Teens for Christ Challenge Churches!
By Randy Waltrip, Staff Writer, The 49er, California
December 6, 1968, North America
“We challenge the Christian churches of America to join us like the early church and sell all they have, have all things in common, and preach the Gospel.” With these words Miguel Ward, a former CSLB student, promulgated the doctrine of the pioneering Teens for Christ to an audience Wednesday at CSLB.
The Teens for Christ, whose headquarters are located at the Light Club on Main Street in Huntington Beach, visited the Long Beach campus Wednesday in an attempt to convince students that theirs is a cause worth joining. Small, printed tablets containing phrases from the Bible were handed out to passing students nearly the entire day. Heated confrontations between skeptic students and members of the organization continually attracted students from their classes.
“We have three causes.” Ward excitedly told students. “We hope to win souls, we hope to warn people about the Communist move within this country, and we wish to expose the hypocrisy presented in today’s churches.” He continued to explain that :”most churches today are nothing more than temples of hypocrisy, for by their traditions they have made the law of God of no effect.”
Ward, who majored in Micro-Biology while attending CSLB for three years, explained his feelings concerning education. “Jesus never spoke of education by man,” he said, “only by spirit. We are not against the people at Long Beach or the school itself, only against the system, because God’s spirit is freedom.”
Ward, who sported a beard and hat, then outlined his reason for leaving CSLB. “There are two reasons I dropped out,” he explained, “first, because we must obey God, not man. Second, because I take the Bible word for word and a vast part of our educational system is against it.”
“Furthermore,” he continued, “I belonged to a fraternity, TKE. I soon discovered, however, that all fraternities and sororities are [phony]. As a matter of fact. I have never met anyone so self-righteous as a fraternity student.”
“I found that the drug use on this campus is terrible,” he explained. “I even went to classes on LSD and turned on with my professors.” He refrained from mentioning their names.