I participated heavily in Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) activities while I was a student. I was briefly elected an officer of my campus student organization. In 1976 I went on a “Summer Project” to Honolulu, Hawaii. At the end of the summer, I went on a tour with some friends. We visited the Kalapapa Peninsula leper colony. There were still scores of patients with Hansen’s disease there at that time. Our guide had disfigured fingers, toes and ear lobes. And cloths between his fingers and toes. A miracle of faith to me was this: that Father Damian went to the leper colony knowing that he would not leave alive. I read the main points of Father Damian’s unwritten autobiography as our guide showed us around. The State of Hawaii recognized his Sainthood with its placement in 1969 of Father Damian’s statue into the National Statuary Hall Collection (located in US Capital House connecting corridor, first floor). The lepers still loved Father Damian because he loved them - and he loved them because Christ first loved him. Agape love. Father Damian is Blessed. Father Damian is two steps along (out of three). I browsed the Vatican web site to find Regina Coeli, 4 June 1995. Translating it using Altvista’s Babel Fish (Italian to English) shows (point 2) that Pope John Paul II declared “Gioisci for Damiano Father!” A seed was planted and has taken years for me to realize it. I think in older age (almost 50), a quietness and openness in my soul helps me to understand more.
Campus Crusade for Christ (CCC) is definitely a “sola scriptura” group, but Christian (not a heresy like Mormons, Jehovah’s Witnesses). Strictly speaking, college-age participants are not members of the organization. The CCC staff must raise their own financial support (same as many other similar groups).
They are very evangelistic. Sometimes to an extreme. But really I don’t think CCC wants the extremes – they are probably new CCC people who go a little overboard with too little training. Actually the evangelism is really the result of Christian discipleship in small groups. This may be hard to believe because some evangelistic outreaches get quite big. With CCC, the focus is really more on Christian discipleship. And it is very effective. Much of the teaching about sin is very close to what Catholics teach. We even learned a “Confession” (to write all our sins on a piece of paper, pray to ask God’s forgiveness, then to write out the words of 1 John 1:9 on the back and tear it up). Bill Bright died (last year I think). CCC has helped (with other Christian groups including Catholics and Orthodox) to bring change to many communist countries. So people are finding Jesus spiritually, but are not brought into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
Some of the best friends I made while participating were cradle Roman Catholics who left the Roman Catholic church. I am confident that CCC was a very good experience for even them. Just because you spend a lot of time in a garage doesn’t turn you into a car. I am waiting to go into RCIA this fall. Perhaps many of those friends may re-discover the Roman Catholic Church. On EWTN I saw a good show. You get gifts in the Church (Baptism, Confirmation), but you do need to open them up yourself and spend time growing closer to Jesus. As Paul exhorted Timothy, to stir up the gift (2 Timothy 1:6). I suppose the only RC who leave are those who haven’t found their gifts nor stirred them up while they were in the church.
Hebrews 12:6 “for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines; he scourges every son he acknowledges”. This is obviously happening in the Roman Catholic Church today, worldwide.
Maybe it will become more rare for Catholics to leave the Church someday (when more Churches are hot instead of luke warm).
At my university, the CCC was the largest chartered undergraduate student group. It was even larger than the student government group.
