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

3. Sibling Rivalries

Sibling Rivalries 3 At the 1943 convention of the National Association of Evangelicals , Harold Ockenga asserted that “the United States of America has been assigned a destiny comparable to that of ancient Israel.” Evangelicals recognized that in order to fulfill that destiny, they needed to reassert their position of leadership in American society. “It is not boasting,” William Ward Ayer had maintained at the NAE’s 1942 organizing meeting, “to declare that evangelical Christianity has the America of our fathers to save.” The founders of the NAE believed Bible-believing Christians could not “save” America unless they put aside theological and ecclesiastical infighting and united behind the cause of evangelism. By the 1950s, Billy Graham had achieved international fame, evangelistic success, and invitations to the White House. Moreover, evangelicals had founded a host of thriving parachurch organizations, including Youth for Christ, World Vision, and Campus Crusade for Christ. “The future . . . ,” predicted Baptist theologian Vernon Grounds in 1956, “is bright for the evangelical cause if somehow it can counteract its fissiparous tendencies.” In part because of those self-destructive tendencies, however, evangelicals did not achieve significant cultural or political influence until the mid-1970s. During the 1950sandearly1960s,CampusCrusadeconfrontedseveralintraevangelical fissures, including parachurch competition on the campus, the clash between fundamentalists and evangelicals, and the uneasy relationship of evangelicals with Pentecostal and charismatic Christians. Bill Bright’s navigation of those controversies sheds light on the bitter divisions among conservative Protestants in America and also illuminates Crusade’s early theology, methodology, and spirituality.1 [70] SIBLING RIVALRIES Open Competitors Campus Crusade’s early years were successful enough that other university ministries, most notably Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship (IVCF), observed Crusade’s rapid growth with great interest. IVCF had expanded from its roots in Great Britain to Canada and the United States in the late 1920s and 1930s, as the precipitous decline of both the YMCA and the Student Volunteer Movement created an opening for a new evangelical campus ministry. IVCF reasserted evangelical verities, including the inspiration of Scripture, the deity of Christ, and his vicarious sacrifice. Given the movement’s British background, however, IVCF was further removed than Crusade from the subculture of American fundamentalism and more interested in helping students approach Christianity from intellectual and academic perspectives. IVCF grew quickly during the 1940s and established chapters on many large American universities in the West, Midwest, and Northeast. Under the leadership of C. Stacey Woods, IVCF balanced a variety of objectives: evangelism, discipleship, apologetics, and leadership training. Evangelism and missions, however, were paramount among IVCF’s early priorities. The organization declared the academic year 1950–51 “The Year of Evangelism” and brought evangelistic speakers—including Billy Graham—to campuses across the country. In 1951, Inter-Varsity attracted sixteen hundred collegians to its triennial foreign missions conference at the University of Illinois–Urbana.2 Since Inter-Varsity was active at both UCLA and USC, the established IVCF chapters took careful note of Crusade’s well-publicized results. According to Bright’s later recollection, some IVCF students “joined us on evangelistic team meetings in local fraternities, sororities, and dormitories, with the thought that they would make contacts and bring into their fellowship the students who responded to the gospel and help follow them up.” Bright in turn was impressed by an evangelistic campaign that IVCF organized at USC, which included lectures as well as meetings in fraternity houses. However, a “terrific clash” occurred between Bright and Mel Friesen, the IVCF staff member at USC. Many years later, Bright wrote that “the students associated with Inter-Varsity were soon asked by their local director not to be involved with us” because he “felt that we were competitive.” Moreover, he explained that this lack of cooperation “forced us into a totally different posture” and caused Crusade to begin its own “follow-up work.” The clash between Friesen and Bright set the tone for subsequent interactions.3 In the spring of 1951, Stacey Woods and Bright tried to establish a more SIBLING RIVALRIES [71] positive relationship. After Bright visited Woods’s home in Geneva, Illinois , Woods reported that he found Bright a “smooth operator” but a “charming person.” Furthermore, he optimistically suggested that “the difficulty between Mel [Friesen] and Bill Bright is not necessarily . . . a national difficulty or a difficulty that will apply to all Inter-Varsity staff, but may have something to do with Mel himself.” Woods predicted that Bright “will make a big impression across...