Teens for Christ Leave But City Sheds No Tear
By Terry Coville, Daily Pilot Staff, The Daily Pilot, California
March 1, 1969, North America
Huntington Beach officials are not lining the streets to bid farewell to the militant Teens for Christ who are leaving because they fear the destruction of California.
“It doesn’t grieve me very much that they should go to Tucson,” says Mayor Alvin Coen.
The youthful and zestful evangelists have picked Tucson, Ariz., as their new headquarters. A vantage point to watch California sink under the wages of sin sometime this month.
And how about the desert community of Tucson? Can it withstand the Christian onslaught of the teens’ fundamentalist religion.
‘INVADERS’
“We plan to absorb them just like the Chinese did their invaders,” says Larry Ferguson, assistant managing editor of the “Arizona Daily Star.”
“These Teens for Christ can exercise their freedom of speed in Tucson as long as they don’t annoy anyone,” he added.
Huntington’s Mayor Coen took a less benevolent attitude toward the teens, “Now that they’re leaving, they won’t get back into town, if the council can do anything.”
Competition in Arizona may be a little tougher. Ferguson said a Timothy Leary cult had located in the mountains only 100 miles from Tucson and another religious cult was also nearby.
“We have many groups like them here,” he concluded, unimpressed by their California reputation.