Post-war Era
The 1950s saw the OICCU at perhaps its greatest numerical strength, while the SCM was seen to have moved towards Marxism. One leading figure at this time was Michael Green (President in 1952), who has been a leading Evangelical in the Church of England and then the Anglican Communion since the 1960s. Canon Green has taken a particular interest in promoting the Charismatic Movement, including within the OICCU.
In a slightly later generation, Tom Wright was the OICCU President (1970-71) and published his first book together with other members of his year's Executive Committee. The book was a plea for a conservative Calvinist doctrinal position, a position he has since modified.
A feature of the post-war years has been the custom of triennal missions which attempt to explain the gospel to every undergraduate. These missions can trace their history back to the visit of Dwight Moody and Ira D. Sankey in 1882, but the current model began with a 1940 mission led by Lloyd-Jones. Subsequent main speakers have included Michael Green, Dick Lucas (long-time rector of St Helen's Bishopsgate), and John Stott; one of Stott's series of talks was subsequently published as Basic Christianity.
OICCU membership has diminished since the middle part of the century, and now usually stands in the low hundreds — however, most students who regularly attend meetings become formal members, and as of March 2006 OICCU's group membership on Facebook exceeded its official membership. The lease on the Northgate Hall was given up in the 1980s, and the Union has returned to the peripatetic existence of its earliest years, meeting in various church and public buildings around the city. Its archives are now held in the Bodleian Library and it has the use of a small store room at St Ebbe's church and New Road Baptist Church. The OICCU currently meet centrally every other Saturday during term time, with more regular meetings in colleges (as of Michaelmas Term 2012).
Read more about this topic: Oxford Inter-Collegiate Christian Union, History
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