Person

Chuck Smith

Founder of Calvary Chapel (1927 to 2013), who in the late 1970s wrote that he expected the Rapture before 1981.

Chuck Smith was the founding pastor of Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa, California, a movement associated with the Jesus People era. In books of the late 1970s he linked the 1948 founding of Israel to a forty-year generation and concluded that the Rapture could come before 1981.

He later said that this expectation had been mistaken. Smith died in 2013.

Predictions in this timeline

1981 Chuck Smith and the expectation of a Rapture before 1981 Chuck Smith · Date passed In books of the late 1970s, the founder of Calvary Chapel wrote that he expected the Rapture to occur before 1981, on the basis of a forty-year generation from 1948 minus a seven-year tribulation.