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

John G Turner (Author), Photos (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 6, 2008

Founded as a local college ministry in 1951, Campus Crusade for Christ has become one of the world's largest evangelical organizations, today boasting an annual budget of more than $500 million. Nondenominational organizations like Campus Crusade account for much of modern evangelicalism's dynamism and adaptation to mainstream American culture. Despite the importance of these "parachurch" organizations, says John Turner, historians have largely ignored them.

Turner offers an accessible and colorful history of Campus Crusade and its founder, Bill Bright, whose marketing and fund-raising acumen transformed the organization into an international evangelical empire. Drawing on archival materials and more than one hundred interviews, Turner challenges the dominant narrative of the secularization of higher education, demonstrating how Campus Crusade helped reestablish evangelical Christianity as a visible subculture on American campuses. Beyond the campus, Bright expanded evangelicalism's influence in the worlds of business and politics. As Turner demonstrates, the story of Campus Crusade reflects the halting movement of evangelicalism into mainstream American society: its awkward marriage with conservative politics, its hesitancy over gender roles and sexuality, and its growing affluence.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A familiar presence at universities, Campus Crusade for Christ exemplifies for historian Turner the type of nondenominational parachurch organization that has contributed to the surge of evangelicals' political and social influence since the mid-1970s. Bill Bright founded Campus Crusade, focused chiefly on evangelism, at UCLA in 1951; in his 50 years as president he turned it into a worldwide organization. Turner, a professor of American history at the University of South Alabama, uses Bright's story to dig into the early postwar roots of evangelicalism, including its ties to conservatives, anticommunism, use of sales techniques, painful split from fundamentalism, ambivalence towardcharismatic Christians and unresolved tensions with mainstream American culture. Most interesting are the influence of Henrietta Mears, director of Christian education at the First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood, on Bright's generation of evangelicals, and Campus Crusade's counteractivism at Berkeley in the 1960s. By the end of the book, Bright remains an enigma, but Turner's chronological account is a thought-provoking glimpse into the trajectory of modern evangelicalism as it moved toward its current involvement in national politics, opposition to abortion and gay marriage, and explosive growth in developing countries. (Apr.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Review

"A useful supplement for courses on American Christianity. . . . We need more books like Turner's to deepen our understanding."
--Church History

"Sheds new light on the past half-century of religious life in the United States, and the author is to be commended for developing the history without becoming either defender or mocker of the subject. . . . Exceptionally well done . . . it deserves a wide audience of professional and amateur historians alike."
--Maryland Historical Magazine

"Anyone who wants to understand modern American evangelicalism and its impact on the nation's culture and politics will find Turner's book informative and rewarding."
—Georgia Historical Quarterly

"[An] important, well-written, and thoroughly researched book. . . . Highly recommended."
— Choice

"[An] intelligently contextualized biography. . . . Turner has done a wonderful job of bringing Bill Bright out of the shadow of Billy Graham and thereby greatly enhancing our understanding of the new evangelicalism."
— The Journal of American History

"Crisply written and well-crafted. . . . An important contribution to a new generation of evangelical historiography."
— Journal of Southern History

"A meticulous and well-documented account of Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ. . . . Invaluable for investigating the history of this organization."
— Library Journal

A thought-provoking glimpse into the trajectory of modern evangelicalism.

—Publishers Weekly

"Turner nicely captures the animosity of mainline Protestant campus ministries."
— Books & Culture

This work is invaluable for investigating the history of this organization.
—Library Journal

Turner's deeply researched narrative belongs on the shelf of anyone thinking and writing about evangelicalism in the public square. . . . Indispensable.—Christianity Today

[A]n important contribution to the study of American evangelicalism, filling a large gap in the current literature.
—Jason C. Bivins, North Carolina State University

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press; First Edition (US) First Printing edition (March 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807858730
• ISBN-13: 978-0807858738
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,088,098 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, Fair, Balanced, Historical, April 1, 2008

By 

Daniel D. Sweet "PastorTheologianWannabe" (Dallas, TX) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America (Paperback)

This work on Bill Bright and the historical survey of Campus Crusade for Christ reflects a fair and balanced and historically accurate account of this important evangelical personality and movement. Much of the inner workings of the early years are explored in vivid detail. The battle between fundamentalism and evangelicalism pits Bill Graham against Bob Jones University. Bill Bright is forced to choice sides. This crisis moment, one of many throughout the history of this organization, is perfecftly set by the author in the crucible of the early emergence of evangelicalism. Though the book is about CCC and Bill Bright, it is properly subtitled "The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America" for in this work the reader catches the continual struggles, victories and setbacks for CCC as a microcosm of the entire movement, especially for parachurch organizations. Some of the historical narative in this work follows closely other biographies on Bill Bright. But this is the first histography to actually disclose both the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, with balance and objective historicity. Other biographical works have function as propoganda for CCC (Amazing Faith, I Found It). On the flip side, articles from Protestant liberal magazines on one end and fundamentalist (hear Bob Jones University Press) on the other end, have both presented Bill Bright as the antichrist, a tyrannt and heretic. Nice balance, good understanding of the 50s, 60s and 70s, allowing the reader, even if from more recent birth, to put their minds around the times. As the evangelical 70s receives appropriate historical evaluation, this work will serve as a model approach to the individuals and the organizations that comprise evangelicalism.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating and thorough history of Bill Bright and Campus Crusade, September 27, 2009

By 

Jeff A. Stucker "Jeff A. Stucker" (Eagle, ID United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America (Paperback)

As someone who was involved in Campus Crusade for Christ as a student in the 1980's and graduated from the now-defunct International School of Theology (a CCC school) in the 1990's, I eagerly read this history, in large part to understand the background to my own personal history.

This book does not disappoint. It is much more thorough than I could have imagined, while also having a sense of drama throughout.

John Turner adeptly weaves the story of Bill Bright and CCC with that of the burgeoning evangelical movement (including Billy Graham, Henrietta Mears, and countless other well-known figures -- yes they're all connected). At 238 pages of dense details, and another 50 pages of notes, bibliography, and index, this book walks the tight line between scholarly and popular history. Each chapter captures the theme of a segment of history, from the evangelical-fundamentalist split in post war America, to the ongoing relationship between evangelism and anti-communism, to the rise of the religious right.

Throughout the book, Turner highlights the innovations and controversy spawned by Bright and his organization -- innovations that changed the landscape of Christian evangelism and evangelicalism. Each of these innovations were highly controversial at their onset but have become familiar over time: the concise summary of the gospel in the "Four Spiritual Laws", the bold use of mass media in Here's Life, America and the Jesus film, and the never-seen-at-this-level fundraising success of individual staff members raising their own support money (each campus or international missionary soliciting their livelihood from friends family and personal business contacts).

Turner (who describes himself as an "outsider" and occupying "the religious space between mainline and evangelical Protestantism") goes into detail to expose the sometimes dramatic failures and growth of Bright and his organization over time. He covers details of conflicts and controversies including deeply personal theological rifts and business failures, things that you won't find in an inside job or apologetic history. Yet fairly gives credit where credit is due, the book also highlights Bright's role as elder statesman in the last decades of his life, and his notable reconciliation with nearly all of his estranged colleagues and religious rivals.

Of particular interest to Turner, and a prominent theme throughout this book, is the tension between "saving souls" and "saving America". It is clearly shown how Campus Crusade for Christ and its many subsidiary organizations had a role in the emergence of the religious right, and the growing influence of conservative evangelicals in American politics, as they burst onto the scene from 1976 to 1980 and beyond. Despite Bright's deep fears of communism and concern for the declining moral climate in America, he never fully embraced a partisan role in American politics; each time he was ready to cross the line too far into politics, it always threatened to derail his first commitment, leading people to Christ. As anyone with even the most cursory familiarity with Campus Crusade and Bill Bright knows, it is this passionate commitment to sharing the gospel with as many people as possible that drove Bill Bright and his ministry.

Despite decades of success in mobilizing evangelistic activity, the failure to truly change the university climate or the broader American culture weighed heavily. However, at the end of his life Bright found himself not committing more deeply to politics, but to prayer, cooperation and reconciliation among evangelical Christians of all kinds, including those who decades before would never have worked together -- whites, minorities, pentecostals, Catholics, conservatives and sometimes even liberals, as long as they held to the primacy of Scripture, personal commitment Christ and the importance of evangelism.

Turner captures the cultural and personal themes behind the incredible growth of a movement, and ties them to modern historical themes ranging from politics to gender issues. Bright's confidence and optimism, sometimes too confident and too optimistic, dovetailed perfectly with the growing self-awareness of evangelicalism and its willingness to fully engage with the culture. That powerful combination is captured clearly in this fine work.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fair and balanced, August 3, 2010

By 

Jan Davis "INmidwife" (West Lafayette, IN) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Bill Bright and Campus Crusade for Christ: The Renewal of Evangelicalism in Postwar America (Hardcover)

As a former, 13 years, CCC staff member and subsequent investor in many CCC projects, Turner does a thorough job exploring and explaining the people and forces that formed Bill Bright and the ministry of CCC. Bill Bright's growth as a man and as a follower of Christ is carefully developed while not ignoring his feet of clay. The book was helpful to my understanding my own history. This is a good read for those interested in the history of CCC.