Uncovering Cru: Exploring the heavy toll the campus Christian ministry group takes on its members
Rebecca Carey likes to joke she was born on the church’s back pew.
Carey grew up in a Southern Baptist household in the Bible belt of Texas, where Christianity was considered the default belief system.
Carey, who uses they/she pronouns, started questioning their sexuality in high school. “That got shut down really quick,” they said, because being gay in her small town meant you weren’t a Christian, and not being a Christian would “get you bullied.”
Carey’s family started attending a non-denominational evangelical church around the same time period. She enrolled at the University of Texas at San Antonio in 2015 and in her fall semester began attending meetings of the campus’s largest evangelical group, Cru.
Joining Cru felt like a natural continuation of their faith journey. Looking back years later, Carey said it’s taken time and therapy to be able to talk about what they experienced in Cru without bitterness.
Carey’s not alone. Interviews with over 30 former members suggest Cru’s ministry has resulted in devastating harm to involved students. The following series of articles highlight key findings based on interviews with ex-Cru members, documents supplied by former members, and extensive outside research.
Today, Cru has an active presence on over 5,300 campuses worldwide. It made Forbes’ list of the top 25 largest U.S. nonprofits in 2020, and the following year brought in over $750 million in total revenue, according to the organization’s annual report.
Cru raises additional funds via a variety of offshoot organizations, including branches specifically geared toward athletes, nuclear families, the Hispanic community, and the military.
Gloria Beth Amodeo was heavily involved with Cru from 2006 to 2010 at Fairleigh Dickinson University, where she served as the campus chapter’s secretary.
“Cru is such a fascinating and awful organization, but such a well-oiled machine,” Amodeo said. “Their operations have not been under the microscope the way they should be.”
Rebecca Carey photographed in New York City on their 26th birthday, February 2022. (Courtesy of Rebecca Carey)
Cru’s national headquarters are located on a large private campus outside Orlando, Florida. (Em Espey)
Growth of an evangelical empire
Bill and Vonette Bright founded Campus Crusade for Christ in 1951 as a college ministry in Los Angeles. The Brights enjoyed close ties with conservative evangelical celebrities like Bill Graham, Pat Boone, Pat Robertson, and Bob Jones of Bob Jones University.
Bright envisioned Campus Crusade for Christ — often shortened to Crusade — as a powerhouse of evangelism on campuses nationwide. According to a written history of Cru by John G. Turner, Bright consulted with salesman Bob Ringer to boil down his gospel message into four basic talking points. The resulting tract, called the Four Spiritual Laws, is still used and distributed by Cru today.
The organization grew rapidly during the ‘70s and ‘80s, mirroring a nationwide conservative wave. According to Turner, Crusade’s annual revenues nearly doubled between 1977 and 1981, averaging $78 million.
Bright believed America’s wealth to be a gift from God meant to be used for the instigation of a “worldwide spiritual awakening.” Bright quickly became America’s most skilled evangelist at “harnessing [...] affluence for the cause of worldwide evangelism,” Turner wrote.
Crusade relocated its headquarters to Orlando in 1991, and 20 years later changed its name to Cru in an effort to avoid affiliation with the word “crusade.”
Cru has embraced a number of ultra-conservative stances over the years. Its FamilyLife ministry creates content in line with complementarianism, a binary school of thought holding that men and women have separate roles and responsibilities that should never overlap.
FamilyLife published a “Family Manifesto” in 1993, endorsing male leadership and female submission. In 2000, Campus Crusade for Christ endorsed California’s Proposition 8 denying marital status to gay couples.
Over the decades Cru has become less vocal about its political affiliations, but it still maintains close ties with far-right organizations.
For instance, Bill Bright co-founded the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group with a history of attempting to block rights and protections for LGBTQ+ people. Cru’s current director of operations, John Rogers, is also an ADF board member. According to ADF’s website, Rogers joined the organization with the intent of “forging a stronger relationship between Cru and ADF.”
Gloria Beth Amodeo was heavily involved with Cru at Fairleigh Dickinson University from 2006 through 2010. She described Cru as being “incredibly politically connected.”
“They want to hide those kinds of things because that’s not in their best interests for converting anybody,” she said. “Cru’s mission is to convert people — but mostly it’s to convert people of influence.”
Amodeo served as her campus chapter’s secretary and went on a 10-week mission trip to Hampton Beach with Cru. She recently accepted a publishing deal for her memoir, which focuses on her experiences with Cru as closeted bisexual woman.
“Cru is such a fascinating and awful organization, but such a well-oiled machine,” Amodeo said. “Their operations have not been under the microscope the way they should be.”
Cru literature written by founder Bill Bright. (Courtesy of Zac Thompson)
Vonette Bright (left) photographed with Cru staff member Cathy Thompson. (Courtesy of Zac Thompson)
Bill Bright (right) photographed with Cru staff member Phil Thompson.
(Courtesy of Zac Thompson)