(LifeSiteNews) — A worldwide Christian campus organization, Cru (formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ) began last fall to train its staff to practice “pronoun hospitality.” When two longtime staffers objected on biblical grounds to what they were being directed to do, eventually going public with the dispute, they were fired.
Begun in 1951, Cru boasts a massive presence on college campuses in the United States and around the globe. The interdenominational Christian group, which seeks to evangelize students, operates on 2,300 campuses and reportedly reaches over 100,000 students nationwide.
After undergoing Cru’s new mandated sexuality training program last fall, Uriah and Marissa Mundell – who are married with five children and have both worked for Cru for 23 years – were deeply troubled by the dichotomy between Cru’s tradition of adherence to biblical teachings and what they were now being asked to do.
They sensed that when it comes to sexuality and gender, Cru was drifting away from teaching rooted in the Bible.
“When he told his supervisor he couldn’t support ‘pronoun hospitality’ – using a person’s preferred pronouns as a presumed expression of Christian compassion – the supervisor said Uriah wasn’t being winsome,” according to a World Magazine report by Mary Jackson.
The couple, uneasy about what they were being asked to do, eventually took their story public. That likely became the pretext for their dismissal two weeks later in early March, but the underlying controversy still remains.
Since then, Cru has reportedly “tweaked” its training materials.
The firing of the Mundells calls attention to an emerging bifurcation within much of Protestantism concerning sexuality and the importance of complementarity.
Jackson says that the “growing divide over the theology of sexual brokenness threatens to tear evangelical institutions apart.”
She explains:
Cru’s attempt to fix its messaging sheds light on the ways evangelical ministries and leaders are being challenged to clarify their positions on myriad hot-button issues surrounding sexuality and gender.
On one side are those who believe Christians can embrace some, if not all, cultural sexual norms.
On the other: those who believe the Bible leaves no wiggle room when it comes to creation’s male-female dichotomy, that same-sex attraction has its roots in the sinful flesh, and that through repentance, all sexual brokenness can be overcome in the Savior.
Upon hearing of the Mundells’ story, Tom Gilson, who with his wife served as staff members and leaders for Campus Crusade for Christ for 34 years, believes the organization’s present leaders are “making decisions that are bound to lead to its downfall” and have allowed Jesus’ “way, His word, and His truth slip silently to second place.”
In a commentary published at The Stream, Gilson wrote:
The same Great Commission that is so central to Cru’s mission and identity includes His instruction to “teach all I have commanded you.” Surely that includes His example of truth, and His teaching on holding fast to it!
It appears very much to me now that Cru has let go of that.
The hard messages of the Gospel are not “seeker-unfriendly” and off-putting as many insist today. In fact, it’s the hard teachings of the Gospel that serve as a bright beacon of light for those trapped in the mire of sexual sin and confusion.
Ryan T. Anderson has pointed out Christianity’s countercultural truth-telling about marriage and sexuality “makes the Church’s claims about supernatural truth more, not less, credible.”
“If the Gospel and Jesus are not powerful enough to redeem people to complete wholeness and freedom, then we sell a cheapened gospel to this population,” Marissa Mundell told journalist Jackson. “It matters because our kids are watching … and because this next generation is being bombarded with false teaching and lies surrounding gender and sexuality.”