Campus Crusade for Christ (Revisted)

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christianitytoday.com/ct/2005/may/13.34.html
The Pope We Never Knew
The unknown story of how John Paul II ushered Campus Crusade into Catholic Poland.
so the point is he worked with protestants? he also met with rabbis and was even allowed into communist cuba to speak. he was known to work with alot of people. im just surprised the evangelical protestants would work with him. weve tried to get them on board with 40 days for life, which by the way is not a Catholic movement, but all the protestants we ran into, couldnt see past our affiliation. they wouldnt pray with us. hopefully this changes. i even went so far as to enlist the Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints. didnt join that year, but they were kinda shocked that any one would ask. lol! hopefully this changes. especially when it comes to the rights of the unborn, and the defence of marraige. i think we can work together on these issues. Peace 🙂
 
I spent 4 years in college in the Navigators on a campus that also included CCC and InterVarsity. (The Navs generally considered themselves the Marine Corp, IV to be the Army and CCC the Air Force - you military guys know where I’m coming from here)

First, part of the problem here, as usual, is definition. If you define “anti-catholic” as someone who doesn’t hold to catholic beliefs, holds some beliefs in contradiction to catholic teaching and actively promotes those beliefs to whomever they come across, then sure CCC is “anti-catholic” as are the other two.

Myself, I think that is a poor, and whiny definition of “anti-catholic.” To me, the terms means a person or group that tells lies or distortions about the catholic church or at the very least attempts to portray catholic beliefs in as unfavorable a light as possible. No way does CCC meet that definition. Cut them some slack, we can’t expect them to kowtow to us!

All that said, I don’t recommend catholics belong to such groups if at all possible to avoid. At best, there is a tremendous unspoken quiet pressure to abandon all your “peculiarly catholic” beliefs in favor of the evangelical protestant principles taught by the leaders in bible study and presentations. At best, they may back off and acknowledge a difference of opinion if you call them on it, but why put up with that? In my Nav group, my girlfriend and i were the only catholic survivors by graduation. The others all de-poped. Did they go from borderline levels of faith to greater committment and enthusiasm in evangelicaldom? yes. Will it last or did they trade in the steady slow grace of the sacraments for a flash in the pan of enthusiasm that eventually will wane and leave them with nothing? I don’t know. But I DO know that Nav leadership was EXTREMELY concerned with the long term faith burnout rate among their alumni. At the time, something like 45% of alum no longer were active in their faith 10 years after graduation (defined by them as church-involved, regular prayer life, regular bible reading).

Catholic students are better off picking a school with FOCUS on campus or a GOOD Newmann Center
 
Originally Posted by La Chiara
Why is it that these evangelical organizations are not up front about what they are? Why don’t they call themselves “Protestant, or evangelical”? Instead they call themselves “Christian” or “non-denominational Christian”. I submit this misrepresentation is intentional in order to confuse and to lure Catholics and other denominational Protestants in. Mormons also do this–the first thing they do is talk to you about how they are the “Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints”, emphasizing the Jesus Christ. I seems to me that every Catholic organization is always up front about the fact that it is Catholic. I am not suggesting that Catholics should play the same game. But it makes me crazy how these evangelical, fundamentalist Protestant organizations are always purposely evasive about what they are. That goes for, Campus Crusade for Christ, Young Life, Navigators, Intervarsity Christian Fellowship, etc. And furthermore, where do they get off staking claim to the term “Christian” as if they are Christian and Catholics are not! As in “I am Christian”. Well, I am too, a Catholic Christian, a member of the one true church of Christ!
I guess that the aim of this organization is to reach souls, to proclaim the gospel. I guess this organization calls itself Christian because they want all the help that it is available, this is something we all as fellow Christians must do together. If anything this will be an activity that will help you in your walk with Christ.

From personal experience most of the Catholics that convert to Evangelical, happen because they simply lack God in their lives, they were poorly catechized, there are many Catholic churches in the USA that really aren’t "Catholic"and for that sense “not Christian” and are acknowledge as Catholic .

Many Catholics are just Catholics because of their parents and end up converting because local Catholic churches aren’t doing their job right (as well as their parents not giving a good example of how to live like Christ).

The peace of Christ be upon us, in Jesus name, In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit (for my Catholic brethren 👍 ), Amen.
 
From personal experience most of the Catholics that convert to Evangelical, happen because they simply lack God in their lives, they were poorly catechized, there are many Catholic churches in the USA that really aren’t "Catholic"and for that sense “not Christian” and are acknowledge as Catholic .
The right thing to do is to bring them closer to the Catholic Church, not to make them Protestant. There are evangelicals who think that no one can find God in the Catholic Church, and they also think that these people don’t have a close relationship with God because they’re Catholic… and that’s not true. They can in fact find a closer relationship with God through the Sacraments, and it’s sad when organizations like Campus Crusade draw people away from this and teach them ideas that Christians never believed till 200 years ago (symbolic Communion, once saves always saved, etc).
 
All that said, I don’t recommend catholics belong to such groups if at all possible to avoid. At best, there is a tremendous unspoken quiet pressure to abandon all your “peculiarly catholic” beliefs in favor of the evangelical protestant principles taught by the leaders in bible study and presentations. At best, they may back off and acknowledge a difference of opinion if you call them on it, but why put up with that? In my Nav group, my girlfriend and i were the only catholic survivors by graduation. The others all de-poped. Did they go from borderline levels of faith to greater committment and enthusiasm in evangelicaldom? yes. Will it last or did they trade in the steady slow grace of the sacraments for a flash in the pan of enthusiasm that eventually will wane and leave them with nothing? I don’t know. But I DO know that Nav leadership was EXTREMELY concerned with the long term faith burnout rate among their alumni. At the time, something like 45% of alum no longer were active in their faith 10 years after graduation (defined by them as church-involved, regular prayer life, regular bible reading).

Catholic students are better off picking a school with FOCUS on campus or a GOOD Newmann Center
Ohio Wesleyan University (where I attended for two and a half years) fought for YEARS to keep CCC off campus. Then, the year before I started, a new president was elected and the first thing he did was allow CCC onto campus. In a show of fellowship, the long-established Newman group attended their meetings. By the time I came to campus a year later, the Newman group had maybe ten members while CCC had something between thirty and fifty, and continued to grow. My best friend’s roommate was a member of CCC and managed to convince us both to come. When they started talking about “federal headship” I said “Oh, you mean like Original Sin?” and was quietly told how the two are vastly different and how the former is more important to understand because it explains our deep personal relationship with Jesus. Over the next month or so, I became increasingly irritated with the CCC because every meeting seemed to address a point of Catholic doctrine and then attack it. I could never truly call them out on it because they never used the names of the doctrine or addressed them as Catholic, specifically. But the Newman group learned the year before that CCC is dangerous for Catholics and had completely pulled out of any cooperation with them. My best friend and I stopped attending and started having to fend off all the “Christians” with good intentions that continued to harass us after.

No matter the intentions of CCC, they are inherently dangerous to any Catholic on a college campus. I also believe I have read somewhere that CCC is on the FBI’s list of cults…I will look that up and see if I can find it to post here. There is definitely an intense pressure within CCC to give up any theology you go into the group with. They do not teach “what unifies Christians” they teach their own brand of evangelical fundamentalist sola scriptura theology and they expect you to adopt it or leave. And even when you leave they aren’t done with you because they send their membership after you to continue to try and bring you back.
 
And even when you leave they aren’t done with you because they send their membership after you to continue to try and bring you back.
From my experience, this would be extreme–an exception, not the rule. I was on full-time staff with Campus Crusade for a couple years–before that I was heavily involved with the organization as a student on Campus–led “Action Groups” went on summer beach projects, etc etc. No one ever tried to bring me back when I left and I never saw that type of behavior in any of the people I knew in the organization…

My feelings today about the organization are a little ambivalent…but I think if you met most people who are on staff with CCC you would think that they are strong Christians who love Jesus Christ and want to follow Him wherever He leads. Ironically, paradoxically, it was that kind of mindset, inculcated in me from my days in CCC that finally convinced me that I had to become Catholic–I knew Christ was calling me into the Catholic Church, and I had to obey–no matter what the fallout–and believe me, there is fallout when a strongly formed evangelical converts to Catholicism–it just isn’t supposed to happen…

With regard to the dilemma of the OP, it’s a tuffy. These aren’t Satan worshippers we are talking about here–these are brothers and sisters in Christ who love Jesus and want to bring Jesus to the world around them. HOWEVER, I would hesitate to recommend that a Catholic participate in any of their conferences or activities–UNLESS that Catholic is already strongly rooted in his/her own Catholic faith…I’ve seen too many uncatechized Catholics leave the church when they innocently get caught up in the enthusiasm of the evangelical mindset…(of course a lot of those later become reverts ;))

One thing that evangelicals do well–groups like CCC–is that they try to engage the culture with the gospel at the level of “felt needs” --Catholics at the parish level could learn a few things from our evangelical brothers and sisters in this regard-- I know there are Catholic alternatives to an evangelical seminar on marriage–maybe someone on the board can suggest those alternatives to the OP…
 
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