July 14 1997

ARTICLE TOOLS

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Part three of three parts; (click here to read part 2)

At the same time, Bright was heavily involved in networking through the politically conservative Christian Embassy in Washington, whose members had similar concerns about the nation's moral condition. Wallis and Granberg-Michaelson felt that Bright had indiscriminately mingled his evangelistic vision with the political goals of the newly forming Religious Right.

Bright did not help his own cause when he endorsed the book In the Spirit of '76 ("a handbook for winning elections") published by politically arch-conservative Third Century Publishers. He later admitted that he had never read the book—it had been commended by a staff worker—and that he didn't know what Third Century Publishers was about until he read theSojourners article.

Bright denied being part of any political scheme, and today Wallis and Bright have grown to understand and appreciate each other's respective callings. Wallis recognizes that Bright's flirtation with political involvement inthe seventies was driven more by evangelistic fervor than by political ambition. And he also believes that the controversy helped nudge CCC toward what has become a standard operating principle not to politicize itself. "Bright moves in [politically conservative] circles," Wallis says."But I'm not aware that CCC has aligned with any of those organizations."

In the mid-1980s, Bright undertook a project that he felt sure was another vision from God. He wanted to build the International Christian GraduateUniversity—a "Christian Harvard," as a former CCC person put it, and he poured a great deal of the ministry's time and resources into the project.

They initially purchased 5,000 acres in the La Jolla Valley near ...