One by one they fell away, the doctrinal pillars of the house his father built. Yet Smith Jr. remained under the Calvary Chapel roof, not wanting to embarrass dad by leaving.
Donald E. Miller, a USC professor of religion and author of a book on American evangelism, calls the elder Smith a pioneer of "new-paradigm Christianity" -- one who championed contemporary music and casual dress in church, jettisoned traditional church symbols and rituals, deemphasized theological sophistication and paved the way for the modern megachurch. But he remained an old-school biblical literalist, he said, and the contrast with his son is probably fueled by generational differences.
"While Chuck Smith was very much a culturally savvy guy in the 1960s, nevertheless he came out of the Depression period, whereas his son grew up in a completely different era," Miller said.
For Smith Jr.'s part, he believed he was carrying on the work of radical outreach his father started in the 1960s. Since its early days as "the culturally relevant, rock-n-roll worship, hippie church," he believed, Calvary Chapel had regressed into a "hunker-down mentality -- ride out the vagaries of this evil world until Jesus comes to the rescue."
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There was also, theology aside, the question of the son's temperament. He hardly fit the mold of the Christian soldier championed by his father in his book "Harvest," in which he spoke of "the ideal of a biblical man who is strong and not vacillating or weak" and denounced "the new touchy/feely men."
Smith Jr. weeps before his congregation, making no secret of his ongoing battle with depression that took him to the brink of suicide after his 1993 divorce. At the time, he stood before his congregation explaining that his wife of 18 years, the mother of his five children, was leaving him despite his effort to save the marriage.
"In my mind," he wrote in his book "Frequently Avoided Questions," "divorce was an alien behavior that could not touch true Christians, let alone a minister."
A friend got him a psychiatrist, and the psychiatrist got him antidepressants. A local pastor called for his resignation, but his congregation sent hundreds of letters of support.
"My vulnerability allowed them to love me in need," he said.
Still, his condition alienated him further from his father's church, where depression is widely viewed as a spiritual problem bespeaking flawed faith.
