Cru ends controversial sexuality and gender training

One of the nation’s leading evangelical ministries is discontinuing its controversial staff training on sexuality and gender less than two years after launching it. Cru employees will no longer have access to the Compassionate and Faithful curriculum by the end of this year, according to a leaked recording of a Sept. 26 meeting for U.S.-based staff.

“Our plan going forward is to integrate our LGBT+ equipping into existing developmental venues,” Keith Johnson, Cru’s director of theological education and development, told staff during the meeting leaked on a podcast last week. “Going forward, we think it’s increasingly important for us to speak in our own theological voice.” That means Cru will rely less on “external communicators,” Johnson said.

Cru, formerly known as Campus Crusade for Christ, faced criticism over the curriculum from current and former staffers and from prominent evangelical authors, speakers, and commentators including Rosaria Butterfield, Christopher Yuan, and Allie Beth Stuckey. They claimed it departed from Biblical teachings on sexuality, gender, and God’s design for men and women by allowing Christians to use preferred pronouns for transgender people and to adopt LGBTQ identity labels, among other concerns. Despite the uproar, Cru refused to address complaints publicly or stop using training modules and presenters that critics objected to.

On Oct. 2, author and commentator Jon Harris released portions of the late September virtual meeting on his podcast, Conversations That Matter. A former Cru staffer who attended the meeting sent the recording to Harris. I spoke with the former staffer, who asked to remain anonymous due to ongoing interaction with current Cru staff.

During the meeting and in a follow-up email to WORLD, Johnson referred to the Compassionate and Faithful materials as a “learning experience,” not a curriculum. Since most staff had completed the training, Johnson told me it made sense to incorporate future training on sexuality and gender issues into Cru’s Institute of Biblical Studies for incoming staff and interns. The Compassionate and Faithful materials were designed to “provide clarity” and “align all our staff to a historic Biblical understanding of sexuality,” Johnson said.

But for some staff, the ministry’s mandatory rollout of the curriculum did the opposite. Longtime staffers Uriah and Marissa Mundell spoke with me earlier this year about theological objections they raised with Johnson and other Cru leaders. After leaders rebuffed those concerns––Uriah’s boss told him to keep quiet or find a new job––the Mundells went public.

Less than two months later, Cru fired the Mundells for going to “public spaces to communicate your disagreement with the ministry.”

During the Sept. 26 meeting, Johnson and Mark Gauthier, Cru’s vice president and U.S. national director, referenced recent public criticism. “We hold dearly … the calling to communicate the gospel to everybody,” Gauthier said. “That puts us in a situation over the years where we open up to criticism and critique … what we’ve gone through, it’s been significant over the last few years.”

But Gauthier and Johnson stopped short of admitting error or stating that public criticism influenced Cru’s decision to scrap its Compassionate and Faithful curriculum and pivot away from using outside presenters to instruct staff.

“What divides us from many of our critics at the end of the day, isn’t our view of sexuality and gender,” Johnson said. “It’s our vision for cultural engagement.” He added that when Cru is at its best, it has a “Jesus first” approach to cultural engagement.

Critics, including the Mundells, raised objections to the curriculum’s heavy reliance on author and podcaster Preston Sprinkle, a proponent of controversial beliefs surrounding sexuality and gender. Sprinkle supports “pronoun hospitality” and Christians assuming LGBT identity labels and teaches same-sex attraction is not sinful unless acted upon.

Johnson did not address my questions about what the new integrated training will entail and whether it will include materials from Sprinkle or his nonprofit, the Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender. Johnson told staff Cru is “profoundly grateful” for those outside of the organization who helped with the Compassionate and Faithful curriculum. Johnson also did not address questions about whether the controversy had any effect on donations to the ministry.

Harris told his listeners that, for him, the Sept. 26 meeting raised more questions than answers about Cru’s stance. “For Cru staff who are entering … what’s that going to look like? Is it going to be the same kind of teaching … it’s just more hidden?”