Most people know about the Campus Crusade for Christ, thanks to its passionate and somewhat zealous members. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a perfectly nice organization. The people are incredibly friendly, and they keep their religious messages fresh and modern to make them more accessible. But lately their ‘crusade’ to bring in new members has gone a little overboard… It might be time for an intervention.
Take me, for example. A non-religious student just walking to class. Imagine my surprise when member of Cru pop up and offer me a ‘free breakfast’! They handed me a Great Value granola bar and a juice box, with a little card with information about Cru in between. So I ate the bar, drank the juice, and tossed the card in the trash. And I did not attend Cru the following Monday.
So what was that little ruse meant to accomplish? They give people food as a subtle nudge in the side to come to their service, food which was probably purchased with allocated school funds anyway. I wouldn’t go so far as to say it was bribery, but most people would feel guilty accepting free treats and then not even bothering to go to the advertised service.
Some people would argue that it’s just a way to bring in new members and spread the word. Well…. Trust me. Everyone knows who you are since you plastered a mess of popular television faces on billboards all around campus telling us to attend. Which brings me to my second intervention-worthy offense: you used Barney Stinson as your poster boy!
I cannot even begin to describe how wrong that is. Barney Stinson is the epitome of everything your traditional Christian values speak out against. Remember the episode of How I Met Your Mother when he celebrated having slept with his 200th woman? That goes a bit past premarital sex. He has a playbook with countless strategies intended to deceive women into having sex with him, and then prides himself on kicking them out first thing in the morning. He makes countless references to threesomes, orgies, and practically lives in the strip club ‘The Lusty Leopard’. He claims to have been in a ten-way. He has violated just about every sexual taboo that fundamentalist Christianity preaches against, and you think it’s okay to use him on posters as a cheap gimmick to get more members?
That’s called selling out.
Now, remember, I have nothing against Cru. But this needs to stop. It is not your responsibility to go out and convert every student to Christianity. That is what a virus does, not a college organization. Which would you rather have? A large group of reluctant attendees who you either tricked or bribed to get there, or a smaller, tight-knit group of people seeking to share their religious experience with each other?
