I don't believe Campus Crusade is a cult. Perhaps there are a few whacky branches out there due to the nature of their particular leaders and members. I went to CC meetings and was a roommate of several members at West Virgina University. Members generally have a strong faith in God, but I found them all to be pretty open minded. I openly drank beer in front of other members and dated a girl outside of the group. Another buddy of mine, also a CC member, had a girlfriend outside the group. Yet another member was studying biology and evolution at a graduate level and was fairly outspoken about the idea that creationism just didn't stand up to science. A lot of folks disagreed with him, but he was never told he was going to hell or kicked out of the group.

Mack knifed it. I know some people who attend CC at my local university and have never heard any strange comments, although that doesn't mean all CC's behave this way. I am a christian (no denomination) but I feel that 98% of CBN is utter trash (maybe even part of a huge AMWAY scheme :wink: ). There are many idiots giving a lot of religions a bad name (Benny... ahem... Hinn..). People interpret things differently all the time, just look at how many doctrines of Christianity there are. Lunaci might have experienced some wacko CC group which is why she feels strongly against them, and I personally believe that they are just a group giving CC a bad name.

TBN...

I can not definitively say whether or not CC is a cult or not. I can only attest to my personal experiences with it.

The teachings are sound at every CC event i've been to. I have not encountered many things taught that were off-base or far from the truth, although they may be a little biased towards the goals of the organization (numbers, numbers, numbers).

What bothers me is three things... how the staff interacts with the students, how the chain of mentors has so much control, and their evangelizing techniques.

The staff interacts with the students in a very weird way, but it's only weird from a subconscious level. When you talk to them, everything is fine and normal. But they subconsciously pressure you into joining staff or go on mission trips, but joining staff is the big one. They also subconsciously try and get you to "support" them financially. The raising support thing is a noble idea, but after hearing a support-raising presentation, i think it could be handled better. There is a huge push to join staff, so much so that i thought about it, then realized that it was definitely NOT what i wanted to do.

Another thing about joining staff... you can't marry anyone not on staff, and if you join staff and you're married, the spouse must join staff as well.

The chain of mentors is again a noble idea, but ends up exerting a significant amount of control over people, much like the Church in Indianapolis. Things can get really blown out of context, and sins exposed to everyone. I say sins can be exposed to everyone because someone finds out about someone doing something, tells their mentor, usually to "pray for them", their mentor tells their mentor, and then that mentor tells other mentorees, the mentorees tell their mentorees, and before you know it, the entire organization knows about something that probably wasn't a sin to begin with. I found out so many things about people i barely knew, that when i left, i felt horrible for being exposed to such gossip. It's almost like they thrive on that. One example, a friend of mine turned 21 and had one keg of beer at his apartment for his large party. He is responsible, and obviously was not underage. This got out through the chain of mentors, and all of a sudden he was having to talk to the leader of the group about it, and EVERYONE ended up finding out about what wasn't really a problem to begin with. They began using it as an example to younger underage students about the rules of drinking.

The third thing is the evangelism techniques. The "4 points" brochure again is sound, but subconsciously very freaky. When evangelizing, they really go for numbers, especially abroad. I actually remember being on a mission trip to a carribean island and at the end of the day, they collected all the slips of paper with the newly-saved-person's contact information (for "follow up"), and counted them. I believe it was 62 people that day. Everyone was praising God and calling it a success. Even i was, until i realized how horrible what i was doing was. It was more about getting people in the organization than saving them. The whole point of the follow up was not to get them involved in a church, but to get them involved in their local crusade.

It seems everyone that's involved in the group has tons of these 4 points brochures on them at all times. I have been a christian all my life and yet i've had dozens of people try and walk me through them. I've seen so many people get involved and burn in this organization, that it really can't be healthy for the people involved.

I was involved in Campus Crusade for Christ while a student at USC. They are very cult like in how they operate as some of the posts have mentioned. I was fortunate to escape, but it wasn't easy.

My advice, stay away from this cult.

I used to be a member of Campus Crusade for Christ when I was in College. I would consider them a cult. They put much pressure on you to attend and if you miss a meeting, they shame you and lay guilt trips on you. When I finally left, they basically told me I was going to hell and they would pray for me. Thank God I'm out of that cult.

Quote
lunaci
livinXsacrifice:

While you may think this group is not dangerous, I myself believe it is in a way. They absolutely did not want me hanging out with certain people because they were not in the group. And if I were to hang out with them, I was pressured to get them to come to meetings. I lost friendships because of this and it still bothers me to this day. I was told that if I didn't attend bible studies twice a week, go to church/meetings every Thursday and Sunday, etc that I would go to "hell".

Granted, I think it's fine to have religion and believe in Jesus, but I don't think that people's opinions and ideas should be pushed on others.

I am familiar with Campus Crusades. The way you describe their behavior is not at all what I am familiar with, and it is completetly apposed to what the bible teaches (at least as far as the going to hell if you don't come to bible study part is concerned, and pressuring you to witness to others.)

You should evangelize the lost, if you are a Christian.
But you should not be forced to do so.

You should change the people you hang out with, if they are a negative influence on your Christian walk.
But you should decide to do so, not be forced to do so.

You should go to bible studies.
You should not be forced to, and threatened with hell if you don't.


If what you say is really true, those people are WAAAAYY out of line, according to the bible, and even according to what CCCI stands for. I wouldn't condemn the organization because of a bad group or two. There are many groups worldwide, and I know for a fact that they are not all like the one you were part of.


God doesn't force or pressure anyone to do anything. Neither should Christians.


If you want to see what Campus Crusade really is supposed to stand for, you can visit this site:
[www.ccci.org]

I was involved in CCC in the 80s at college in one of the New England states. I had a mixed experience with them. After nearly 20 years to think about it, my feeling is that CCC can be cultic, depending on the leadership at any given point, but isn't necessarily. I would not classify the CCC at my campus at that time as a cult.

CCC campus leaders are not stationary. They move about every 4 years or so to some place else and someone else moves in to take their place and one may be more culticly inclined than another. CCC has such a broad appeal to people from such a wide range of doctrinal views and experiences that it is impossible for them to adequately screen each staffer and not all staff are created equal, as it were. Many do not really have any idea what they are doing. They are products of CCC's cookie cutter discipling program (which most likely began for these staffers when they were students themselves) that is wholly inadequate to prepare them for life as ministers/missionaries. IMO, many on staff that I met in my time are unqualified and no more useful for their chosen purpose than a fish on a bicycle.

At my campus there was a discernible preference for students who demonstrated either leadership or evangelism as their spiritual gifts. They got even more red carpet treatment if they had both. Everyone else was less important, though not completely ignored.

However, one of my chief complaints about CCC is that they fail to minister to the whole person on a spiritual level. They deal only with evangelism and training in evangelism and the student is strongly encouraged to be heavily involved in that pursuit. This can distract the students away from such things as pursuing their studies, defining a course in life, and other important reasons for being at college in the first place. CCC becomes not so much a part of a student's college experience but the focus of it. This is not discouraged by CCC.

My experience showed the staff I dealt with to be completely incompetent to deal with any issues a student may have such as emotional damage or other serious issues that will severely curtail his or her ability to make sound choices, spiritual or otherwise. If you want or need anything more than how to share the gospel, you better look elsewhere as you will probably not get it with CCC and are likely to get hurt in the process. At least, that was my experience.

However, having said all that, they do have a good program for learning how to share the gospel.

This organization asked me to pay 43,000 dollars to spend 12 months in Italy for a "mission trip". When I said that I didn't have a job and I couldn't afford such an expensive trip, they scolded me because "I wasn't trusting God" and "I would go to hell". Also, "God was offering me a job" and "I was refusing it". It seemed to me that this "mission trip" was actually a long vacation, as it included excursions to Rome, Florence, Venice, Sicily and the Mediterranean sea. I told them that I preferred to volunteer in a prison, in a hospital, or among the poor. I could do that even in my area and there was no need to go to a tourist spot overseas. Again, I was "following Satan" instead of "listening to God". I was about to give in, and asked them how I should raise almost 50,000 dollars. They replied that I had to pray all the time, but most importantly I had to ask my relatives and acquaintances to pay a monthly fee to the organization. It looked like a huge pyramid scheme. I got upset and said that I wasn't going to rip off my relatives. After I left the organization, they continued to call me and sending me emails. In the end, I changed my cell phone number and my email address.

On the whole, I believe this is the most dangerous cult I have ever known in my life. It is all about money and exploitation of personal relationships to recruit new members.

Quote
golfer6716
My advice, stay away from this cult.

I totally agree.