What is “CRU” and Why Did They “Cancel” Josh McDowell?

I recently was listening to some talks in which “CRU” kept being referred to–as though one should know the reference. A small amount of Googling revealed that CRU is the new name for Campus Crusade For Christ, and Wikipedia answered my secondary question of why/when did this take place:

“In 2011, Campus Crusade for Christ changed its name to Cru. The name change was intended to avoid association with the word “crusade”, which can lead to offense, especially in Muslim countries. A spokesperson for Cru also noted that the organization’s work is no longer limited to campuses.”

~Wikipedia

Tonight, something else popped up in my YouTube feed relating to CRU and this time, involved the fairly beloved Josh McDowell, now aged eighty-four. I mention his age because I agree with statements made toward the end of this video concerning the seeming lack of mercy toward an elderly man who has such a rich, life-long legacy of serving Jesus.

While it takes nearly 45 minutes of your listening time to take in this commentary concerning the “cancellation” of Josh McDowell, as well as CRU’s call for his “re-education” in these matters, for the Church-current-events-curious you may want to pull up a seat and put on your listening ears…filing away the pattern/nature/details of this move by CRU (and those they are linked to) into the reservoir of awareness of that which we are (or should be) intently watching.

The talks that came up several days ago where I kept hearing of “CRU” involved Preston Sprinkle inviting a Tennessee Pastor on his Theology in the Raw podcast over a tweet that he felt mis-characterized him as a “heretical liar.” I’ve heard recently of Preston Sprinkle’s interest and influence on matters of gender (one would need to further research as I cannot lay it all out here, nor am I clearly understanding his positions).

What I found interesting in the following video was not just some of the content/dialogue but the process of interaction between Sprinkle and this Pastor. Apparently, the Pastor’s public remarks that Preston felt disparaging arose from recent commentary by Rosaria Butterfield, and I will link one of those video sources as well. I’ve listened to some of Rosaria Butterfield’s talks recently, including her testimony.

I kept observing how defensive and evasive Preston Sprinkle’s demeanor/tone and manner of discussion came across to me–he kept interrupting and seemingly delaying the answer to some direct questions, or changing/re-directing the conversation. He also engaged in a high amount of uptalk techniques. Preston’s general dialogue techniques (at least in this confrontation) felt off-putting to me. I felt he was continually mincing linguistics and when asked a direct question would quickly evade a direct answer and shift the focus or re-direct back to attempts to force the Pastor (Jared Moore) to answer his (Preston’s) own “direct” yes/no questions. These are techniques used by lawyers and those skilled at less-than-honest dialogue. I felt bad for the Pastor for several reasons.

I’ve now listened to this exchange twice and am interested in getting Preston’s book to hear for myself and weigh his positions, as I have been directed to his materials by another person, previously. What I feel is a general discomfort/mistrust in these “networks” of Church voices/leaders who seem to be dancing around a number of things linguistically, so that we are not really clear what they are saying.

Preston seemed so offended to be labeled as involved in promoting heretical views, yet, he is in fact engaging in ways that are ambiguous. He seems to be of a certain trending bent in current Church ideology that could rightly be viewed as one step away or a bridge to further and more clear error.

I notice around time stamp 1:14 (and it continues throughout) that Preston Sprinkle says things along the lines of (please listen yourself for his exact words):

• “I just want definitions so we can discuss this.”
• “I am just so not interested in debating these categories with you.”
• “I’m just not interested in that question.”

Instead of answering a question that should seem generally understood, he evades by calling for a definition.  It feels like an entrapment technique.  And, it feels dismissive.

Meanwhile, Pastor Jared Moore says along these lines:

• “Listen for a second. Please.”

And then, as he tries to speak, Preston continues to interrupt him with evasive, re-directive questions such as:

• “What is gender?”
• “What is sex?”

I just find it odd that for someone who, on one hand, insists that he affirms traditionally and historically defined biblical marriage, to continue to dance around the related issues at hand and which seem to be the subject of his “Exiles in Babylon” conference. (I have not researched what this is precisely, I am only hearing references in the podcast.)

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As for his video “Responding to Claims About Being a ‘Heretical Liar’:”

First, it felt to me (and I could be wrong, just my impression and limited knowledge on all of the ins-and-outs) that in bringing this seemingly smalltown, “unpolished in discourse” (my description) Pastor on to engage with (rather than Rosaria Butterfield herself), like Sprinkle was going for a weaker person (less formidable) to debate on the matters. If that makes sense.

I could be wrong–perhaps this Pastor regularly engages in public discourse over these things–it’s just the impression I got. A direct confrontation with Rosaria Butterfield over her comments about him being a “heretical liar” would have been much messier for Preston Sprinkle and not such a seemingly “slam dunk” of a conversation. I found it strange that he was so bothered, and kept using/challenging the Pastor with the “r” word in the exchange.

Second, partway through I felt bad that this Pastor was on to a very valid point, but because, for whatever reason, he didn’t seem to be able to clearly articulate his thoughts/statement to Preston’s repeated challenge, that he was being run all over with the evasive manner of Preston Sprinkle’s words.

When asked why it was an issue for the conference speakers to state their pronouns, what I think the Pastor was alluding to but in a poorly articulated way would be that to do this, it establishes the concept as something biblically possible. In other words, for a Christian ministry to embrace the world’s agenda/practice of pronoun identification, serves to help establish something that is not a thing (in reality) as a thing. Which begins to set precedence not only for the establishment of laws but for social acceptance/normalization.

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Additional postscript:
I find Preston’s “post conversation” comments at the very end quite interesting for several reasons. First, he characterizes his flippant (scoffing?) comment to Pastor Jared in the early part of the interview as simply “immature and dumb” while re-iterating his “apology” for the comment. He acknowledges that it could be offensive to others from Jared’s Southern Theological Seminary. (Hour/minute ~1:39).

Preston’s overall tone strikes me as taking some moral (and intellectual) high ground in his post-comments in a number of ways, including apologizing to listeners for “wasting their time” and expressing laments on whether he should have even bothered with/pursued the podcast. I leave it to listeners to filter their impressions of his tone/words.

But what I found most interesting/bothersome (and may use this in another blog piece in process since it relates) is his assertion/legitimizing his right/responsibility to “call out” Pastor Jared Moore for his online opinion. He says, (around hour/minute 1:54:38) that “just because you have an internet connection (or social media account) doesn’t mean you ‘you get to ____’.” (please check for exact sequence of words).

Now I realize that he is correct, technically, that there are laws against libel and slander. However, the nature of this matter and this comment reminds me of the recent rise online of self-appointed “fact checkers.” If this in fact is of a similar nature–that those in various arenas get to suppress/censor opinions and free speech, opinions and expertise of others (and it would seem to me that Jared’s comments fall within the category of free speech and were also connected to the free speech expressions of Rosaria Butterfield and many others)–then it only confirms to me that Preston Sprinkle is aligning, to some degree, with the rise of “censorship movements.”

This is an area of concern in the Church–when leadership/ideologies seem to be aligning with the methods of those in power. (governmental, social justice, WOKE, ideologies, agendas, etc)