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The Dartmouth
July 14, 2025 | Latest Issue
The Dartmouth

Sabotage of Campus Crusade for Christ Possible

To the Editors:

I was distressed to read about the recent hate mail incident on the Dartmouth campus. I wish to speculate on the motivation behind it. It seems widely assumed, and may indeed be true, that the intent was to attack Jews and homosexuals. Dartmouth history suggests an alternative possibility.

In the fall of 1990, some words were deleted from the middle of the masthead quote of a certain off-campus weekly and replaced by a quote from Adolph Hitler. The leadership of that paper claimed that the paper had been sabotaged, and their claim was supported by polygraph tests and by an investigation by the Anti-Defamation League. A disgruntled former staff member who had means, motive, and opportunity was accused of the deed. His guilt was widely presumed, particularly after he was caught making harassing telephone calls to a professor who had contributed to that paper. Nonetheless, the incident sparked a major demonstration against that paper, and when the incident is referred to even now, the alleged sabotage is not usually mentioned. Therefore it succeeded in inspiring hatred against that paper (something the paper had previously managed without help.)

Some individuals were deeply upset that the Campus Crusade for Christ distributed Mere Christianity through the campus mail system. Some consider CCC and even Christianity itself fascist, for in holding their beliefs Christians insinuate that other religious beliefs are mistaken and that some types of behavior are morally wrong. Some believe that promotion of Christianity is, or leads to, an attack on Jews and homosexuals. For this reason, some individuals believe that the essence of Christianity can be reduced to the moral level of the hate mail pieces and that Mere Christianity is, or promotes, hate mail. Some who believe that Christianity promotes intolerance of Jews and homosexuals believe that it must be exposed as such so that others will be convinced of this. Thus, they have a strong motivation for sending such hate mail CCC's return address, seemingly demonstrating that the Mere Christianity mailing was a prelude to hate mail. This possibility, especially as it has the historical precedent mentioned above, is at least as likely as that the mail itself reflected the beliefs of Dartmouth students who sent it. That it did not originate with Dartmouth students and/or that it was meant as an attack on the College itself, rather than on Jews, homosexuals, or CCC, are also obvious, but less likely, possibilities.

There may, unbeknownst to me, be particular students who have publicly been associated with the attitude toward Christianity I outline above. If so, I do not wish to accuse them of sending hate mail. My point is rather to suggest that there may be less hatred on campus than feared, and that known sentiments against Christian proselytizing may provide sufficient explanation of the incident.