Talk:InterVarsity Christian Fellowship

IVCF Canada?
Why is the whole article about IVCF USA? There is a thriving and pre-existing branch of Intervarsity Canada .... not everything happens in the US!70.77.48.7 03:33, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * This article is about the American organization. You may be looking for Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship of Canada --Jdeboer 15:08, 19 September 2007 (UTC)

The history section was copied, nearly verbatim, from http://www.intervarsity.org/aboutus/history.php. It has been removed and is listed below. --Jdeboer 20:30, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

History
The history of InterVarsity begins with students at the University of Cambridge, England in 1877. There, a group of Christian students began to meet together, in spite of the disapproval of some University officials, to pray, study the Bible and witness to fellow students. Soon, similar groups sprung up on other campuses. Eventually, they formed the British Inter-Varsity (now known as UCCF). (Hence their name, inter - meaning between, varsity - the British term for university level students.) From the very beginning these students had a strong concern to take the gospel to those all over the world who had never heard it - a concern that continues in InterVarsity today. In response to a plea for help from Canadian students, British InterVarsity sent Howard Guinness, a medical school graduate and vice-chairman of the British movement, to Canada in 1928. Students helped raise the money to provide one-way passage. As the funds became available, Howard slowly worked his way across Canada, starting up and assisting evangelical student groups.

By 1937 the Canadians began to hear requests for help from students in the United States as independent evangelical student groups began springing up. In 1938 Stacey Woods, the Canadian InterVarsity director, met with students on the University of Michigan-Ann Arbor campus. As an immediate result of that visit, students formed the first InterVarsity chapter in the United States.

By May of 1941 InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA became an official organization, with three staff on loan from Canada and Stacey Woods at the helm as Secretary General. In 1947 InterVarsity USA became a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students, a federation of national Christian student movements. The other charter members are Australia, Britain, Canada, China, France, Holland, New Zealand, Norway, and Switzerland.

By 1950 there were 35 staff serving students in 499 InterVarsity chapters across the country. InterVarsity Press had been started to supply quality literature suitable for the campus. And the Urbana Student Missions Convention had begun the tradition of calling every student generation to consider global missions.

Controversy Subtopic
Removed this for the time being until someone can write a better section/synopsis of the Iowa Controversy than simply providing a link and one sentence. 74.134.228.189 17:27, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

67.22.207.123 (talk) 20:45, 22 June 2015 (UTC)It would be best to generally address the many related controversies re. IVCF and homosexuality in many states and chapters, as well as the high court decisions that have come down in recent years.


 * ==controversy==

Intervarsity's view of homosexuality has created controversy in Iowa.

http://media.www.iowastatedaily.com/media/storage/paper818/news/2003/04/02/Opinion/Editorial.Discrimination.Of.Gays.Unacceptable-1094881.shtml


 * Unless a link between the incident at Central College and the national organization can be drawn, I suggest this topic be removed from this page. (and maybe sent to the college's page or even the college's IVCF chapter page.) --Jdeboer 03:50, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

Criticisms subsection
Most WP pages include Criticisms subsections. InverVarsity has been flagged as a controversial organisation by many sources, for instance http://www.chron.org/tools/viewart.php?artid=656 - some critics have gone so far as to have grouped the organisation with cults.

I am stunned that no such section has been included on the page. I expect something to be forthcoming, or else I will draft something basic just outlining some of the well-sourced criticisms of the organisation.

Betacrucis (talk) 16:18, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

Who wrote this?
The entire thing reads like an advertisement for IVCF.

"InterVarsity also sponsored Urban Projects in 72 cities in the United States, helping students understand God’s love for all people by working alongside existing ministries in the inner city. "

This should read something like this:

InterVarsity also sponsored an event titled "Urban Projects." InterVarsity members worked alongside affiliated religious organizations in 72 U.S. cities. The program targeted lower income areas in the inner city. Xie (talk) 01:27, 29 June 2010 (UTC)

Mission
I'm not sure if the Mission of "Evangelism and Bible Study" makes sense when compared with InterVarsity's Mission and Vision Statements. From my training and experience with InterVarsity (I am a staff worker -- which makes me both a biased writer and a knowledgeable writer... :) ), Bible Study has always been a Means, not an End. InterVarsity's Mission is to put a Bible Study on every campus, but to create "witnessing (missional) communities" on college campuses.

So, more accurately, the "Mission" section on the sidebar should be: "to create incarnational, missional communities on the college campus" Or, if that is too wordy "Evangelistic community" might do to replace it. InterVarsity does Bible Study, but Bible Studies are a part of its structure, not the focal point of the ministry.

However, my suggestions seem a little lackluster. If someone has an idea of something better, I would love it if you could share! I don't want to go and replace "Evangelism and Bible study" without some sort of consensus!

(Also, I moved Xie's post so that all of the "Talk" statements would be sequential by date.) Sir Ian (talk) 22:25, 6 April 2013 (UTC)


 * Sir Ian - I would suggest that you just make the change. Wikipedia is based on being bold and changing things that you know are wrong (it's also based on shooting the messenger, but that's a different issue). Putting something on Talk that seems pretty benign, like this, usually results in people (like me) suggesting you just do it. "My opinion" is that someone will flag the word incarnational as either Christian-speak or indecipherable, but I don't have a problem with the change. Yours - Ckruschke (talk) 16:52, 10 April 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke


 * Alright! Then I will make the change and see how people think about it. I'm changing the "Mission" of IVCF from "Evangelism and Bible Study" to "Evangelistic Christian community on college campuses" for now. My reasoning (for those of you who have not read the first part of my post, above :) ) is because InterVarsity's Mission is not explicitly for the creation of Bible Studies. Rather, InterVarsity is an organization focused on bearing witness to the Gospel of Jesus Christ at the university. As such, InterVarsity's Bible Studies are just a tool that they use for fulfill this mission.


 * I recognize that "Evangelistic Christian community on college campuses" might be a little wordy for a "Mission" line on the box, but I can't seem to think of a more pithy way of stating IVCF's mission without simply reiterating their mission statement. Plus, it's alliterative. Sir Ian (talk) 16:01, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Christianity Project
As I was thinking through changing the "mission" section, I was looking at other, similar organizations (like Campus Crusade for Christ), and I noticed that these other organizations are a part of Christianity... It seems strange to me that the IVCF page wouldn't be a part of the Christianity WikiProject. I would like to propose that this page be included as a part of that project! Sir Ian (talk) 16:07, 13 April 2013 (UTC)

Is the Roman Catholicism Issue Important for This Article?
Recently, it seems that there has been some disagreement about whether or not the section about the "Bear Trap" statement and the situation at George Washington University should be added to the page. I can see arguments both for and against the inclusion of this section in the article... The removal of the "Bear Trap" statement is a big deal, both for Catholics and for Reformed Christians interested in campus ministry. Even recently, I mentioned this "Bear Trap" to a friend of mine who has been asked into a leadership position in our chapter -- -- and he legitimately wanted to see whether or not it could still support Sola Fide!

Is this step a major event for InterVarsity? Perhaps. For a long time, Catholicism hasn't been considered as a legitimate expression of Christianity by evangelical Christians. But, then again, InterVarsity is an interdenominational organization -- -- Its faith statement should be one that supports the core doctrines of Christianity, rather than individual, doctrinal views...

I am writing this for the sakes of User:Jonund and User:Scribe51, and their recent changes -- but also for the sakes of everyone who has been putting some time and effort into this article! Why is this event important? Is it pertinent for a Wikipedia article? If this event is important, then what about Campus Access situations (like at Vanderbilt or Tufts)? User:Scribe51 claimed that the section sounded antagonistic to InterVarsity -- can it be rewritten in a manner to sound neutral?

Please discuss.Sir Ian (talk) 04:05, 16 April 2013 (UTC)


 * I see several issues with this - with the chief in my mind being that it was over 3000 character in a "History" section that was maybe 1000 so this insertion was clearly given undue weight in respect to the recent of the organization's history. I also question whether it belongs in "History" at all or whether it should be its own section (if its something that should be kept). User:Scribe51 questioned its validity and relevancy. As I do not know of this extremely slight doctrine change, since I haven't read any recent articles and was last in IV in 1996, I cannot really comment other than to say there were many Catholics in IV when I was in it - some who were also in leadership - and I never heard a comment about IV's statement of faith being an issue. In the meantime, I've reverted the entire insertion (again) to allow the discussion to work its way through. Ckruschke (talk) 12:40, 16 April 2013 (UTC)Ckruschke

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Which version of Bible used?
Wikipedia lists 12 major English-language versions of the Christian Holy Bible, and MANY others have been published. (List of English Bible translations). The article should state which version is preferred by IVCF. And if other versions are in use also, say when, where and why they are used instead. Casey (talk) 00:54, 17 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't have a source other than my own experience with IVCF (over 20 years ago now), but I recall that the Revised Standard Version and New Revised Standard Version were the two most popular translations among our chapter. Based on that, I would assume that NRSVue (released in 2021) is the current version used. 97.102.30.205 (talk) 18:40, 21 April 2023 (UTC)