{"id":2272,"date":"2011-07-25T06:00:14","date_gmt":"2011-07-25T12:00:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2272"},"modified":"2011-07-25T06:00:14","modified_gmt":"2011-07-25T12:00:14","slug":"cru-taking-crusade-christ-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/?p=2272","title":{"rendered":"Cru: Taking Crusade & Christ Out of Their Name"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a rather mind-boggling display of irony, the Christian organization responsible for producing the “JESUS” film<\/a>\u00a0has decided that having\u00a0Christ in their name was just too much for the sensibilities\u00a0of the modern world.\u00a0 Campus Crusade for Christ, founded by Bill and Vonette\u00a0Bright in 1951, will henceforth be known as “Cru.”\u00a0 I couldn’t make that up if I tried.<\/p>\n

The ostensible reason from changing\u00a0this venerable and well-known\u00a0para-church group\u00a0to Cru\u00a0was because\u00a0the word “Crusade” apparently alienates a lot of people.\u00a0 Okay.\u00a0 If that is the case, then why change your name to “Cru,” which I think are the first three letters in the word\u00a0CRUsade?\u00a0 This makes absolutely no sense, but\u00a0there always seems to be a justification for these continual bows to modern, anti-Christian culture.\u00a0 In fact, Steve Sellers, Campus Crusade for Christ’s Vice President, in arguing for the name change, said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWe felt like our name was getting in the way of accomplishing our mission,\u201d . . . noting that the ministry will still be committed to \u201cproclaiming Christ around the world.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

How do you suppose that the powers-that-be at CCC realized that their name was causing so many problems in evangelizing on college campuses throughout the world?\u00a0 You guessed it — an opinion poll.\u00a0 It seems that polling data confirmed that 9% of Christians and 20% of non-Christians found the name — Campus Crusade for Christ — offensive.<\/a>\u00a0 Apparently\u00a0less than 10% of those polled who identified as Christians (whatever their definition of Christian may have been) and only 1 in 5\u00a0non-Christians\u00a0who were polled were enough to sway Campus Crusade for Christ to ditch their name.\u00a0<\/p>\n

I’m still not quite sure how their mission of “proclaiming Christ around the world” will be more effectively accomplished by taking Christ out of their name.\u00a0 And, when I say Christ, I really mean Jesus.\u00a0 There is something about the Name of Jesus Christ that will\u00a0always be offensive to non-believers.\u00a0 After all, isn’t Jesus\u00a0a stumbling block and a stone of offense?\u00a0 We certainly wouldn’t want to offend anybody with the Name that is above every other name, now would we?\u00a0 What’s next?\u00a0 Removing crosses from our churches and replacing them with globes.\u00a0 But, I digress.<\/p>\n

Sensing that the name change might not go over well with followers of Christ, Campus Crusade for Christ<\/del>\u00a0Cru\u00a0brought out a big gun in defense of the seemingly indefensible — Vonette Bright,\u00a0who along with her late husband, Bill, co-founded Campus Crusade for Christ.\u00a0 I’m not sure if Mrs. Bright said the following or it was just spun<\/del> re-phrased by Vice President Sellers:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWhen Bill Bright started the organization, he told his wife that someday they would have to change the name,\u201d Sellers said. \u201cAs early as the late ’70s and ’80s he was looking at making the name change.\u201d (article here<\/a>)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Considering that Bill Bright died in 2003, a good 20 years after Mr. Sellers claims that Bright was looking at a name change, one could conclude that either Bill Bright was extremely slow in his decision-making process or that he did not think that Campus Crusade for Christ was a hindrance to proclaiming the life-changing message of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

But, when we become so concerned with being liked, then we begin to water down the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.\u00a0 That may or may not be our intent, but that is where we end up.\u00a0 Said Sellers:<\/p>\n

“Cru enables us to have discussions about Christ with people who might initially be turned off by a more overtly Christian name.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

What could be more overtly Christian than the Name of Jesus Christ?\u00a0\u00a0For Cru\u00a0(formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ), being that overt is\u00a0apparently just too much in a post-modern, post-Christian world where popularity has become the new standard for measuring\u00a0Gospel “success.”\u00a0\u00a0But, if popularity\u00a0is a barometer of fidelity to the Gospel, then a certain church in the Houston,\u00a0Texas area would be our model for a faithful Christian witness.\u00a0 Alas, it is not.\u00a0 Or for Cru, maybe it is.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a rather mind-boggling display of irony, the Christian organization responsible for producing the “JESUS” film\u00a0has decided that having\u00a0Christ in their name was just too much for the sensibilities\u00a0of the modern world.\u00a0 Campus Crusade for Christ, founded by Bill and Vonette\u00a0Bright in 1951, will henceforth be known as “Cru.”\u00a0 I couldn’t make that up if…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,15,35],"tags":[1072,1076,1077,3370,1087,357,552,1122,3392,1171,1187],"class_list":["post-2272","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-christianity","category-evangelism","category-religion","tag-bill-bright","tag-campus-crusade-for-christ","tag-ccc","tag-christianity","tag-cru","tag-evangelism-2","tag-jesus-christ","tag-jesus-film","tag-religion","tag-steve-sellers","tag-vonette-bright"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1LP7G-AE","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2272"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3281,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2272\/revisions\/3281"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2272"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2272"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fromlaw2grace.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2272"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}