Above: Original Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa –  Cross out front

The Calvary Chapel Dove

This is the Calvary Chapel dove. It’s their corporate logo. It’s even seen on their sport shirts.

Personally, I am offended that the Holy Spirit has been reduced to a shirt corporate logo.

Why a Dove and not a Cross?

Like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Calvary Chapels typically do not put crosses on their buildings. This is not because Calvary Chapel does not believe in the cross but more (they say) out of their desire to avoid the external trappings of religion.

However, it is important to remember that the cross (itself, as well as it’s symbol) is a stumbling block to the non-believer, and Calvary Chapel does not want to drive people away (which is pretty much the same reason that Jehovah’s Witnesses give for not having crosses on their buildings). In the place of the cross, at least at CCCM, they have a Holy Spirit dove symbol at the front of the church. The goal seems to be to not put people off. There may be an occasional CC that has a cross, but that is the exception rather than the rule.

The meaning of the symbol is often lost on visitors

Notice that Calvary Chapel and Figure above, also have the unusual presentation of an upside down dove.

Perhaps you might consider noting that the Holy Ghost (the *true* Holy Ghost) *did* come in the form of a dove to light upon Jesus, but that certainly does not mean we are to elevate the dove above other creatures, or put it on churches. The dove is not the Holy Spirit; the Holy Spirit came in the *form* of a dove, but He is not a dove. It also might be worthwhile to find out how long the dove has been used as an occultic symbol? Before or after Christianity?”…”

Yes true… but can I ask how does the dove fly? Upside down or like any other bird?

All Maranatha! Music album cover artwork graphics were custom-designed and printed by staff artists (in the early days including Barry Malone and Kernie Erickson).

It was sketched on a napkin early in the CC years and it caught on shortly thereafter. It was a dove descending, as at the time that Jesus was baptized. It is of course symbolic of the Holy Spirit and something that is identified with CC.

When asked about the origin of the Calvary Chapel logo, Chuck Smith reportedly wrote:

“The dove was designed by Kerney Erickson and it is a symbol of the Holy Spirit descending upon the church. Taken from the baptism of Jesus when the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descended and lighted upon Him.” http://www.seekgod.ca/stardoves.htm

One of the commentors on the phoenix preacher commented:

Whatever the background, the logo appeared early on.

Alleged Pagan Origins of the Dove

A CC defender told us that the reason Calvary Chapel does not have a cross at the front is that the cross is a pagan Babylonian symbol. The information that Calvary Chapelites typically use to support this kind of view comes Hislop’s 1858 book, The Two Babylons, where Hislop attempted to show the pagan origins of various Christian symbols. Chuck Smith recommends this book in his commentary on the book of Revelation. See chapter 17, verse 5, where Smith says:

In the unity of that one Only God of the Babylonians, there were three persons, and to symbolise that doctrine of the Trinity, they employed, as the discoveries of Layard prove, the equilateral triangle, just as it is well known the Romish Church does at this day. *
* LAYARD’s Babylon and Nineveh. The Egyptians also used the triangle as a symbol of their “triform divinity.”

In both cases such a comparison is most degrading to the King Eternal, and is fitted utterly to pervert the minds of those who contemplate it, as if there was or could be any similitude between such a figure and Him who hath said, “To whom will ye liken God, and what likeness will ye compare unto Him?” The Papacy has in some of its churches, as, for instance, in the monastery of the so-called Trinitarians of Madrid, an image of the Triune God, with three heads on one body. * The Babylonians had something of the same. Mr. Layard, in his last work, has given a specimen of such a triune divinity, worshipped in ancient Assyria. **
* PARKHURST’S Hebrew Lexicon, “Cherubim.” From the following extract from the Dublin Catholic Layman, a very able Protestant paper, describing a Popish picture of the Trinity, recently published in that city, it will be seen that something akin to this mode of representing the Godhead is appearing nearer home: “At the top of the picture is a representation of the Holy Trinity. We beg to speak of it with due reverence.

God the Father and God the Son are represented as a MAN with two heads, one body, and two arms. One of the heads is like the ordinary pictures of our Saviour. The other is the head of an old man, surmounted by a triangle. Out of the middle of this figure is proceeding the Holy Ghost in the form of a dove. We think it must be painful to any Christian mind, and repugnant to Christian feeling, to look at this figure.” (17th July, 1856)

The dove is in Hislop’s book as a pagan symbol. This is a picture from that book.

The dove, the chosen symbol of this deified queen, is commonly represented with an olive branch in her mouth, as she herself in her human form also is seen bearing the olive branch in her hand; and from this form of representing her, it is highly probable that she has derived the name by which she is commonly known, for “Z’emir-amit” means “The branch-bearer.” *

“A branch,” as has been already proved, was the symbol of the deified son, and when the deified mother was represented as a Dove, what could the meaning of this representation be but just to identify her with the Spirit of all grace, that brooded, dove-like, over the deep at the creation; for in the sculptures at Nineveh, as we have seen, the wings and tail of the dove represented the third member of the idolatrous Assyrian trinity. In confirmation of this view, it must be stated that the Assyrian “Juno,” or “The Virgin Venus,” as she was called, was identified with the air

Figure 10 Reuss Seal

Examples of the Dove from various esoteric organizations like ‘The Society of the Order of the Oriental Templars’ (above)

Fasces

Calvary Chapel Jerusalem has a star of David on each page in the site.http://www.calvarychapel.com/jerusalem/index.htm

The sphere has the appearance of the all-seeing eye. “Maitreya” states that “When you say: ‘From the center where the Will of God is known,” which is Shambella, visualize a great sphere of WHITE LIGHT.  [Masonic and Occult Symbols Illustrated, p. 269; Dr. Cathy Burns; Sharing, 1998]

The Order of The Holy Spirit

 

It is not generally known that the Dove was the symbol most revered by the Cathari..

Indeed, the Cathar were called the “Faithful of the Dove,” the “Friends of God.” “…The Dove symbolized the Comforter, the One who would bring peace to the world one day.” 34. 

“In the Ancient Mysteries, the Dove was the symbol of the third person of the Cre

It was taught that as the lower worlds were brought into being through the generative process the Dove was to be associated with those goddesses who were identified with the procreative functions. We find therefore, this pure white bird sacred to Venus, Astarte, and Isis. Not only is the Dove the emblem of the maternal instinct with its gentleness and compassion, but it is also the Messenger of the Divine Will, portraying the Power as well as the Wisdom of the Creator.” 35 

Like Satanist, Eliphas Levi, Van Buren, aligns the dove to the “paraclete.”  “So for the Cathari, the Dove might have been not only the symbol of the Paraclete or Holy Ghost, but also the emblem of “The Book of Love” itself, written by Ionnes, John the Divine.” 36  

If one accepts that the precious treasure of the Cathari was the Last Gospel of St. John, it should be noted that the true name of the Dove is Ionah, or Iönas (Jonah). John the Baptist the forerunner of Christ, was called Ioannes, and the Apostle of Love, author of the Fourth Gospel and the Apocalypse was called Ionnes, in Greece. ”  37

However, Oannes in the occult is found connected to the worship of Dagon and Saturn . “In the great Assyrian temple of Assur…stood a large stone ritual basin dedicated to the god OANNES… Flanking him are 4 FISH-CLAD priests.” (Johnson, p. 243) In an etching of “Assyria, 7th century BCE: FISH-CLAD priests. (Johnson, p. 245)” 38.  

In “The Tomb of God,” the authors show the Cathars belief to be rooted in self-fulfillment which is  no different than the root belief of dominionists and reconstructionists. 

“The Cathar belief was firmly rooted in the Gnostic belief in self-fulfillment that had so alarmed the fathers of the early Churches of Rome.” 39.  

Further evidence can be submitted from Alexander Hislops  – ‘ The Two Babylons’

He, as the Sun-god, was called Beel-samen, “Lord of heaven”; she, as the Moon-goddess, Melkatashemin, “Queen of heaven.”

He was worshipped in Egypt as the “Revealer of goodness and truth”; she, in Babylon, under the symbol of the Dove, as the goddess of gentleness and mercy, the “Mother of gracious acceptance,” “merciful and benignant to men.” He, under the name of Mithra, was worshipped as Mesites, or “the Mediator”; she, as Aphrodite, or the “Wrath-subduer,” was called Mylitta, “the Mediatrix.” He was represented as crushing the great serpent under his heel; she, as bruising the serpent’s head in her hand. He, under the name Janus, bore a key as the opener and shutter of the gates of the invisible world. She, under the name of Cybele, was invested with a like key, as an emblem of the same power. *

* TAYLOR’S Orphic Hymns. Every classical reader must be aware of the identification of Juno with the air. The following, however, as still further illustrative of the subject from Proclus, may not be out of place: “The series of our sovereign mistress Juno, beginning from on high, pervades the last of things, and her allotment in the sublunary region is the air; for air is a symbol of soul, according to which also soul is called a spirit.”

Thus, then, the deified queen, when in all respects regarded as a veritable woman, was at the same time adored as the incarnation of the Holy Ghost, the Spirit of peace and love. In the temple of Hierapolis in Syria, there was a famous statue of the goddess Juno, to which crowds from all quarters flocked to worship. The image of the goddess was richly habited, on her head was a golden dove, and she was called by a name peculiar to the country, “Semeion.” (BRYANT)

What is the meaning of Semeion? It is evidently “The Habitation”; * and the “golden dove” on her head shows plainly who it was that was supposed to dwell in her–even the Spirit of God.

Semiramis, being deified as Astarte, came to be raised to the highest honours; and her change into a dove, as has been already shown, was evidently intended, when the distinction of sex had been blasphemously attributed to the Godhead, to identify her, under the name of the Mother of the gods, with that Divine Spirit, without whose agency no one can be born a child of God, and whose emblem, in the symbolical language of Scripture, was the Dove, as that of the Messiah was the Lamb.

Since the Spirit of God is the source of all wisdom, natural as well as spiritual, arts and inventions and skill of every kind being attributed to Him (Exo 31:3; 35:31), so the Mother of the gods, in whom that Spirit was feigned to be incarnate, was celebrated as the originator of some of the useful arts and sciences (DIODORUS SICULUS).

Hence, also, the character attributed to the Grecian Minerva, whose name Athena, as we have seen reason to conclude, is only a synonym for Beltis, the well known name of the Assyrian goddess. Athena, the Minerva of Athens, is universally known as the “goddess of wisdom,” the inventress of arts and sciences. 2. The name Astarte signifies also the “Maker of investigations”; and in this respect was applicable to Cybele or Semiramis, as symbolised by the Dove.

If we are to have any form of representation of the Godhead, shouldn’t the Calvary Dove look more like this?

In other words the diving dove of Calvary Chapel is the corrupt symbol of the female member of the godhead, the Queen of Heaven.

Thus Calvary’s dove then is none other than Semiramis, Astarte, Venus, or Juno.