Calvary Chapel's Frisbee toss

Costa Mesa is "Vatican City" for the Southern California Protestant religious phenomenon known as "Calvary Chapel." Their "pope" is a guy named Pastor Chuck. Boasting of hundreds of "churches" and some 35,000 members, Calvary Chapel sees itself as a balance between rigid fundamentalism and overly emotional Pentecostalism. By way of its radio station, KWVE, Calvary's self-styled brand of evangelism with its strong strain of anti-Catholicism finds its way into the lives of thousands of Southern Californians.

Calvary Chapel is now a more or less mainstream Protestant sect with a membership composed of Bible toting, SUV driving average folks. But its beginnings were anything but conventional. In a revealing article about the origins of Calvary Chapel, the OC Weekly tells the story of how a young man, Lonnie Frisbee, a "...pot-smokin’, LSD-droppin’ seeker turned Calvary Chapel into a household name." Now, however, the mere mention of Frisbee, who left the "church" in the early 70's and who eventually died of AIDS in 1993, is carefully avoided in the official telling of the fascinating story of Calvary Chapel.