Youth for Christ

"Out in Colorado Springs a couple of years ago, there was a freckle-faced elevator boy. . . . One day ... I asked, 'Did you ever receive Christ?'

"He answered, 'That's just what I don't understand. How do you do that?'

"I said, '. . . Would you like to have a quarter? ... I'll give it to you as a gift.'

". . . He took the quarter, and I said, '. . . I gave you a quarter and you took it and it's yours now. God gave you Jesus Christ, salvation, and everlasting life. . . . To get Jesus Christ you take it just like you did the quarter, but from the hand of God. . . . Tell me something, Bud. To whom does Jesus Christ belong?'

"I can see him as he said, 'He's mine.'

"Young folks, is He yours? Have you really been born again? Or are you hiding a heart full of sin behind the cloak of a lot of Scripture verses and other things? I wonder if God took you right now, if you are sure that you would go to Heaven? If you are not, make sure tonight."

Every Saturday night in Chicago's 2,500-capacity Orchestra Hall, Youth for Christ rallies listen to this sort of old-fashioned evangelistic appeal. The evangelist: blond, cheerleaderish, 36-year-old Torrey Johnson--director, sparkplug and guiding spirit of "Chicagoland Youth for Christ," president of Youth for Christ International, Inc.

Youth for Christ rallies began in New York in 1940 under the two-fisted leadership of a handsome young ex-insurance salesman, Jack Wyrtzen, whose zest for life had previously found its outlet in playing the trombone for a cavalry band. It mushroomed in Washington, D.C., Detroit, Indianapolis and St. Louis, and then in 1944 Baptist Torrey Johnson (pastor of Chicago's Midwest Bible Church) organized "Chicagoland" for Christ, quickly took over as a national leader. Today Y.F.C.'s rough estimates--there are no others--put the movement's strength at 300 "units" in the U.S., 200-odd more overseas. Average attendance at rallies: 350. Biggest Y.F.C. mobilization: 70,000 men, women and adolescents at Chicago's Soldier Field last Memorial Day.

Youth for Christ rallies combine the tried & true methods of evangelism with a streamlined box-office appeal that stresses a good deal of amateur-nightish entertainment: Bible quiz shows, sleight-of-hand performers, ventriloquists, close-harmony quartets. The basic precept: "Remember that this is Youth for Christ, and plan your program with teen-age young people in mind."

Says Director Johnson: "Youth for Christ has a two-fold purpose. First, the spiritual revitalization of America, which will bring America back to God, the Bible and the Church. Second, the complete evangelization of the world in our generation. . . .

"Youth for Christ has taken a million or more young people who were candidates for taverns and places of vice and put them in a wholesome atmosphere. . . . We've carried them through the critical years of uncertainty. . . . We're a sort of clearing house midway between the world and the Church. . . . And . . . our rallies are held on Saturday night, the one night the wiseacres said we couldn't succeed.

"We're getting ready for the big push. Five or six of us plan to go to Europe in March. . . . We hope to go to Scandinavia and Germany and maybe Russia. Next fall we're going to Australia and New Zealand, and in a year to China and Japan."

This global mission will come under the aegis of Evangelist Johnson's own newly formed offshoot, Youth for Christ International, which already boasts a payroll of 18 employes, including six field men whose salaries average $2,500 a year.

According to Torrey Johnson, President Truman, after a Y.F.C. rally in Olympia, Wash., said: "This is what I hoped would happen in America." But not all Americans are so sure. Some view with alarm the pious trumpeting of the Hearst press on Y.F.C.'s behalf, also the support of rightish. rabble-rousing "nationalists" like Gerald L. K. Smith. Of this kind of criticism, Torrey Johnson says: "Maybe he [Hearst] saw a million people across the country were going to Y.F.C. rallies every week and he decided to get in on the selling end. I've never gotten a dime from him and we've never met. . . . We don't want anything to do with [Gerald L. K. Smith] or anyone with a political ax to grind. Y.F.C. is a 100% religious movement."

Criticism of Y.F.C. has been religious as well as political. Associate Editor Harold E. Fey of the Christian Century has scathingly compared its "milky abstractions" with the "solid meat" of the great evangelists in the American religious tradition: in Youth for Christ rallies "a great deal is said about salvation, but nobody attempts to define it."

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