Campus Crusade Steps Forward -- By: Art Toalston

Journal: Journal for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood
Volume: JBMW 04:1 (Spring 1999)
Article: Campus Crusade Steps Forward
Author: Art Toalston


Campus Crusade Steps Forward

Art Toalston

Parachurch Organization Adopts The Sbc’s Statement On Marriage And The Family

The Southern Baptist Convention’s stance on marriage and family has also become Campus Crusade for Christ’s.

An announcement that Campus Crusade is utilizing the SBC stance was made to more than 5,000 staffers July 28 at the interdenominational ministry’s U.S. Staff Conference in Fort Collins, Colorado.

The SBC stance on marriage and family was adopted last year as an addition to the SBC’s Baptist Faith and Message statement of beliefs during last year’s annual meeting in Salt Lake City. (See JBMW vol. 3, no. 2, Summer 1998.)

Bill Bright, who founded Campus Crusade for Christ with his wife, Vonette, in 1951, said in a statement to Baptist Press July 29, “As a movement, Vonette and I, along with the leadership of Campus Crusade for Christ International, felt it was time to step forward with our friends from the SBC by affirming the biblical standard for marriage and family.”

Bright noted, “As never before our nation’s marriages and families are in trouble. The marriage covenant has become meaningless to many and shredded by an anti-God culture, resulting in every kind of sin, including abortion and divorce.”

Bright said he and his wife have “enjoyed a marriage built on God’s Word devoted to His glory” for more than 50 years. “And we wanted our staff to make Christ the builder of their homes.”

“We also believe the family is God’s smallest battle formation in the Great Commission Army,” Bright said. “By making this statement, it is our fervent prayer that future generations around the world will have homes filled with the love and peace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We pray that future generations of families will faithfully embrace the Scriptures and proclaim Christ to a world that is stumbling in spiritual darkness.”

The Campus Crusade statement utilizes the fourparagraph SBC statement word for word and adds a fifth paragraph to supplement the parts addressing marriage.

The paragraph added by Campus Crusade states:

“In a marriage lived according to these truths, the love between husband and wife will show itself in listening to each other’s viewpoints, valuing each other’s gifts, wisdom, and desires, honoring one another in public and in private, and always seeking to bring benefit, not harm, to one another.”

The SBC statement on marriage and family states:

“God has ordained the family as the foundational institution of human society. It is composed of persons related to one another by marriage, blood, or adopt...

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