Posted on 10/01/2014 7:12:45 AM PDT by Kaslin
Note: In the following article, I refuse to refer to Campus Crusade for Christ by their new name. I find their removal of the words “Crusade” and “Christ” to be offensive and demeaning (and just incredibly silly).
Nearly half of the abortions in this country are performed on college-age women. According to Students for Life of America, 70% of all abortion-providing and abortion-referring facilities are located within five miles of a college campus. Given those staggering numbers, it would seem that campus ministries would be positioning themselves to do something about the problem. But most are doing nothing at all. If you don’t believe me, take the time to go to the Campus Crusade website and do a search for the word “abortion.” See what your search reveals.
So why are campus ministries largely silent on such a profound moral issue? Recently, I had a chance to ask a Campus Crusade director that very question. His response was that Campus Crusade is not “a politically-based organization.” That explanation is inadequate. In fact, it is demonstrably false.
Several years ago, a good friend of mine named Dave Sterrett gave a pro-life speech to a Campus Crusade chapter at a state university in North Texas. He was invited to speak by a student. During the middle of his speech, he was arguing that the unborn are fully human and have souls by quoting from the Gospel of Luke. His talk was clearly Biblical and not political in nature.
Nonetheless, when the Campus Crusade director arrived, he rudely shut the speech down.
The Campus Crusade director told Dave to come out in the hall after he shut down his talk. The Crusade leader then began to yell at Dave and told him, "I don't know what your deal is talking about this issue. Get your books and get out of here." He went even further calling the headquarters of Crusade, which then demanded an apology from Sterrett.
Shortly after I wrote about the incident, several members of Campus Crusade contacted me - but not to apologize for their mistreatment of Dave. They emailed to admonish me for writing about the incident – even though I did not call out the university or the chapter director by name. The fallout from the incident was revealing. It shows how far some campus ministries will go to avoid controversy – and that they often consider themselves to be above reproach.
The original incident was also revealing. The censored speech was not political so the problem cannot be that Campus Crusade is not a “politically-based” organization. The speech was morally and Biblically based. Does the rejection of the speech mean that Campus Crusade is not a “morally-based” organization? Or does it mean they are not a “Biblically-based” organization?
Of course it doesn’t. The incident merely shows that Campus Crusade has become a “comfort-based” organization. In other words, an over-riding priority is avoiding topics that might make people feel uncomfortable.
Sadly, Campus Crusade is not the only ministry that is obsessed with the very un-Christ-like goal of avoiding topics that make people feel uncomfortable. Search the major campus ministry websites and see what they have to say about abortion. I guarantee that it won’t take very long to commit to memory all that they don’t have to say.
The saddest part about this is that Christian peers would be the best possible people to help pregnant women work through the abortion decision process. Imagine Campus Crusade students trained, not just to defend life, but also to walk women through the process of getting an ultrasound, talking to a nurse, and really thinking all the options through. As my friend Amber Lehman says, “The simple truth in love for a woman with pregnancy decisional conflict goes a long way for her to make a life decision.”
I was inspired to write this column after a Campus Crusade chapter director urged me to be careful to avoid criticizing other Christians who do not “attack the abortion issue” the same way I do. That is simply arrogant and utterly un-Biblical. What he really means is that he doesn’t like me calling his organization out for their sinful silence on the most profound moral, political, and Biblical issue of our time.
I urge everyone reading this column to criticize all Christians who “attack the abortion issue” by keeping as quiet as they possibly can in the name of enhancing comfort.
If they admonish you for criticizing Christians, introduce them to the letters of the Apostle Paul. He wasn’t afraid of offending his support team.
I too was troubled, when the Campus Crusade for Christ changed their name. What was the point? Why minimize what your mission is? The old name described perfectly their goals, namely, going to college campuses and urging students to accept Christ.
There ae exceptions. I stand--- I hope --- with the exceptions.
The new name for the organization is ‘CRU’. I have been to their website and Wikipedia and I still don’t know what CRU stands for. If it is an acronym, what are the words? If it is a cool short slang for ‘crusade’, that is beyond horrid.
This is so sad. While I was at the Pentagon, I attended a weekly Bible study run by CCC. Heaven only knows what they study now, if ‘CRU’ is even still onsite.
I used to be a supporter (money) of Campus Crusade for Christ. Then I kept hearing how they were becoming more and more liberal. And changed their name. Waste of my money.
Garbage like this is why I ONLY donate and tithe to my LOCAL Church. All of these BIG “Christian Orgs” can go BANKRUPT for all I care.
It’s too be expected though. We were warned of the great falling away, of the lukewarm, etc. I take it as a hopeful sign, that the more we see of this, the sooner we’ll see Christ return.
So their new name is just “Campus for”?
Let’s face it. There are a lot of Christians out there who vote Democrat that would rather not be reminded that they are on the wrong side (not God’s side) of any number of political issues according to the bible.
I looked them up and found their new name is “Cru.” I guess it’s like putting a paper bag over their head so no one will recognize who they are. Sad. Wonder what Bill Bright would think.
That's when I realized that I was being fooled. There was no religion course and no survey. This was just a ploy to get me talking and to enable them to make their pitch. And they were very good, very friendly and likable. I suspect they were well-trained and carefully selected. And they knew that a student union catering mostly to freshmen was a good place try to recruit, being filled with people away from home for the first time and feeling lonely and friendless. My reaction was to get very angry. At myself, of course, for falling for it for so long. But also at them, for using a lie, the phony survey, to try to bring me to what they considered to be the Truth. A few weeks later another pair, this time a man and a woman, approached me at the same spot to take their survey. I rather rudely told them to get lost.
“”It’s become a flash word for a lot of people. It harkens back to other periods of time and has a negative connotation for lots of people across the world, especially in the Middle East,” said Steve Sellers, the CCCI vice president and U.S. national director who is leading the name change project. “In the ‘50s, crusade was the evangelistic term in the United States. Over time, different words take on different meanings to different groups.”...
... Founder Bill Bright always assumed it would become broader than its “campus” ministries at colleges and universities...
...In 2002, evangelist Billy Graham began using the word “mission” to describe what he always called “crusades.”...CCCI leaders have discussed changing the name over the years simply because the word campus was limiting, said John Turner, author of Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ.”
http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2011/julyweb-only/campus-crusade-name-change.html?start=2
As for the speech - I wasn’t there. Without a transcript or recording, I have no way of knowing HOW things were presented. It could have been firmly with love, or aggressively with vitriol. Since I have no way of knowing, I don’t plan on getting upset.
I LOVE Mike Adams’ columns and I HATE what the abortion mills are doing to our culture. But I’ve gotta interject and say that I disagree with him on this column.
Mike expresses a number of complaints about Cru:
1) He’s upset that they changed their name from Campus Crusade for Christ.
2) He’s frustrated that Cru doesn’t publish a position on specifically abortion.
3) He’s angry that friend speaking on abortion was interrupted in a message he was delivering.
I suspect item #3 prompted him to vent on #1 & #2.
I’m a big believer that we Christ followers are under attack in a spiritual war against Satan. Unfortunately I think that Mike’s well intended attack on this truly outstanding organization is doing damage that favors the wrong side. There’s evidence from comments on this Freeper forum that this column has damaged their reputation. Mike needs to reread 1 Peter 3:15 (look it up or see below).
Cru, formally known as Campus Crusade for Christ is an outstanding “parachurch” organization meaning that they are “Christian faith-based organizations that work outside of and across denominations to engage in social welfare and evangelism, usually independent of church oversight.” (from Bablyon dictionary). Their mission: “Cru is a caring community passionate about connecting people to Jesus Christ.” Their doctrine is rock solid (check it out at http://www.cru.org/about/statement-of-faith.html )
I don’t know why Cru doesn’t put out public statements directly dealing with abortion. Perhaps they feel that doing so gives the enemy an easy way to create attacks (via blogs, advertisements, leaflets on campus, etc) that will put up barriers to reaching the very souls that Cru is targeting. But creating the strategy on how Cru should “connect people to Jesus Christ” is up to them. If Cru thinks that coming out strong against abortion on their website and in their all campus meetings loses more souls than it saves then that’s their issue, not Mike’s. But this doesn’t mean that they’re not dealing with the issue. I have personally been asked by Cru members to pray for those in the trenches on campus dealing with specific cases for college girls considering abortion.
As for my first hand experience with Cru — my son went to UIUC. Despite a Christian upbringing he was not an authentic Christ follower. Long story short, our family went some very dark times but God chose to use Cru as His tool to reach him. During his senior year he became a small group leader for Cru & is totally on fire for Christ. My daughter is at the same school now and Cru is essential to her keeping her walking with Christ. You can watch both of their testimonials along with those of well over 100 other students here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/my2words
Obviously I can’t speak for Cru at other campuses but I know first-hand that they are doing God’s work and they’re doing it extremely well.
BTW - I’m VERY anti-PC. Political Correctness is a tool of Satan. I graduated from Illinois in Champaign and I grieve the loss of Chief Illinwek. I’d much prefer the name Campus Crusade for Christ over Cru especially given the Islam attack on western civilization. But, oh well, what’s the best approach for God’s war? To focus on hearts & souls for Christ and to not be distracted by petty arguments.
“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,” 1 Peter 3:15
Its stupid to soft-pedal the abortion issue. Granted that your target audience of unsaved people probably favor it, and your unsaved target audience isn’t going to agree with you politically. So, no, you don’t want to get into the political weeds.
But everyone understands that abortion is a moral issue. Even people who want it legal on more-or-less libertarian grounds will understand that it is still, at a personal level, a moral and spiritual issue. So you can’t back away from it.
People who have had abortions already know what they’ve done is a morally heavy thing, and they need the healing that only Christ can bring. You can’t help them if you won’t address it.
New Christians may not immediately abandon the pro-abortion Democratic Party, but thats not your problem. Your problem is to preach Christ and let the chips fall. Over time their renewed spirits will work through the politics of it and that may or may not lead them to a morally-compromised Republican Party, but we weren’t called as Christians to turn them into Republicans. But we also weren’t called to be silent on the moral issues that are wrecking peoples’ lives.
As an aside, the modern GOP is almost as morally compromised and spiritually lost as their DNC rivals. It is also very much a mission field.
Sadly Campus crusade was part of the movement to the “New” version of churches and Christianity. They placed most emphasis on quick (Unreal) conversions and Churning numbers. They had little time for teaching the basic everyday love for one another as taught in the bible. A truly higher command.
They have simply taken the next step now. To even deny Christ.
They have done a lot of damage.
They have done a lot of damage.
If you’re going to take pot shots at Cru then I invite you to watch 3 or 4 or these short videos. Pick any of them - there’s over 100 of them, and that’s just 1 campus all of these posted in a couple of weeks last spring. Then tell this forum specifically about how these souls have been damaged.
http://www.youtube.com/user/my2words
Nice overview. I met my wife at a Campus Crusade meeting the day a staff member knocked on her dorm door and shared the Gospel with her.
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