Shakespeare said a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Maybe, but a Stink Rose by any other name (say...garlic?) might get more play.
On July 19th, Campus Crusade for Christ announced its plan to officially change its name to Cru in early 2012.
Brown v. Board of Education had not yet been fought in the Supreme Court when Bill and Vonetta Bright christened their evangelical campus-based ministry "Campus Crusade for Christ" in 1951. The evangelical church context was overwhelmingly white, middle class, and suburban. The nation and the church had not yet been pressed to look its racist past and present in the face. The world had not yet been rocked by the international fall of colonialism, the rise of the Civil Rights movement, the disillusion of the Vietnam War, the burnt bras of the women's lib movement, the fall of the Berlin Wall, or the rise of the Black middle class (more African Americans now live in the suburbs than in inner cities). In short, theirs was not the world we live in today. So, the name Campus Crusade for Christ smelled sweet. Over the past 20 years, though, it has become a stink rose ... warding off many who might otherwise have come near.
Steve Sellers, Cru Vice President of North American and Oceania Ministries, explained in a recent interview: "Even staff were pulling back from using the name in the course of their jobs both internally and externally. Hindrances with the old name led the board to begin a process to examine the name in 2009."
In a recent interview Larry Christensen, Cru New York Regional Director, reflected:
"The old name just didn't work any more on any level. The word "campus" didn't work because we're no longer focused exclusively on campuses. "Crusade" didn't work because as the church diversified that word became more and more associated with a dark period in church history. Even the word "Christ" presented roadblocks as we wanted to engage Orthodox and conservative Jewish people in conversations and relationship. It made them cringe because it was associated with The Holocaust.
According to Sellers, a commissioned study found that of interested non-Christians who interacted with Campus Crusade staff twenty percent pulled back from the relationship when they heard the name of the organization.
"Twenty percent name alienation is an extremely high number," Sellers added.
Campus Crusade is nothing if not practical. In the 1940s Tent Revivals were the evangelistic method of the day. By the 1960s that wasn't working, so founder Bill Bright developed a practical way to share the gospel; a little gold tract folks could share with strangers. It was called The Four Spiritual Laws.
Apparently, it's been a while since The Four Spiritual Laws worked like it did when I was a member of Campus Crusade back at Rutgers University. Summer 1987, I participated in a Campus Crusade Summer Project in Wildwood, NJ and walked scores of people through that little gold booklet on the Wildwood boardwalk. Twenty-five people, in all, prayed the sinner's prayer with me that summer.
But things have changed.
"We're embracing the new reality," Christensen explained. "Now evangelism takes place more often than not in the context of community. And people in their 20's and 30's as a generation are saying 'I want to make a difference in my life.' In fact," Christensen added, "the recession has pressed the issue. People know they may not get the American dream, so now they're seeking lives that make a difference."
"In the old days," Sellers said, "there was a split between the evangelicals, who proclaimed good news, and the liberals, who did good deeds. We don't see a split anymore! We're doing both!"
And indeed Cru has been engaged in both. Hurricane Katrina was the tipping point. Tens of thousands of Crusade staff and students trekked to New Orleans to help the clean-up effort. Since then, Crusade started a new ministry, Global Aid Network (GAiN).
With this culturally sensitive response to the growing diversity of our world and its attention to poverty issues, I wondered about the current budget crisis. What would Cru's response be to systemic poverty -- poverty entrenched by poor public policy.
In the shadow of the debt-ceiling war and the budget crisis, more than 20,000 people have joined The Circle of Protection for the poor. Jim Wallis of Sojourners, David Beckman of Bread for the World, Lieth Anderson of the National Association of Evangelicals, and Richard Stearns of World Vision among many prominent faith leaders others have joined hands with heads of denominations and other faith leaders to form a "circle of protection" for the poor. It is the poor who are most vulnerable to budget cuts right now.
As Jim Wallis said on MSNBC's Morning Joe this morning, how we balance the budget is a moral issue. There are choices we need to make.
So, in the final moments of both of my interviews, I asked Christensen and Sellers: "Do you see a day coming when Campus Crusade might send a representative to join the Circle of Protection for the Poor?"
Both answered separately: "We have a long way to go, but we're moving in that direction. The name change is only one part of that."
But it is part of it.
Dear Jesus, let it be so.
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I guess it's the perfect post-modern name. It's guaranteed not to offend anyone because it's a made up word that means absolutely nothing.
This quote confused me:
"Even the word “Christ” presented roadblocks as we wanted to engage Orthodox and conservative Jewish people in conversations and relationship. It made them cringe because it was associated with The Holocaust."
The word Christ makes Jewish people cringe because it's associated with the Holocaust? I have never heard this. Do Jews really associate the name of Christ with the Holocaust? I understand the history of the Holocaust and what went on in Germany and how many people in the German Church acquiesced to Hitler, so I don't need a lecture about that, but seriously... Is this really the predominate view of Jews? Has anyone ever heard this from a Jewish person? Under this reasoning no Christians should ever speak the name of Christ around Jews lest they be reminded of the Holocaust. Is this just PC run amok? What's going on here??? It's a sad day when a Christian organization doesn't feel comfortable with the word Christ in it's title.
It's great that Campus Crusade is getting more involved in poverty issues, removing the word "crusade" is probably wise, and changing their evangelism strategy to fit modern times is good, but this just seems to go overboard here. Am I missing something?
Did any of them become better spellers?
Amway became Quixtar.
Does it help?
The federal government sells weapons to drug cartels, who import drugs into the USA, impoverishing millions, all the while generating gangs and supporting the sex slave industry in the USA, overwhelming the prison systems throughout the USA, and particulary California.
Pharmacuetical companies wanting in on the action have become purveyors of drugs (dealers), as has the medical industry, especially through pain management clinics. It's big business here in the USA, destroying our youth and our countries future well being and potential to compete in a global economy.
Our educational systems are an utter mess, increasing the likelyhood of poverty for many.
We have imported people (nothing wrong with that), but exported jobs, and were told that if we wanted jobs, get inventive. Be creative.
As such:
Pornography is everywhere, and now we sexualize little children such as Teira's and Toddlers and push up bras for little girls, and SCOTUS sanctions the selling of violent video games to children.
Sixteen and pregnant encourages girls to get pregnant at 16 so that they can get on a reality show.
Few reality shows "dont't" encourage violence to get the ratings up. Being the biggest ***** or ******* on the show will make you a celebrity and the future bookings will roll in the cash.
The USA is on the decline, both morally and financially into Third World Status.
And it may be a bit of fancy dancing to suggest that negative associations with Campus Crusade for Christ are rooted only in the individual words "campus," "crusade," or "Christ." "Crusade" is utterly inappropriate for an evangelical organization, yes (duh!), but there's more to this.
Press a bit further, and I think the "Cru" organization may find that the 20% of folks who pulled back from any association with the organization may well have been reacting to specific negative things they'd heard about Campus Crusade for Christ... not simply it's name.
Same goes with a lot of these 'campus crusade' type ministries, (such as the 'Boston Church of Christ' and 'your city name here' Church of Christ' organization. *Very* cult-like, them. Same group just repackaged when they got caught doing unethical things and harassing people, etc, etc. They do it with all those 'reeducation camps' for 'troubled,' (generally called so for being LGBT) youth that you don't hear much about, too.
These Campus Crusade people have actually kept their name a lot longer than most, even traded on it as an influential organization, but their past deeds and saying and reputation are now just a Google away for kids freshly arriving at college.