In Michael Flatt's editorial "Hung up on Christ" (Jan. 25), Mr. Flatt accused Campus Crusade for Christ of seeking to "manipulate" people into conversions. As a person who has been involved in Campus Crusade at UB for five years, I can assure you that this is neither the intent nor the result.
I have gone on this "Big Break" event of which you wrote. What goes on there is that students, taking their spring break week off, go down to Florida and just talk with people vacationing at Panama City Beach. There are no "high-pressure" tactics. We simply talk about problems that people have - problems that, invariably, we all have - and assert that what we believe may help deal with them. That's it.
You write, "Scripture doesn't portray a Christ willing to lure people into discussion with him so that he could convert them." To the contrary, Scripture does show a Christ who struck up conversations with people - where they were at - to invite them to re-evaluate their lives, and their relationships with men and God. He demands nothing less of Christians, that we go out into the world and recruit more Christians from all nations (Matthew 28:19-20). We're to start discussions - but we are not allowed to manipulate people ("we have renounced shameful hidden deeds, not behaving with deceptiveness or distorting the word of God, but by open proclamation of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone's conscience before God," 2 Corinthians 4:2).
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