What can we learn from CU history?

The Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (the CICCU) reached its 125th anniversary on March 9. Bob Horn, EN's former editor and recently retired as UCCF's General Secretary, was asked to speak on that occasion.

I owe a huge personal debt to God for the CICCU. Before I started at Cambridge, I was a Christian, but only half-committed and very uncertain whether I would stand for Christ.

I happened to meet the then CICCU Secretary, Derek Prime, a fortnight before term; in the nicest possible way he gave me no choice but to meet him at 1.30 pm on the first day of term at the Daily Prayer Meeting. There I found in the CICCU a bunch of amazing Christians, who helped me to find my feet, my convictions and my direction in Christ.

In its wider context CICCU is one of 350 Christian Unions in the UK's universities and its HE and FE colleges; and of hundreds more student groups across 140 countries in the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students. It is not unique, having faced the same questions about witness and fidelity as other CUs. But, as the oldest, it has a longer history from which to learn. I want to focus on three lessons out of many.

1 God's strength in human frailty

Humanly, CICCU's testimony has depended on a succession of students - 20-somethings trying to run a CU with sometimes over 400 actual members and 1,000 in college Bible study groups. How many organisations could survive on such inexperience? Or through 125 changes of leadership in as many years? CICCU has had to cope with sinful frailty, lack of wisdom, blind spots and naivete from within; and to grapple with peer pressure, sceptical arguments, disdain and opposition from without. In addition, we the members have all been prone to be ashamed of the cross. CICCU's life has often hung on the very fragile thread of students taking responsibility for witness to students.

(a) The story shows that a student CU can wobble.

100 years ago (1900-1910) it was shaky when already a quarter of a century old. Theological liberalism was making unseen inroads into hitherto evangelical minds. CICCU had required those wanting to join to make a brief and definite confession of faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour, Lord and God. But the desire of some leaders to be inclusive set them against any such confession. Three successive Presidents argued for a broader, inclusive policy so that there would be 'a bigger CU reaching a larger circle'. The CICCU faced a tempting argument: dilute the definiteness to increase the influence. CICCU then (as later) was tempted to 'play politics', to tamper with the message to achieve greater effect. It was 'a real fight'. In the end the CICCU, in a minority of one, voted 17-5 to break affiliation to the broadening national body, the Student Christian Movement.

(b) The story shows that a national evangelical movement can fall.

If we had been at the CICCU's 25th anniversary, we would have been glad and trusting members of the SCM, as CUs now are trusting members of the UCCF. The SCM had authentic evangelical roots. Its watchword was 'The evangelisation of the world in this generation'. But it drifted or was led, first into theologically broader company, then into indefinite belief, finally into denial of belief. The IVF/UCCF came into being to rescue and maintain the true biblical gospel, while in the end the SCM (as its own records show) faded away.

The World Student Christian Federation (the world SCM) was also evangelical, evangelistic and missionary-minded in its origins. But it too lost the plot and died as it left a biblical base and adopted a purely social, political and economic agenda. The IFES started partly because the WSCF went off course.

It is a solemn thought that so much that was good - in Cambridge, nationally and internationally - was threatened or lost through theological slippage and spiritual infidelity. How many were deprived of hearing the gospel because of this drift?

There is no human guarantee that today's CU, or the national and international evangelical movements, may not also and imperceptibly begin to drift. The temptations of influence, size, acceptance, flattery, diversity and inclusiveness persist, albeit in different guises. We are fragile and fallible and need to hold to God and his Word. Yet in the story God's strength is shown in and through CICCU's weakness.

The fact that CICCU has survived - and often flourished - is no cause for congratulation, but only for thanksgiving and renewed confidence in God. Something beyond human contriving or measuring has gone on in and through the fragile CICCU. Hundreds over the years can testify that God brought them to Christ and built them up in the biblical faith through the CICCU. That was through student witness, peers to peers.

2 What winds tried to blow CICCU off course?

In a word, various forms of subjectivism. By that I mean allowing 'what we think, what we like, what we feel' to be decisive in our lives.

Some influences came from outside, such as theological liberalism. This was a strong force against the gospel for decades. It was essentially subjective, the authority of human reason. No educated person, it was thought, 'no one fit for Cambridge', could believe in such tenets as the Bible or the resurrection. The 1955 Billy Graham mission in particular, but all missions in general, met with ridicule and scorn from those who would not accept the idea of revelation or any authority beyond themselves. A little ditty of the time ran like this:

You cannot preach to men in gowns
What passed for men in skins;
You must have modern scholarship
To save from modern sins.

Other pressures arose within Christian circles through biblically defective spiritualities. The pietism of early CICCU members was strong and exemplary in personal devotion to God and in missionary service, but weaker in its grasp of God's whole revelation; it had not thought through the reasons for the Christian hope - leaving some to look elsewhere for answers.

More insidiously, super-spirituality has always been a potential danger. One example of this was when the Moral Rearmament or Oxford Group movement made deep inroads into true biblical faith. It seemed thoroughly on track as it spoke appealingly of Quiet Times and openness to God and high moral values. It offered 'life' instead of 'dry orthodoxy'. It was very attractive. But it was another form of subjectivism, as its QTs turned out to mean taking a pencil and a blank piece of paper and waiting to write down 'what God was saying'. Over the years other influences taught various kinds of 'second experience' as the solution to the Christian's problems.

Subjectivism is not dead: it still exerts its pull to let fashionable ideas, personal tastes and individual choice govern us more than obedience to revealed truth. Some current ideas of unity in diversity, edging out those of unity in the gospel, are reminiscent of the inclusiveness of 100 years ago. The temptation is there to allow all views, whether they add to or subtract from the gospel.

All this looks very different from the days when theological liberalism was the predominant religious force. But, while liberalism has largely run out of steam and while evangelical numbers have grown, it can end up in the same place, with people choosing which bits of the Bible to believe and which to ignore. There is still the temptation to trim God's revelation to what is presently acceptable. There may be greater general assent to a doctrinal basis, but that does not always issue in obedience to its implications and imperatives.

Subjectivism of one kind or another has always exerted a pull towards diversion and even denial.

3 What factors worked to hold CICCU on course?

Holding to God's objective truth by building on what he has revealed. In short, loving God's Word because we love him. This, under God, is what has so far saved CICCU (and the wider CU movement) from looking to other sources of authority and inspiration. CICCU has been on solid ground when it has built its convictions, its life and its witness on God's given and objective truth.

It has tried to do this from its early days in every area of its life. Its declaration of membership exemplified this: 'I declare my faith in Jesus Christ as my Saviour, my Lord and my God'. When the SCM was trying to dilute this, the CICCU kept to this biblical base, even though derided as obscurantist. CICCU did this over the years as it held thoughtfully to a doctrinal basis - simply confessing core Christian belief. It counted it a privilege to be entrusted with and to confess God's self-disclosure. It has held to such a confession in days when that brought only opprobrium and when only the convinced and courageous would sign. It holds to it still, when the basis has lost some of its earlier stigma, but also much of its authority over life and policy.

The CICCU has done this in times of stiff testing - as in the drifting period 1900-1910 that we have mentioned. It did it at the pivotal moment in 1919, when the very large national movement (the SCM) would give 'the atoning blood of Christ' only a place, and not the central place, in its message. God gave the then tiny CICCU the courage and clarity of biblical conviction; very bravely, it concluded that it could not join forces with the large SCM, lest it compromise the biblical gospel. As Oliver Barclay comments: 'The eternal salvation of students was at stake'.

It stuck similarly to God's truth in the 1930s when, slowly and painfully, it came to see that super-spiritual teaching (as in Moral Rearmament) in fact replaced God's voice in the Bible. It likewise held to the Word of God in the controversy about 'Fundamentalism' in 1955. It was Spirit-given conviction about God's living and abiding Word that led the CICCU, when necessary, to fight and contend for the faith of the gospel.

It was from this same conviction of objective truth that it perennially urged its members to personal Bible reading and study. It saw that we owe it to God to give our best attention to what he has said and is still saying - and to build our intellectual, spiritual and practical lives on that. The repeated stress on meeting God was in order to hear him and be transformed by the renewing of our minds as we heard his voice in Scripture. This was how objective truth entered and nurtured the subjective experience of believers, leading them to pray and live for him.

From the same roots sprang the corporate Bible teaching in weekly college Bible studies and in the Saturday night Bible Readings or Teachings. There God's Word began to shape the world view and life service of countless members. These times were invaluable in guiding individuals and the CU to think, discern and make decisions Christianly.

For similar reasons the CICCU gave great emphasis to prayer, both personal and corporate - in the daily and other central and college prayer meetings. Members learned why and what and how to pray as they took the Bible as their prayer book.

Central to its whole focus, the CICCU has seen that the gospel is a message - certainly to be backed up by consistent lives, but necessarily conveyed in words. So each generation of members, grasping God's truth, has set out to present the Christian message to fellow students. At its best and truest CICCU has always tried to proclaim and convey the undiluted message that God has made plain in the Bible - about wrath as well as mercy, hell as well as heaven, a substitute as well as a friend, repentance as well as acceptance, obedience as well as benefit, holiness as well as happiness, challenge and cost as well as comfort and joy.

It has seen that the gospel meets felt needs, bringing change and transformation, fulfilment and belonging, peace and purpose to many. But it has read from Scripture that the gospel fundamentally addresses actual and eternal needs. This is why it has been convinced that the heart and basis of the gospel is the sinless Son of God willingly taking in our place the penalty and judgment that we deserved, so that we might be justified before him. It is Christ's objective atonement that secured our pardon and thus gave us not only peace with God objectively, but also the peace of God subjectively.

The message not ours

The truths that motivated evangelism have, of course, also motivated missionary concern. If God has stated that the lost are lost and that they need to hear of Christ as the only way to God, then those are the facts; it is for us to respond to them in obedience. Revelation shows us this reality as God sees it; and that has inspired personal and collective response all through CICCU's life. Because of this, former CICCU members are scattered across the world today, embodying and explaining the message.

So the CICCU has believed that this message is not ours to determine, but rather to defend and deliver. Proclamation has never been in universal favour, even in Christian circles, but - in the sense of passing on God's message unadulterated with compassion and urgency - it has always been on God's agenda. Its form has varied, from big missions through small college or faculty events to individual Christians' friendships. And God is still using his message to bring people home. Just last term saw 40 finding in the gospel God's power to save.

Over the years CICCU has seen that, if anything threatened the message, it had no choice before God but to stand - and leave the outcome to him. Oliver Barclay sees in this a faint reflection of Martin Luther's cry: 'My conscience is captive to the Word of God. Here I stand, I can do no other. So help me God'.

Such factors have held the CICCU on course, despite stumbles and testings. Overall the CICCU has managed to avoid playing politics between different groups. Members have always differed on subsidiary issues, on points that mark one evangelical group out from another. But, all in all, a remarkable unity has prevailed on the matters 'of first importance' (1 Corinthians 15.3-4), on what distinguishes the gospel and marks out true faith from vague faith or no faith.

What conclusions?

1. To be aware of our own frailty and proneness to diversion, distraction and dilution. We need constantly to pray to God for strength of purpose and the courage of true conviction.

2. To be aware of what may blow us off course - any form of ultimately subjective authority or guidance, however plausible or apparently spiritual; or any desire to please or be acceptable to people rather than God.

3. To remember what will hold us on course - loving God and holding thoughtfully to his Word as objective truth, letting that word govern our witness and our fellowship. This leads us to see that true fellowship springs from the central message of a substitutionary sacrifice. It is thus gospel-based and gospel-focused, at once as broad as that gospel and as narrow.

These lessons will help us to pass the message on, so that it may make a difference to the immediate and to the eternal futures of our contemporaries.
CICCU's history is one of constantly returning to the one true base: God speaking in his Word about his Son and his sacrifice.

Its health has been in constantly pursuing one concern: how can we make this message clear?

May God keep CICCU in that pursuit every year until Jesus comes back.

So now the baton is in the hands of today's members, to run with and pass on.

'From Cambridge to the world', the IVP book newly published, tells the CICCU's moving story. Its first nine chapters by Oliver Barclay, formed the CICCU's centenary history ('Whatever happened to the Jesus Lane lot?'), and the remainder adds the story of the last 25 years.