Campus Crusade for Christ will officially have a new name in 2012. At a recent meeting, the 60 year old organization, founded by Bill and Vonnette Bright (he of the trite and unbiblical Four Spiritual Laws), agreed to change the name for the U.S. ministries to Cru. Yeah, Cru. As in where wine comes from or the quality of the vineyard in a French wine classification system. Campus Crusade claims that God inspired this name change, but French winemakers have reacted with outrage. Actually, they didn't give a shit, but FoxNews did.
FoxNews, ever the tireless advocate for Jesus in all His manifestations—Christmas Jesus, Republican Jesus, and American Jesus—quickly cobbled together a news story with a lede that will hopefully make politically conservative Christians realize what a bunch of lying douchebag asshats these people are.
One of the nation’s most prominent Christian ministries has decided to take Christ out of its name – a move that has generated cries of political correctness from within the evangelical community.
The whole story is here if you can stand it. Please note that Fox "reported" Campus Crusade was taking "Christ out of its name," not changing its name. Already the language is front-loaded with bias. Where have I heard language like that before? Hmm...
Yeah, that's it. FoxNews and their annual war on Christmas bullshit. FoxNews doesn't really care about Jesus, nor do they really care about Christianity; they care about a politically conservative demographic that ostensibly cares about Jesus and Christianity, but watching (and believing) the nonsense of FoxNews really calls any Christian commitment into question. Yeah, I said it. This is pandering, impure and simple.
Please also note that FoxNews said the move has "generated cries of political correctness from within the evangelical community." Two of those "cries" were from anonymous commenters on the Campus Crusade web site. The third was from the famous evangelical leader Richard Hornsby...maybe Nick's brother? No? Hmm...a pastor? Um, no again? Who the fuck is he? Fox explains where they located this expert source:
Hornsby was actively involved with Campus Crusade at The Ohio State University when he was a college student.
Involved? He banged a couple chicks he met at a Cru get together? Oh, that's the other Crue, sorry. Still, involved is never explained. Hornsby comments on the name change with unsurprising banality:
“I immediately thought of Paul’s letter to the Romans, ‘I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ,’” he said. “It may be that CCCI has good intentions behind the change, but on its face, this decision to drop ‘Christ’ seems like an attempt to hide or mask the core identity of the group.”
To equate a name change with being ashamed of the Gospel is so trite and stupid it's almost not worth commenting, except that Fox used this simpleton as an example of how outraged "evangelicals" are. Here's the thing, Fox, it's always better to figure out someone is a Christian because he acts like one, not because his organization's name says he is. For example, how's the World Church of the Creator treating you these days? Surely they're good deists in the vein of Jefferson, right? Religion reporting is nearly always bad, but willful ignorance and an evil agenda make it even harder to get to the bottom of what's actually happened.
The name is bad. I'll say it. It's a goofy name. They chose it in part because it's been used on college campuses for quite some time to refer to the ministries, but I assure you, I don't want to hear people shorten words in that way that is often confused with cool, especially by college and high school students. Whatev...loser. Ultimately, I'll just make fun of my friends who are involved in the organization, probably making at least the occasional Motley Crue joke, as teetotalers are unimpressed by the wine jokes (but I think that Nazarene winebibber would love them). One person present at the Ft. Collins, Colo., meeting told me that the wine angle was never mentioned in the meetings. In other shocking news, no Southern Baptists at the last general convention received a handjob on the floor during general session.
The Fox thing is pretty damn funny.
Having had a decent amount of involvement with the organization during undergrad, it was really a question of when, not if, the name would change to "Cru" from "CCfC". Crusade is a word that not only no longer appeals to most university culture anymore, but is almost always received with negative connotation.
Posted by: Trevor Palen | July 25, 2011 at 02:59 PM
I was just going to mention that. "Cru" is very cheesy, and I would be embarrassed to be involved with it regardless of its activities, but it is much better than anything with the word "Crusade" in the title.
Posted by: Leighton | July 25, 2011 at 03:11 PM
...And the paranoid part of me wonders whether Fox's angle is really that management is upset at "Crusade" being taken out of the name, given how much the Murdoch family has invested in military contractors.
Posted by: Leighton | July 25, 2011 at 03:11 PM
I want to like or +1 Leighton`s second comment.
Posted by: Jason | July 25, 2011 at 08:10 PM