Reporting Live from Campus Crusade for Christ
We took our seats in the last row, the elderly folks amid the protean youth, a foretaste of what is to come. The girls looked prettier than in my college days, back when I had a gimlet eye, and they answered their cell phones with impressive alacrity. The boys had lubed their hair to form stray stalactites, something I'd have tamped down as an altar boy before Mass.
A band played praise and worship music, the lyrics posted on a huge screen above them, obviating the need to thumb through a hymnal or squint since the words were big enough even for the near-sighted.
Production values were keen; a short film advertised a men’s conference to be held next week by showing the word “PARTIES” against a black background followed by shots of empty beer cans, spent cigarettes, woozy characters of questionable sobriety. This was, I took it, the equivalent of showing prison bars and chain gangs to would-be criminals, a sort of “Scared Straight” for the fundy set. It didn’t exactly have that effect on me, at least until it showed a guy hugging the porcelain god (i.e. retching in the toilet). After the film a young man ascended the stage and said that the men’s conference would have none of what you just saw.
Next, our reason for being there stepped on the stage. Our presumed future daughter-in-law was going to give a talk, which was enough to drag us from the comfort of our digesting meal. She described her circumstances growing up in a Christian home, and explained movingly how being away from home for the first time was the acid test for her devotion to Christ – would she choose the way of men or of God?
We bolted after her talk, but on the way home there was a certain gnashing of teeth over her list of the support she’s received: Campus Crusade for Christ, close friends, etc.. – no mention of her boyfriend.
“It was probably a simple oversight,” my charitable wife said.
“Yes, besides, if I were a single male in that audience would I want to hear a girl mentioning her boyfriend? No way. She had to target her audience.”
“Yes it was for God and not for Matt.”
It sounded hollow even as we were saying it.
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