[box]Plagued with controversial monikers, both the atheist and Christian groups on campus changed their names this academic year.[/box]
One university. Two perspectives. A rebranding effort by both could change perceptions on campus for years to come.
San Luis Obispo Crusade for Christ has joined its national organization in moving forward to change its name to SLO Cru. Meanwhile, the Brights — an atheistic group at Cal Poly — changed its name to the Alliance of Happy Atheists (AHA) at the beginning of this academic year. Both cited negative connotations to previous names as prominent factors in the decisions.
“Quite honestly, it makes sense to me,” SLO Cru director Jamey Pappas said. “It sounded kind of aggressive and what not.”
The word “crusade” brought up images of historical crusades, a series of holy wars launched nearly 1,000 years ago by European Christians against Muslims, Pappas said. He cited a study done by SLO Cru’s national organization that indicated approximately 20 percent of people said they were less interested in the ministry after hearing its name.
Pappas condemned the historical crusades, saying he hopes the name of the organization did not encourage people to believe the crusades are a positive aspect in Christianity.
“That’s an ugly, awful period of Christian history,” he said. “That is not the history of the Bible or what Jesus preached.”
According to Cru’s national website, the word crusade was “common and acceptable” in 1951 when the organization was started at University of California, Los Angeles. It states that now the word is “a barrier to the people we want to connect with.”
“We’ve done things and said things that have been insensitive,” Pappas said. “And we’ve made mistakes. We’re much more culturally sensitive now.”
Pappas said the organization hopes to create an identity for the word “Cru,” comparing its goal to that of Google and Starbucks.
“We want to be known for who we are, and not necessarily for our name,” he said.
Despite the official name change not being announced, students have already began using the new name around campus, Pappas said.
Architecture sophomore Jessica Kuhlman said she liked the full Campus Crusade for Christ title, but her and her friends are open to change.
“We’ll probably all get used to it, but now we still call it Crusade instead of Cru,” she said. “I think it’s a smart decision. Some people don’t know what the crusades are, but some people do.”
On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Brights officially began calling themselves the Alliance of Happy Atheists earlier this year. This came after feedback from some that “Brights” was an offensive term for atheists, said AHA Vice President Bryan Scott, a physics sophomore.
“If you don’t know the background of it, it did sound like we were saying we were somehow smarter or more enlightened than you are,” Scott said.
The Brights was originally part of a well-known secular movement started by Dan Dennett at Tufts University, Scott said. The movement, however, lost steam and fizzled out to less prominence among atheists.
AHA picked up its new name after seeing a similar organization at the University of Oregon, Scott said. The group of Cal Poly students attempted to contact the Oregon students for permission to use the name, but never heard back from the other organization.
“I assume after six months of trying to contact them, they probably don’t care enough to respond,” Scott said.
Scott says the new name reclaims the word atheist and tries to remove the negative stigma from people who do not believe in God. He said when it boils down to it, Christians and atheists strive for the same sense of happiness and do it for similar reasons.
“The main point is to say that you can be happy if you’re an atheist,” Scott said. “And not only can you be happy, but we are.”
Community is at the focus of AHA, Scott said, and it is less about skepticism than it is about finding people with similar interests.
“I don’t want to say I’m blessed, but the meaning of that word is being in a good place,” Scott said. “I have great friends, great family, and part of that is through AHA.”