Are Campus Crusade and IVCF still Christian? Or are they just leftists?

Eagle eggs are protected, unborn babies are not
Eagle eggs are protected, unborn babies are not

The latest news is about IVCF’s rejection of the pro-life cause.

Here is an article from Touchstone magazine.

It says:

Happy New Year, Everyone! Urbana 2015 ended on January 1, 2016. Urbana is a triennial major Christian (mostly Evangelical) student missions conference in St. Louis, Missouri, sponsored by InterVarsity Christian Fellowship (“InterVarsity”), primarily for college and graduate students.

[…][O]ne of the speakers prominently featured at Urbana was the “Rev.” Michelle Higgins. “Rev.” Higgins is the director of Faith for Justice, an advocacy group in St. Louis (she also serves as worship director at South City Church). Ms. Higgins is active in the #BlackLivesMatter movement in the St. Louis area.

[…]“Rev.” Higgins… described the pro-life movement as merely “a big spectacle.” In her remarks, she said:

We could end the adoption crisis tomorrow. But we’re too busy arguing to have abortion banned. We’re too busy arguing to defund Planned Parenthood. We are too busy withholding mercy from the living so that we might display a big spectacle of how much we want mercy to be shown to the unborn. Where is your mercy? What is your goal and only doing activism that is comfortable?

[…]Government statistics estimate that more than 16 million black babies have been murdered in the womb since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, a number quite a bit larger than the number of unarmed black men killed by police.

Not to mention the racist origins of Planned Parenthood, which was born out of the eugenics movement. Keep in mind that Christians are supposed to speak out against premarital sex, and for taking in unwanted children – that’s what the early church did. But at IVCF, we have women telling us that Planned Parenthood’s views on premarital sex and abortion are not to be challenged. The Bible is wrong, and Planned Parenthood is right. Because feelings.

Its often the case that the pro-abortion activists like to slander pro-lifers for not caring about women and not caring about children after they are born. But it’s not true of course, and you can read the reasons why in this Public Discourse post.

Campus Crusade, too

Previously, I wrote about how conservative professor Mike Adams is annoyed with Campus Crusade, let’s see why.

He wrote his first article to complain that campus clubs like Crusade don’t take stands on obvious moral issues like abortion.

He wrote:

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.

Here is the second article. He writes about how Crusade made a deal to remove Christian elements from a gathering in order to get government funding, then writes about this lady who stood up for free speech:

Subsequently, at the very school where Campus Crusade traded its religious freedom for student government funding, there was a lawsuit over a campus speech code. One of the plaintiffs was a fine Christian woman who fought to overturn a speech code that was being used to suppress conservative speech and which also posed a grave threat to religious organizations.

After she sued, homosexual groups erupted in anger – falsely claiming that she was defending “hate speech” by opposing the speech code. They defamed her, physically threatened her, and verbally abused her –all in the name of tolerance and diversity.

This time, Campus Crusade did not remain neutral. They weighed in. But, unbelievably, they weighed in against the Christian woman and in favor of those defending the speech codes.

This is the part I really think is important:

Right after these unfortunate events unfolded I became embroiled in my own First Amendment lawsuit. In part, because I stood in unity with Christians and defended them against illegal policies, I was denied a promotion at my school.

With the support of numerous Christian organizations, I eventually won the seven-year legal battle. Two Christian legal firms paid my legal bills and countless other Christian ministry and policy groups publicly backed me. But one Christian organization remained conspicuously silent. Of course, I am speaking of… the Crusade formerly named after Christ.

For seven long years I heard not a single word of public support from a single member of Campus Crusade. When I won the case, I was deluged with calls and emails and handwritten letters from Christian leaders all across America.

But I heard not a word from Campus Crusade for months in the wake of the verdict.

Then, in mid-July, the final terms of my settlement were reached. It was reported in the local news that I would get a raise and a check for back pay while may attorneys would get a sum of $615,000. On August 1, 2014, I received the check from the State of North Carolina. On August 2, just 24 hours later, one of the local directors for Campus Crusade wrote me the following:

“Hey Mike. I hope your summer is going well. Would you be interested in having coffee with me next week so I could talk to you about joining my ministry support team?”

After I received that audacious email, I searched through my archives and read every single email correspondence I had received from that director over the course of seven years. There was no offer of prayer support in any of those emails. Nor was there any mention of the legal ordeal I was going through. He simply ignored the suit until the terms of the settlement became public.

In other words, your ministry and its leaders were never interested in unity. They never offered support in public or even in private. They only sought to profit financially from those who win battles Campus Crusade chooses to avoid.

The reason I am linking to this is because I experienced this kind of behavior from IVCF and Campus Crusade as an undergraduate and later as a graduate student. They opposed the introduction of apologetics at every point, and they were both anxious to embrace the secular left, especially radical feminism, global warming alarmism, gay rights and socialism. It was depressing. If I were a student today, I’d head straight for the College Republicans and Ratio Christi if I wanted to get anything useful done. In fact, I started this blog partly as a way of discussing issues from a Christian point of view because I could not get anything done in IVCF and Campus Crusade.

I would not give money to IVCF or Crusade or any Christian missionary / relief organization  right now. I would only give to individual chapters of Ratio Christi, and then only for specific lectures or debates. You have to watch your money like a hawk, because a lot of these leftist Christian do-gooder organizations have no Christian worldview based in the Bible.

11 thoughts on “Are Campus Crusade and IVCF still Christian? Or are they just leftists?”

    1. I read the link. I guess I must be a leftist since I believe that fighting human trafficking is a good thing. I also think that helping women in the business world integrate faith and work is something that Jesus would approve of.

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  1. “more than 16 million black babies have been murdered in the womb since the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision of 1973, a number quite a bit larger than the number of unarmed black men killed by police.” Maybe we should start a movement: #Unborn Black lives matter!

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  2. Thanks for writing this Knight. I was part of IVCF during my time at college (the was no Ratio Christi). I was an immigrant there for school and developed many good relationships. Our leader was impactful in my walk with Christ. I even attend Urbana in 2000.

    I saddens me the way the toxic Social Justice causes (this particular brand of SocJus) has affected everything from tech to Christianity. The truth has been dropped in exchange for a feel-good or neutral message that produces nothing lasting.

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  3. Thank you for having the courage to write this article. I’ve been an IVCF supporter for over 20 years and donated tens of thousands to the organization. I even became a follower of Christ because of their ministry.

    However… I just learned of their involvement with the #blacklivesmatter at Urbana. I was so angry and broken-hearted that I’ve had trouble sleeping and concentrating at work. I’m still in shock that an organization I thought I knew would associate with such a toxic movement. Why??? Why would they do such a thing?? Your article and comments here have helped me see just how naive I’ve been. I’m ashamed to have supported them now.

    Beginning immediately I’m severing ties with them. I never thought that my favorite ministry would associate with a group that advocates the killing of police officers. My brother is a cop and is married to a cop’s widow (her husband was killed in the line of duty). What kind of witness is it to him that I support a “Christian” organization that invites a BLM speaker to Urbana. The Urbana worship team even wore BLM shirts which actually sold out during the conference. Shameful, naive, stupid, alienating, and a very poor witness. Goodbye IVCF. You are not who I thought you were.

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  4. Hi folks! I was “born & raised” in Cru-I came to know Christ as a college sophomore and grew so much in my faith through the ministry. While this post saddens me, and I can’t speak into all its nuances, I can personally testify that I came into college apathetic, unaware of my need for a Savior, and quite socially liberal.

    God used His word, fellow Cru students, and some solid staff disciplers to bring the gospel to a central place in my life, train me in how to share God’s truth with my peers, and help mold my social & political views to biblical standards. As a new Christian student, I volunteered at a local pregnancy care center, did an independent study on Christian apologetics, and had many fruitful interactions with my apathetic/spiritually blinded/socially liberal peers.

    My husband was greatly influenced by IVCF in college, and from what we’ve experienced and still see today as volunteers on our local campus, these ministries are on the front lines influencing the next generation of leaders with God’s truth. The topics this article touches on are truly complex, but I do know that gentleness & respect are a crucial part of our approach and interactions with non-Christians (1 Peter 3:15), and I often see these ministries embodying that.

    I share my experience to say that while regrettable & distressing, the stories shared here are by no means comprehensive pictures of two once-faithful ministries now “gone astray”…thank God!

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  5. Lack of theological training is causing many Christian denominations to turn to the Social Gospel ( read David Platt, Francis Chan,…). Most don’t have to training to fight those false teaching. To prevent false teachers from hijacking Christ into a social justice warrior I recommend going to older writings of more conservative branches of Christianity. Learning to properly distinguish the Law and Gospel (see Lutheran LCMS youtube, teachings…) is a great start – it should shield you from the guilt that some progressive Christians will try to apply to you. Next, consider reading about the “Doctrine of Vocation” read for example God at Work: Your Christian Vocation in All of Life Paperback by Gene Edward Veith Jr. Understanding there is a place for citizens, parents, spouses, workers, and a church members, will prevent Leftist losing from robbing your vocation. The fake notion that the higher calling of every christian is to be poor, do ministry work, do social work, seek suffering, must be opposed. We are at a turning point and remaining passive is no longer an option.

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