Association should treat it that way in reverse. A church that ordains women pastors is not a Calvary Chapel. It is a feminist church using the name.
Char Brodersen is not extending his grandfather’s work. He is burying it. Paul already settled the qualifications. Husband of one wife. Costa Mesa just decided the Apostle was holding that with an open hand.
