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Cru cut

Caperton

See also: 2 Live Cru, Grand Cru, J.Cru, Late-’90s Hip-Hop Group Cru

More from the world of marketing: We won’t have the Campus Crusade for Christ to kick around anymore.

Don’t get excited–they’re still going to be around, loving you whilst hating your sin, helping you pray it away, and harassing students who are just trying to get to the student center before Chick-fil-A stops selling breakfast biscuits. But now, they’re going to be doing it all cool-like. Their t-shirts will have all-new logos, and those students standing in that biscuitless line at Chick-fil-A will be growling, “Goddammit, Cru…”

“The Campus Crusade for Christ in the U.S. is changing its name to Cru. The new name will be adopted in early 2012. The U.S. ministry hopes the new name will overcome existing barriers and perceptions inherent in the original name.”

From an article in Christianity Today:

“It’s become a flash word for a lot of people. It harkens back to other periods of time and has a negative connotation for lots of people in the world, especially in the Middle East,” said Steven Sellers, the CCCI vice president and U.S. national director who is leading the name change project.

…

With the name Crusade, Sellers said people might conjure images of people being forced into something.

“We think the name of Jesus and his love is the most attractive thing on the planet, and to do anything to make it seem forced or that we’re trying to cram it down anyone’s throat is just not necessary,” Seller said.

1. If the name of Jesus really is the most attractive thing on the planet, removing it entirely from the name of your group seems a bold marketing move.

2. “‘Cru’? What the hell is ‘Cru’?” “It’s short for ‘crusade.’ It’s Campus Crusade for Christ.” “Why call it ‘Cru,’ then?” “Well, it turns out people are put off by the word ‘crusade,’ so–dammit!”

3. Where could anyone get the idea that people would be forced into something?

In their defense, they never force anyone to do anything–not in the traditional sense. Their crusade is not the classic one, with swords and stakes and assorted things on fire, because such things are illegal now, dammit totally, totally wrong and immoral. Theirs is more of a gentle persuasion: telling parents to lovingly remind their gay children that they’re going to hell. Bringing in happily married or blissfully celibate ex-gays to help those kids internalize their community’s disapproval and perform heterosexuality. Offering support and welcome to new college students–many of whom are out on their own for the first time and finally in a position to explore their sexuality in a way their families never would approve of–while slipping in the reminder that fervent prayer will be enough to keep those naughty, damnable feelings at bay. And, increasingly, broadening their missions overseas and into high schools to spread their message of love, grace, and eternal hellfire to all-new audiences.

And therein lies the rub, Motley Cru: The negative perception isn’t with your name–it’s with your mission. When you say that 20 percent of potential targets are put off by your name, you fail to consider that it may because it’s an accurate description of your activities. Campuses are jumping with nonbelievers who aren’t prospects because your threats of hell don’t really land for people who don’t believe in hell. (See also: The Bible is true because the Bible says so, comma, tautology.) But they’re also full of people who do have some semblance of spirituality and would love to find someone to share it with, except they’ve never gotten into the idea that teh gheys are filthy and immoral and hell-bound. Or, for that matter, people who are religious and also gay (gasp, clutch pearls). You’re hamstringing yourself not with your name but with your closed-minded, hateful, bigoted message. Thank God.

N.B.: I had to throw this in, from the FAQs on the new Cru site:

7. Why did we hire a brand consulting agency?

Our primary and ultimate dependence is on the Lord. However, we enlisted the help of consultants because we don’t have the expertise in brand survey methods and testing that they do.

Some of you have asked why I’m into advertising. This is why. It’s because advertisers can step in when God isn’t up to it.

(h/t Friendly Atheist)

48 thoughts on Cru cut

  1. Cru. Cru? If I were in any way affilliated with this group, this word choice would make my head spin. It looks like an incomplete word.

    Cru-sade.
    Cru-cifix.
    E-cru.
    Cru-x.

    Unless we’re totally French, in which case it has to do with wine-making.

  2. “We think the name of Jesus and his love is the most attractive thing on the planet

    This just amuses me. I would hope the next time that someone approaches me in the streets with pamphlets, they’d say something along the lines of, “Excuse me, but are you hot for our Lord? I have some pictures here if you’d like to get it up for the Son of God.”

    As for the rest of it, all I can say is that I’m quite glad I never had to deal with on-campus proselytizing. Hell, I even went to a Catholic university with a seminary on campus – except for a small condom distribution scandal one year (before my time), they were pretty much cool with everyone doing what they wanted.

  3. True story, I came to the realization that I was non-religious while attending a Campus Crusade for Christ meeting with a friend my freshman year of college. /unrelated

  4. Waitaminute. You mean, using the word crusade might…repel people? WHOA REALLY? I never woulda guessed.

    Makes me happy I went to Jew college. Though even there, some Christian folks interrupted my lunch where I was studying to ask me if I was getting all I could out of my relationship with God, and would I consider coming to their club meetings. I really dislike proselytization. It makes me feel icky.

  6. Jadey: “Excuse me, but are you hot for our Lord? I have some pictures here if you’d like to get it up for the Son of God.”

    Snort. I always ROFLed whenever we sang about Jesus “revealing himself” to his believers.

  8. Also, how does Cru and all its clones get all this fucking money?? Our campus’ non-affiliated analogue always has shit like 10-ft-tall poster boards, t-shirts, and even a fucking teddy-bear-suited mascot, which is way more than other student groups that actually have a useful mission.

  9. I keep thinking of Motley Cru- which is probably not the link they want.
    Jadey: I’m another grad from a Catholic college, and I only had two attempts at conversion. Telling them I would spontanously combust if I went into a church worked wonders.

  13. Politicalguineapig: support and welcome to new college students–many of whom are ou

    Lol, that didn’t happen to me. I went to a Catholic university and went to mass a couple of times at a friend’s request. I’m agnostic, so I don’t mind seeing what’s out there, just so long as people aren’t shoving their doctrine down my throat.

    On a side note, we also had a strong LBQT group that did the orange shirt giveaway every year and always ran out in less than an hour (they had ~500-1000 shirts depending on the level of donations, shirt cost, etc.) The slogan changed a bit from year to year: “GAY? I’m cool with that.” and “GAY? Fine by me.” are the two I have (missed out the other two years, was in class)

  14. I actually came into college extremely suspicious of Cru and other on-campus Christian groups and was pleasantly surprised. No one has ever tried to convert me or stop me from buying Chick-Fil-A fries or tell me it was wrong to be gay. And as a new student who didn’t drink, I did go to play midnight soccer with a Christian group (not Cru), and they never asked me to pray with them or otherwise pressured me to do anything I didn’t want to. To this day they are some of the most welcoming people I’ve met on campus.

    That said, I’m not trying to deny or protest bad experiences others have had with Cru and on-campus Christian groups. I’m an agnostic and proselytizing really, really bothers me. Just trying to provide a different point of view – every once in a while it works out the way they say.

  16. This boils my piss.

    Dear ‘Cru’,

    People. Aren’t. Stupid. Your ‘mission’ isn’t failing because of the name, but because this isn’t 1411 any more. People don’t want your brand of magical thinking any more than they want magic beans/lucky rabbit feet/horseshoes.

    The vulnerable people you’ve previously relied on (GLBT people/people with MI/just plain lonely people) are finding more acceptance, more outlets, more ways to connect. People who have been steeped in religious brainwashing from their first breath (like me) are finding the internet, and realising that their [holy book of choice] is not historically or scientifically plausible. People with MIs have access to medications and therapy, and socially awkward people all over the world can engage in all kinds of relationships via a handful of circuit boards and wires.

    Give it up, and back off gracefully. Realise that conversion rates can never make up for leaving rates, and that you can’t make people happier by encouraging repression, and by selling a product that doesn’t exist.

    Yours, Paraxeni X Fundie

    ps – Chabad, if you’re reading this? You too.

    pps – Cru – if you’re that desperate to seem popular, offer vast amounts of booze and food, like Chabad.

  17. Sarah- Why would christian groups stop you buying Chick-Fil-A? It’s a christian restaurant chain.

  18. As an aside, what the hell does “Chick-Fil-A” mean? I gather it’s a chicken-based fast food chain, but why does it sound like a chicken-farm-slash-gas-bar?

  19. Jadey:
    As an aside, what the hell does “Chick-Fil-A” mean? I gather it’s a chicken-based fast food chain, but why does it sound like a chicken-farm-slash-gas-bar?

    Say it out loud and relatively quickly.

  20. Does this mean my cherished “Campus Crusade for Cthulhu” banner has to be redesigned as well? Noooooooo!

  21. Kristen J.: Say it out loud and relatively quickly.

    Nope, still not getting it. It just sounds like some kind of poultry-based caulking or something.

    @ benvolio

    I dunno, there something catchy about “Cthu”

  22. I’ll try to say this as plainly as I can.

    People who are resistant to religion in any form believe that it has a kind of “woo-woo” aspect to it, which they reject as not rational. And, by the strict definition of rational, it isn’t. Faith is an inward leading that that cannot be explained by scientific logic.

    And as for Christian groups like this one, let me say again that not all Christians are conservative. Many Christians, this one included, are liberal and have liberal standards of belief. I doubt many people reading this comment would find much wrong with liberal unprogrammed Quakerism. If you want to check, take the beliefnet quiz regarding what religion suits you best. I bet most of you will end up with Liberal Quakerism in your top five or top ten.

    This is what happens when someone co-opts the original intent of your movement and asserts that they have a monopoly over it. I think Feminists can understand that fact, yes?

  23. I first met people with cru as a freshman at university. I never liked church and didn’t think Christianity was intellectually tenable, but I did like the people I met with cru. I went to some meetings and liked them. I read some books, and changed my mind about a lot of assumptions I’d had. I had no major bitterness holding me in either direction, so that probably helped.

    The bigger issue for this blog, which hasn’t been mentioned, is their role in feminism. Since becoming a Christian in college, the issue I’ve wrestled with most is the evangelical confusion with feminism. I’ve found a lot of feminist thinking and activism from inside cru, and also a lot of very conservative chauvinism inside cru. The same with issues relating to the GLBT community.

    I think with 10,000 US staff, and more volunteers and people overseas, there is a lot of diversity on these issues.

    The news sound bites that come from evangelicals or about them aren’t always accurate for the whole. This point should be obvious.

    I think Jesus was a feminist.

    Cru as a whole is not, but some within it are.

  24. Jadey: Nope, still not getting it. It just sounds like some kind of poultry-based caulking or something.

    Lol, it supposed to pronounced like Chick Fillet. I don’t get it either. But they did introduce me to the concept of waffle fries which when baked are the ultimate expression of potato excellence.

  25. Ah! I’ve never heard of a cut of chicken referred to as a fillet before, which would have been one problem. The other problem is that I’ve been pronouncing it like “chick-fil-AH” not “chick-fil-AY”, which might be a regional dialect thing.

    Waffle fries are truly food of the gods!

  26. cru=raw or uncooked in French (also, the wine thing). Like crudité, lait cru, grand cru, etc.

    So it makes me think of Raw Food Vegans for Christ, honestly. With a side of Chateau Latour. In the Middle Ages.

    @ Parenxi. +1 on Chabad. If someone never grabs my arm and asks “Are you Jewish?” again it will be TOO SOON.

  27. igglanova:
    Also, how does Cru and all its clones get all this fucking money?? Our campus’ non-affiliated analogue always has shit like 10-ft-tall poster boards, t-shirts, and even a fucking teddy-bear-suited mascot, which is way more than other student groups that actually have a useful mission.

    Churches and Alumni.

  28. “I’m another grad from a Catholic college, and I only had two attempts at conversion. Telling them I would spontanously combust if I went into a church worked wonders.”

    Be carefull, I think this only works on Catholics (armchair variety) or some of the more benign Protestant sects. If you try it with fundies you’ll find it will likely embolden them or have other, undesirous, effects.

  29. See, this is why I avoided scheduling classes in the morning/walking through Tate at any time whatsoever. Anyway, I always preferred the Jews for Jesus myself. Though they always looked kind of confused…

  30. If you’re at a Chick-Fil-A, they shouldn’t bother you. You’re already doing their work, what with the restaurant chain donating the revenue that you’re providing to hate groups like Focus on the Family and conservative political campaigns.

  31. Steve-o: Be carefull, I think this only works on Catholics (armchair variety) or some of the more benign Protestant sects. If you try it with fundies you’ll find it will likely embolden them or have other, undesirous, effects.

    I once visited a pentecostal church as a teen and brought along Stephen King’s It as light reading material (I figured I would get bored around the time they starting speaking in tongues), and while I didn’t actually do this to provoke a reaction – it was just the book I was reading at the time – apparently it caused quite a stir and I got a central role in the day’s prayers.

  32. I was still fairly religious when I entered college, so I started hanging out with the non-CCC group on campus (wouldn’t join CCC because even 10 years ago they were a pushy bunch). At first it was fun. Then suddenly it turned into a Christian dating market, which made me more than a bit cynical. THEN everyone else decided that we should all go “gently educate” outside the abortion clinic on Saturdays.

    I was out of there so fast I’m pretty sure I left a smoke trail.

    So no, it’s not the name, Cru: it’s what you do.

  33. Erin:
    Anyway, I always preferred the Jews for Jesus myself. Though they always looked kind of confused…

    My friend got given a ‘Jews for Jesus’ pamphlet at the Toronto Pride parade. I’m still confused by it.

    “I know those words, but that sentence makes no sense.”

  34. Comrade Kevin: And as for Christian groups like this one, let me say again that not all Christians are conservative. Many Christians, this one included, are liberal and have liberal standards of belief.

    I completely agree. This one, also, tends toward the liberal. That’s what pisses me off so much about groups like CCC.

    On an unrelated note, allow me to make one general comment: Chick-fil-A has a bad record of donating to hurtful organizations like CCC and Focus on the Family, and that is to be criticized. That said, the chicken biscuits and waffle fries have done no wrong and are beyond reproach, and I will brook no criticism of them simply because the restaurant that serves them is pretty much a fiscal funnel for the evangelical right.

  35. chava: @ Parenxi. +1 on Chabad. If someone never grabs my arm and asks “Are you Jewish?” again it will be TOO SOON.

    Quoted for goddamn truth.

    Once I saw some Chabad tefillin people and had a really strong urge to go over and ask if I could wrap because I hadn’t fulfilled my obligation for the day.

  36. DO IT.
    Although, the tempation of the Free Stuff is strong in me. I have taken free shabbat candles from them in the subway. The guilt, it is strong!

    Shoshie: Quoted for goddamn truth.

    Once I saw some Chabad tefillin people and had a really strong urge to go over and ask if I could wrap because I hadn’t fulfilled my obligation for the day.

  37. I’m starting to wonder if the positions of evangelical leaders are completely opposite and contradictory to the positions of evangelicals generally. I see it all the time in reproductive health — for instance, American anti-choice groups unanimously oppose contraception, without exception, yet the vast majority of evangelicals use… contraception. Perhaps that same dynamic is at play when people say the Christian clubs they know are slightly more tolerant than the Muslim-baiting slut-haters who represent them in the news.

  38. Echo Zen:
    I’m starting to wonder if the positions of evangelical leaders are completely opposite and contradictory to the positions of evangelicals generally. I see it all the time in reproductive health — for instance, American anti-choice groups unanimously oppose contraception, without exception, yet the vast majority of evangelicals use… contraception. Perhaps that same dynamic is at play when people say the Christian clubs they know are slightly more tolerant than the Muslim-baiting slut-haters who represent them in the news.

    I think it’s along the same lines as “the only moral abortion is MY abortion.” People are going to do what they want and what works best for them. All they have to do is be able to rationalize it to themselves.

  39. Jadey:
    Ah! I’ve never heard of a cut of chicken referred to as a fillet before, which would have been one problem. The other problem is that I’ve been pronouncing it like “chick-fil-AH” not “chick-fil-AY”, which might be a regional dialect thing.

    I’m so glad you broke this down, because I could not figure out how you were hearing that as poultry caulk, but as “chick-fil-AH” it totally does.

    On topic, I have recently become a little saddened by how much aggressive evangelical groups have affected my perceptions of religion and religious people. This summer I’ve been living with a seminary student, and if I had grown up around more people like her instead of people who were so forceful, I would have been much less resentful in my younger days.

    Also, one of our campus religious groups used to hand out donuts on the walk to class, and to a hungry 19-year-old me (or hungry any age me, let’s be honest), that was the most attractive thing on the planet.

  40. chava: @ Parenxi. +1 on Chabad. If someone never grabs my arm and asks “Are you Jewish?” again it will be TOO SOON.

    Oh this. Thankfully we don’t have them on my campus, because we can’t even organize ourselves a proper Jewish student union, but we were invited to a Seder at our local Chabad… Never again. The Rabbi actually preached in support of the Iraq war at a freaking Seder. And they separated my friend’s developmentally disabled fourteen-year-old son from her because he was a man.

  41. If crusade was the offensive word in their name, why do they think shortening it to Cru is going to be any different? The conversation will go:

    -Come to a Cru meeting with me!
    *What’s Cru?
    -It’s a Christian-whatever-group here on campus.
    *Why is it called Cru?
    (or, alternatively)
    *What does Cru mean?
    -Well, it’s short for crusade . . .

    I attended a college which made the switch, before my time, from a mascot that people realized was offensive (the Indians) to one that many people could totally get behind so as not to offend their friends, peers, and an important segment of the population (Big Green).

    The more conservative members of the campus community, however, have continued to use the old mascot in name, on t-shirts, stickers, etc.

    The group which uses the old mascot most reliably as a stand-in for “the good old days” (read: pale, stale, and all-male) receives a substantial amount of money from off-campus sources; namely, conservative think tanks and activists.

    I suspect that similar groups of older, more conservative Campus Crusaders will encourage their younger apostles to keep both the Christ and the Crusades in the organization’s name, and that the encouragement will come in the form of funding for the campus groups and employment for the most zealous adherents after school.

  42. First thing I thought of–the Cruciatus Curse…which is apropos, actually, as listening to CCC is exCRUciating.

  43. Ditto on Chick-Fil-A as a restaurant being a money funnel for evangelicals and Focus on the Family…I actually led a campaign to boycott them in my campus eatery with a significant amount of backlash from campus Christians and little solidarity from some folks in the LGBT community cause they cared more for eating there and not at all what the company was doing with their money.

  44. Matlun: go ahead.

    LynneSkySong: Who are you quoting there?

    Steve-o:Actually, I used that line on my friends, some of whom were Catholic, almost all went to church on a regular basis. It worked too: I only attended the opening mass and the graduation mass. Though I did get embarrassed out of wearing a shirt because it had a heart and a crown of thorns on it. I didn’t know it was religious, I thought it was cool.

  45. Wait, this just happened? Then why has there been a Christian group called Cru on my campus for all 3 years I’ve been here? Have they been running a pilot program or something?

  46. Ew. No. Just, no. CCC has been a total nightmare for a long, long time, but the renaming just makes it sound like they are going to stink even worse of Axe body spray. Cru is basically the Axe body spray of Christianity.

  47. You know, it’s really interesting that they are just now shortening it to Cru, as at my university that is what it has always been known as. They don’t even write out the whole “Campus Crusade For Christ” ever.

    I have an extreme dislike of Cru. They ruined a five year relationship with a really great guy by literally crusading him to Christ by convincing him that he was a sex addict (apparently having sex more than 3 times a week [we were having it once or twice a day] is unnatural) and sinning by having pre-marital sex with a non-Christian woman. They then proceeded to tell him that the only way he could solve his problems was to come to Christ and be saved. There was a 5 point plan. I saw it when they invited me into their office to discuss their concerns with my lifestyle and J’s. It was on a white board in their office.

    To this day, I still get really really angry when I think about it.

  48. Sargon: Wait, this just happened? Then why has there been a Christian group called Cru on my campus for all 3 years I’ve been here? Have they been running a pilot program or something?

    CCC has long been going by CRU as the “unofficial name”. They’re just legitimizing it now, unfortunately. It makes it difficult when you’re at a college like mine, when someone wants to join the “Crew” team, and ends up at a “Cru” meeting instead.

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