Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship

Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship (UCCF; also UCCF: The Christian Unions) is a UK-based charity that was founded in 1928 as the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions. UCCF's dual aims are:

  1. To advance the evangelical Christian faith amongst students, graduates and former members of universities; and
  2. To promote biblical scholarship and research.[1]

UCCF: The Christian Unions
Formation1928
TypeChristian Interdenominational student association
HeadquartersOxford, United Kingdom
Director
Richard Cunningham, since 2004
SecessionsStudent Christian Movement
AffiliationsInternational Fellowship of Evangelical Students
Websiteuccf.org.uk
Formerly called
Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions

To achieve its aims, UCCF undertakes three main areas of activity:

  1. Encouraging and supporting leaders of affiliated Christian Unions (CUs) throughout the UK to engage in evangelism and help Christian students grow in their faith.
  2. Publishing and distributing a wide range of Christian resources through its Inter-Varsity Press (IVP) subsidiary, based in Nottingham (not to be confused with the US-based InterVarsity Press).
  3. Supporting biblical research, mostly at postgraduate level.

There are around 200 Christian Unions in the UK at present, with a total membership of approximately 20,000.[2] The Christian Unions provide opportunities for fellowship, bible study and evangelism, with nearly 40,000 students attending outreach events each year.[2]

UCCF employs about 80 staff, and has a further 80 or so volunteer "Relay Workers" on a one-year training programme. Many of these staff and volunteers are graduates who were involved in the CU as undergraduates. They support the student Christian Unions with training, advice and materials.

History

The Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship was formally established in 1928 as the Inter Varsity Fellowship,[3][4] having emerged informally as a body influenced by the Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union earlier in the 1920s.[5] CICCU had split from the broader Student Christian Movement (SCM) in 1910, following tensions between the two throughout the first decade of the 1900s. With a stronger conservative and evangelical presence than other Christian Unions, CICCU disagreed with SCM's move towards interdenominationalism and modernism (including the endorsement of newly emerging methods of Biblical criticism) and wanted a greater emphasis to be put on evangelism.[6] An attempted reconciliation between the two groups in 1919 was ultimately unsuccessful, owing to CICCU's insistence on the centrality of the atonement for Christian faith, which SCM would not agree to.[7][8] Evangelical students in the Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union subsequently seceded from the SCM and, following a two-year reaffiliation, permanently left the SCM in 1927.[9]

From 1919, under the influence of Norman Grubb, conservative evangelical students from UK universities began meeting at an annual conference in London. The first meeting produced a declaration critical of the Student Christian Movement, in particular criticizing its basis of faith for not mentioning the divinity of Christ and omitting any mention of sin, forgiveness, and salvation. In 1922, at the fourth annual meeting, it was decided to formally make the conference an annual event, as well as to appoint an executive committee and draft a constitution. The constitution of the Inter-Varsity Conference, which was accepted in 1923, included the group's doctrinal basis.[10] The 1923 doctrinal basis included the "divine inspiration and infallibility of Scripture", the "universal sinfulness and guilt of human nature", and the "redemption from guilt, penalty and power of sin only through the sacrificial death... of Jesus Christ".[11] Anyone who wanted to hold an official position in the running of the conferences had to sign the basis of faith, a requirement was created for prospective speakers to hold views in accordance with the basis, and the conference was prohibited from undertaking joint activities with groups that did not doctrinally align with the conference.[12]

By 1928, the Inter-Varsity Conference became a permanent fellowship of evangelical Christian Unions and rival organisation to the SCM.[13] After becoming the secretary of the Inter-Varsity Conference in 1924, King's College alumnus Douglas Johnson was chosen as the first and founding General Secretary of the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions by delegates of the 1928 conference.[14] He remained in this role until 1964.[4]

In 1947 the Inter-Varsity Fellowship became a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES). The movement developed out of links that had been established between the IVF and the Norwegian network of Christian Unions, the Norges Kristelige Studentlag. From 1934, regular international conferences took place between evangelicals connected to universities in Europe, North America, South Africa, and Australia; in 1947 the IFES was formally established.[15]

During the 1940s, CU work began in the Technical Colleges under a subsidiary body, the Inter-Colleges Christian Fellowship (ICCF), and this saw substantial growth with the formation of polytechnics, as a consequence of the increase in full-time students in that sector. Alongside this, the Colleges of Education Christian Unions (CECU) provided a similar function, supporting Christian Unions based in teacher-training colleges. Work in these areas expanded rapidly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, such that by the mid-1970s it represented half the ministry, and resulted in ICCF and CECU merging with IVF to form the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship. A specialist group, the Religious and Theological Students Fellowship (RTSF), who published the journal Themelios, retained a separate identity.

Since then many colleges have themselves gained university status. Until 2007 UCCF continued to serve both the HE and FE sectors of tertiary education, but in that year a new organisation called FESTIVE – FE & Sixth Form Initiative came into being,[16] leaving UCCF free to concentrate on HE.

Key staff
  • Douglas Johnson, Secretary, 1928–64[4]
  • Oliver R. Barclay, General Secretary, 1964–80[14]
  • Robin Wells, General Secretary, 1980–92[17]
  • Richard Cunningham, Director, 2004–2022 (Suspended pending an investigation)[18][19]

Research

UCCF supports biblical research through Tyndale House, Cambridge, which opened in 1945[20] and became independent in 2015.[21]

From the late 1980s and into this century, support for those involved in Christian ethics was provided through the Whitefield Institute, Oxford, founded by E. David Cook. In 2006, this was reconstituted to become the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics, now the Kirby Laing Centre for Public Theology.[22]

Theology

UCCF endorses a conservative evangelical form of Christian theology.[23][24][25] Its doctrinal basis reflects typical elements of conservative evangelicalism, such as Biblical infallibility, the universal sinfulness of all humans, and penal substitution. Individua Christian Unions must subscribe to UCCF's doctrinal basis in order to be affiliated with them, and anyone who occupies a leadership position (including student executive committee members) or speaks at a Christian Union event must also sign to affirm their agreement.[26][27][28]

The explicitly conservative evangelicalism of UCCF's doctrinal basis has led some to criticize the exclusivity of UCCF's theology. Biblical infallibility, the view that the Bible is completely true and sufficient for Christian belief and practice, is rejected by many Christian denominations. For example, the Catholic Church teaches that the Bible should be read in light of authoritative church tradition, while Anglicans and Methodists ascribe authority to tradition, reason and experience, and Pentecostals read the Bible in light of a community inspired by the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of penal substitution is likewise rejected by many non-evangelical Christians.[29] In some cases, UCCF's evangelical theology has led to Christian Unions having difficult relationships with Chaplaincies and/or Student Unions.[29][30] It is also a substantial and persistent difference between UCCF and SCM (which is committed to ecumenism, including co-operation with CUs).[31]

See also
Members
International sister organisations

References
  1. Stephen Mansfield (30 January 2009). "Summary Information Return 2008 of Aims, Activities and Achievements" (PDF). Charity Commission for England and Wales. Retrieved 5 April 2012. Entered through Annual Return 2008
  2. "About – Our Story". uccf.org.uk. UCCF. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  3. Goodhew, David (January 2003). "The rise of the Cambridge inter-collegiate Christian union, 1910-1971". The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 54 (1): 62–88. Other conservative Evangelical bodies emerged after 1918, but there was no central organisation until the advent of the Inter Varsity Fellowship in 1928
  4. Barclay, Oliver (January 2005). "Douglas Johnson: the invisible man". Evangelicals Now. Retrieved 6 April 2012.
  5. Bebbington, D. W. (1989). Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. London: Unwin Hyman. p. 259.
  6. Bruce, pp. 188-196
  7. Goodhew, David (January 2003). "The rise of the Cambridge inter-collegiate Christian union, 1910-1971". The Journal of Ecclesiastical History. 54 (1): 66.
  8. Boyd, Robin (2007). The Witness of the Student Christian Movement, 'Church ahead of the Church'. SPCK. p. 26. ISBN 0-281-05877-6.
  9. Bruce, p. 227
  10. Bruce, pp. 230-233
  11. Bruce, p. 233
  12. Bruce, p. 234
  13. Bruce, p. 243
  14. Balch, Emma (October 2003). "Leadership, truth & witness: Emma interviews Oliver Barclay, former Gen Sec of UCCF". Evangelicals Now. Thornton Heath, United Kingdom. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
  15. Hutchinson, Mark (2011). "International Fellowship of Evangelical Students". In Betz, Hans Dieter; Browning, Don S.; Janowski, Bernd; Jüngel, Eberhard (eds.). Religion Past and Present. Brill.
  16. Povey, Claire; Richards, John (December 2009). "Up against giants: mission to FE and sixth form colleges". The Evangelical Magazine. The Evangelical Movement of Wales. Archived from the original on 30 July 2012. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
  17. Bhogal, Pod (March 2011). "Obituary: Robin Wells, 1935-2011". Evangelicals Now. Thornton Heath, United Kingdom. Retrieved 7 April 2012.
  18. "Our Team – Richard Cunningham". Oxford, United Kingdom: UCCF. Archived from the original on 21 January 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
  19. "Statement from the trustees". Oxford, United Kingdom: UCCF. Retrieved 10 January 2023.
  20. Bebbington, D. W. (1989). Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. London: Unwin Hyman. p. 260.
  21. 'Our history', Tyndale House.
  22. Kirby Laing Centre website, Cambridge
  23. Perfect, Simon; Ryan, Ben; Aune, Kristin (2009). Faith and Belief on Campus: Division and Cohesion: Exploring student faith and belief societies (PDF). Theos. p. 115. UCCF, the broadly conservative, evangelical organisation to which 128 university Christian Unions are affiliated
  24. Cawdell, Dominic (28 April 2015). "Yes I'm a Christian, but not one of those". Varsity Online. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  25. Bush, Jemima (11 March 2016). "The Christian Union should change its name". Palatinate. Retrieved 30 May 2021.
  26. Guest, Matthew; Sharma, Sonya; Aune, Kristin; Warner, Rob (2013). "Challenging 'Belief' and the Evangelical Bias: Student Christianity in English Universities". Journal of Contemporary Religion. 28 (2): 210–211. doi:10.1080/13537903.2013.783326.
  27. Roberts, Vaughan (1992). "Reframing the UCCF Doctrinal Basis". Theology. 95 (768): 443–444. doi:10.1177/0040571X9209500604.
  28. Perfect, Simon; Ryan, Ben; Aune, Kristin (2009). Faith and Belief on Campus: Division and Cohesion: Exploring student faith and belief societies (PDF). Theos. p. 123.
  29. "United We Stand? A report on current conflicts between Christian Unions and Students' Unions" (PDF). Ekklesia. 2006. pp. 4–5, 12. Archived from the original (PDF) on 28 September 2007.
  30. Yorkshire Post – Campus Christians accused of breaking Students' Union rules
  31. "SCM – History". Archived from the original on 19 December 2010. Retrieved 8 February 2011.

Bibliography
  • Douglas Johnson, Contending for the Faith – A History of the Evangelical Movement in the Universities and Colleges. ISBN 0-85110-591-2.
  • Steve Bruce, The Student Christian Movement and the Inter-Varsity Fellowship: a sociological study of two student movements, (unpublished PhD thesis) – A copy is held at the British Library and also at the Center for Research Libraries, Chicago, IL 60637. An online PDF is also available.
  • Lindsay Brown, Shining like Stars – stories from students worldwide. ISBN 1-84474-167-2
  • Oliver Barclay & Robern Horn, From Cambridge to the World – history of Cambridge CU. ISBN 0-85111-499-7
  • Bebbington, David W, Evangelicalism in Modern Britain: A History from the 1730s to the 1980s. London: Unwin Hyman, 1989. ISBN 0-04-941018-0
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