WHEN Chuck Smith, founder of the worldwide Calvary Chapel movement, decided to invest big in radio, the Orange County evangelist joined forces with a pastor he trusted.
Mike Kestler was one of his proteges, a folksy preacher with a ponytail who had ridden the Calvary phenomenon to a pulpit in Twin Falls, Idaho.
Smith had presided at Kestler's wedding. He'd helped Kestler keep his job after a churchgoer complained that Kestler had begged her to run away with him.
Now, the pastors would be business partners. Kestler knew how to run a radio station. Smith had money and a famous name. They shared a vision of FM radio as a megaphone for God's word.
Bolstered by $13 million from Smith's Costa Mesa church, Calvary Satellite Network grew into a spectacular recruiting tool for the evangelical movement. In listening areas across the nation, Calvary Chapels proliferated.
But relations between the two pastors deteriorated. In 2003, Smith cut off funding for the radio network, precipitating a crisis that continues to roil Calvary's leadership. It sparked a war for control of the network on terrain Smith had preached against for years: the earthly courts.
The two sides have hurled accusations of lust and greed, betrayal and embezzlement. As part of the battle, Smith funded a lawsuit against Kestler by a former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader who said he had fired her from her radio job for rebuffing his sexual advances.
Now, after a year of hugely expensive legal sparring, the 79-year-old Smith is so eager to settle the case that he is willing to do so at a staggering loss.
He is about to surrender much of the radio empire to Kestler, a man he calls morally unfit for ministry. Smith says that by walking away, he is making a Christian gesture.
Lori Pollitt, the former cheerleader, said Smith told her he had hoped his legal maneuvers would bring Kestler to repentance. "But it appears it won't, so I think they just want to wash their hands of the whole thing," Pollitt said. "He said basically it was just time to turn Kestler over to Satan."
SMITH opened the first Calvary Chapel on a Costa Mesa lot in 1965 with a handful of congregants. Combining literalist Bible teaching with casual dress, contemporary music and an aversion to ritual, the church quickly became famous as a sanctuary for disillusioned hippies and a hub of the Jesus People. The doctrinal cornerstones included the depravity of the world, hell for unbelievers and the promise of a Second Coming.
