Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America

8. Kingdoms at War

Kingdoms at War 8 Whether it was Josh McDowell speaking to university students , Senator Bill Armstrong speaking to a group of executives , or a staff member conducting a Bible study at a high school, Campus Crusade staff and associates regularly encouraged individuals to make a commitment to believe in and follow Jesus Christ. Yet Bill Bright dearly wanted to do more than evangelize individuals while watching the larger culture become less reflective of evangelical values. As Crusade continued to grow in size and stature, Bright and several others within the organization also focused their attention on evangelical solutions to the nation’s ills. Bright never resolved the tension between his evangelistic and custodial impulses. “I’ve never been involved in politics,” he told the Los Angeles Times in the mid-1990s, though he conceded that “some moral issues may look like politics.” “At various times,” comments former Senator Bill Armstrong, who was converted through the efforts of Crusade’s Christian Embassy, “he [Bright] was tempted to take a . . . public political profile.” According to Ron Jenson, who coauthored a book with Bright in 1986, “he always loved the foundation roots of the ministry . . . the win, build, send [philosophy of evangelism], but he knew that the ultimate battle was for the minds of men and women.” “We are at war!” Bright and Jenson announced in Kingdoms at War. “The battle lines are drawn—God’s kingdom of light, life and righteousness versus Satan’s kingdom of darkness, death and wickedness .” Although evangelical leaders concerned themselves with many aspects of this Manichaean conflict, such as the entertainment industry, their major concerns revolved around the institutions of government, education, and the family.1 [200] KINGDOMS AT WAR Many Sleepless Nights Bright was hopeful about the direction of the country during the Reagan administration. “I have no question,” he commented years later, “he [Reagan] knows Jesus.” In several ways, he participated in a minor revival of civil religion during the Reagan years. In 1982, Reagan signed legislation declaring 1983 the “Year of the Bible” in America, an initiative Bright suggested to the president shortly after his inauguration and that Bill Armstrong guided through the Senate. Bright recruited Catholic Cardinal John Krol, chancellor of the Jewish Theological Seminary of America Gerson Cohen, and the Pentecostal Thomas Zimmerman to serve as honorary vice presidents of the promotional activities surrounding the Year of the Bible. As part of the campaign, volunteer workers distributed a portion of the New Testament to Christian households and a portion of the Hebrew Scriptures to Jewish households. The proclamation, although congruent with Reagan’s religious sensibilities, was one of a myriad of largely symbolic measures that Reagan used to curry favor with the evangelical community.2 Bright, who had interpreted Reagan’s election as a sign of God’s answer to the Washington for Jesus rally, believed the Year of the Bible proclamation led to a restoration of God’s blessing on the United States. “Could God be hearing us and healing our land?” he asked, noting that shortly after the proclamation “our economy made a dramatic turnaround, employment rose, and inflation rates, crime rates and even divorce rates began to fall.” A few years later, Reagan responded to a campaign organized by Vonette Bright, chair of the National Day of Prayer taskforce, and designated the first Thursday in May an annual day of prayer. Furthermore, Bill Bright respected Reagan’s opposition to communism and commitment to a strong military defense. When a variety of left-leaning Christian leaders, from the antiwar veteran William Sloane Coffin to Jim Wallis, publicly opposed Reagan’s Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI, commonly known as Star Wars), Bright joined the Religious Coalition for a Moral Defense Policy. The coalition, which included Jerry Falwell, Tim LaHaye, Jimmy Swaggart , and Jim Bakker, endorsed SDI as a “morally and perhaps militarily superior policy.”3 DespitehissupportandadmirationforReagan,Brightremainedtroubled by the moral direction of American society. Like many religious conservatives , Bright blamed the entertainment industry for many of the nation’s ills, complaining of “a growing tide of antagonism toward Christianity KINGDOMS AT WAR [201] . . . in the movies, on television, in the press, in magazines, and in newspaper articles.” In 1988, many conservative Christians grew alarmed when Universal Pictures prepared to release Martin Scorsese’s The Last Temptation of Christ, an adaptation of a 1955 novel. The film’s opponents, including Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony, denounced the film’s portrayal of...