CRU Reviews on Reddit: “pushy”, “shady stuff to try to get people to join”
Tag Archives: Cru
CRU: “very emotionally manipulative”, “they use guilt and emotional music to loop you into the mission work”
reCRUted: “God told her to tell me we couldn’t watch” Buffy the Vampire Slayer
CRU: a group that “encourages people to cut ties with people, even their families”
Cru – “recruiting scheme”, “how to sell their form of Jesus”, “emotional manipulation”
Excerpt from a Reddit thread titled:
What CRU all about and why do they keep trying to recruit me?
https://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/lehla/what_cru_all_about_and_why_do_they_keep_trying_to/c2s15bw
“CRU is the new name of the inane “Campus Crusade for Christ” that has been doing the same recruiting scheme for decades. They exist in order to keep Christians like them Christian like them and to get more people to be Christians like them.
They train each other on how to sell their form of Jesus, so don’t think you are talking to an individual. Most likely, you are talking to the sales shtick that they have learned from other Campus Crusade for Christ people.
They do not care what you say if they think you are a potential target, so you have to make it clear that there is no fucking way you are interested in their club.
Many will use emotional manipulation. Don’t put up with it. The moment you see them attempting to sell you anything, slam them about it. Better yet, just tell them to go away and laugh at them; “Are you serious? No no no no … go away.”
If you want, and you like individuals in the group, you can tell those individuals you are not interested in CRU and that they can fucking stop talking about it.
If they don’t take no for an answer then they don’t give a damn about you. Just tell them you already said no. Ask them;
- Didn’t you hear me say no?
If they make ANY attempt to recruit you after that, laugh at them and tell them something like this;
- What do I have to do to get through to you? Fuck off and stop annoying me — is that clear enough? Did that do it? I don’t need anyone who looks at me like a sales prospect.
Do that loudly. Do that publicly. It will embarrass the shit out of them and they will stop having any power to push their nonsense on you.
They may not like being identified as a salesperson. They are.
Bottom line: If they aren’t listening, you can’t be too kind to these people.
Cru – “repressive, controlling, and exclusionary group”
A Reddit thread titled: Has anyone else around here also heard about/experienced the college cult Cru?
“Basically I’m just looking for some people to commiserate with on any experiences they may have had with the fundamentalist Christian group Cru. This year I transferred schools from University of Minnesota Twin-Cities to Purdue. And, holy crap was I surprised when I learned about this group. So many kids I’ve meet are members of this group, and from what I can gather they teach that non-members are not worth your time, non-members are inherently bad people, and that good actions are only good if you believe in Jesus (how fucked up is that)? Anyways I’ve meet way to many kids who have bought into this group and have seen how it controls their entire life. It worries me that so many young people let this organization dominate their lives…. And I can’t really see why anyone would want to be apart of this repressive, controlling, and exclusionary group?”
Cru – “one of the most extreme christian groups”, “has damaged me and others… “
“In short – CCC was one of the most extreme christian groups I was ever associated with. My church growing up was far more balanced in terms of ministerial approach. For instance, we actually talked about something other than “saving souls”.
There is so much I could say about this group from generalized frustration, questionable financial practices, and the endorsement strange dating rituals. I could probably write a short book.
At this point, all I want to say is that the group has damaged me and others… it has probably hurt me in ways I don’t even fully understand yet – as it wasn’t that long ago that I was involved.
As someone who would has not entirely dismissed the existence of spirituality – that is hopeful for the concept of a God – I feel quite strongly at this point that these people are not acting in any way holy. That what they do in the “name of Jesus” is not what Jesus would have done.”
Excerpt from: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2010/11/21/did-you-ever-belong-to-an-evangelical-campus-ministry/
Cru – “they try to take over your whole life – your time, your social circle, your reading material”
“I’ve had experience with both IV and CCC, and the comment someone made earlier about how invasive they are is spot-on. They try to take over your whole life – your time, your social circle, your reading material, etc.
The main difference between those two groups seems to be that CCC comes right out of the gate with the less popular material (Creationism, anti-gay messages, very aggressive evangelism, non-Christians doomed to Hell, etc.) whereas Intervarsity believes all that but keeps it under wraps (to a degree anyway) to attract more students.”
Excerpt from: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2010/11/21/did-you-ever-belong-to-an-evangelical-campus-ministry/
Cru – “CCC is very anti-science”, “all of the answers I got were total BS”
“I was involved with CCC my freshmen and sophomore years. I made a few friends and that is why I stayed so long. I have always accepted evolution and supported gay marriage. I went to help after Katrina, went to Chicago to do inner-city work, and I went to the CCC Conference in Atlanta. I tried to believe but CCC is very anti-science. Changing my major to Geology was pretty much the nail in the coffin of my faith. I went to a bible a study and was asking about the flood and evolution and all of the answers I got were total BS. Christians have no real answers for either subject and apparently don’t see how big of a problem they are for their faith. I still keep in touch with a few people from CCC but I know that when I stopped going they were praying for me (my roommate at the time was an active member).”
Excerpt from: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2010/11/21/did-you-ever-belong-to-an-evangelical-campus-ministry/
Cru – “a semester’s worth of spiritual abuse and cultlike experiences”
Excerpt from: https://friendlyatheist.patheos.com/2010/11/21/did-you-ever-belong-to-an-evangelical-campus-ministry/
“two cents in case anyone still reads this: my freshman year in college I joined Campus Crusade. I met some overeager sophomores at an ice cream social who seemed like the squeaky clean good Christian influence types, and being lonely away from home, I joined. I met several girls from my dorm and we all went together to the weekly meetings/bible studies.
Early in the semester, one of the leaders’ moms joined us and started gradually taking over. She overstepped many leadership boundaries and our weekly bible studies started becoming very weird. She did a series on “maleness and femaleness” (still don’t know what the hell she was talking about), and when the girls met separately, the leaders would push and push people to share until someone cried. Major boundary violation.
Quite a few people started leaving, and soon our meetings were down to less than half what they were in the beginning. Our leaders were quick to boldly proclaim that “they just don’t know the truth.” I admit I ignored several of the defectors for a while, thinking they were backsliding. The messages were becoming weirder and weirder, and during one bible study the message was over the top weird, it made no sense. Afterward, the same night, I approached a girl I trusted with some questions and doubts about the night’s message. She looked at me like I had four heads and proceeded to ignore me. On the way back to the dorm, my friends and I almost in unison said, “that was SO weird! right? let’s never ever go back! K!” and that was that. From that point on, the members of “the cult” would not speak to us or acknowledge us AT ALL. (Later they all went on to marry – each other. Creepy? Also, it turned out that the leader’s mother caused a scandal in a local church and was asked to leave. Crusade got better in later years after she left.) I knew I had made the right decision. I went through a major grief & separation period after that, questioning my faith completely, and what I’d now consider a period of depression.
Luckily my friends and I stuck together. We started partying for a while, and then we checked out other groups. We visited Baptist Student Union which I found revoltingly conservative and vowed to never go back after a skit in which several boys made degrading comments about gay people.
I ended up in IVCF, “the liberal hippy group” and made several new friends there. After spending my whole life in church, I couldn’t just give up, despite a semester’s worth of spiritual abuse and cultlike experiences. I also went to a local church’s young adult service, which grew extremely popular, where I met several men involved in the Navigators at the local military base that ended up being kind of controlling toward us girls. I was involved in many more bible studies, went on missions trips, was an intern for the church’s youth group, and just threw myself in completely, despite nagging feelings that I didn’t quite agree or belong. I continually subjected myself to my own spiritual abuse, befriending people that were terrible friends for the sake of “accountability” and guilting myself when the friendships failed, believing I wasn’t good enough.
Long story short, yes I did participate, and overall, I believe I got burned pretty badly. IVCF is the only group I don’t have terrible memories of, but if I could do it over again, I’m not sure I would join that group either.”
Ministry Review 