UCCF - History

History

In the summer term of 1919 an evangelical student called Norman Grubb of Trinity College, Cambridge and a friend met with ten representatives of the Student Christian Movement (SCM) to discuss their concerns that SCM was promoting an overly liberal view of Christianity in the British universities. Grubb posed the direct question, "Does the Student Christian Movement put the atoning blood of Christ central in its teaching?" After a little deliberation the answer came, "Well, we acknowledge it, but not necessarily central."

Grubb and his friends at Cambridge decided that they could no longer work in partnership with SCM, saying that it had divorced a biblically-based, cross-centred emphasis. Cambridge Inter-Collegiate Christian Union (CICCU) had been disaffiliated from national SCM since 1910, but only after talks in 1919 floundered did a permanent split look probable. Splits followed throughout the British and Irish university system, and two separate organisations emerged which went on to form the modern UCCF (initially known as the IVF) and SCM.

CICCU parted from SCM over two issues. For Grubb and his friends, the Bible had to be the central source of truth, but SCM could not affirm that its entire membership matched their view of Biblical infallibility. The second area of difference was the priority of evangelism; although the SCM had initially aimed at "the evangelisation of the world in this generation," CICCU felt that this aim was not being sufficiently emphasised by 1922. SCM's official history also refers to differences over governance.

Grubb developed a vision to see an 'evangelical witnessing community on every university campus'. At the time there were just 28 universities in the UK and Ireland.

Meanwhile, in 1919, students from Oxford, Cambridge and London CUs started to meet in London for non-residential conferences. After being persuaded to take on the secretaryship of these Inter-Varsity Conferences in 1924, Kings College alumni Dr Douglas Johnson was chosen by delegates from the 14 university Christian unions who assembled at High Leigh Conference Centre, Hoddesdon in 1928 to found the Inter-Varsity Fellowship of Evangelical Unions (IVF) as its first General Secretary, a role he continued in until 1964.

In 1947 UCCF became a founding member of the International Fellowship of Evangelical Students (IFES), through which it continues to play an active role in international mission.

During the 1940s, CU work began in the Technical Colleges under a subsidiary body, the Inter-Colleges Christian Fellowship (ICCF) and this saw substantial growth with the formation of Polytechnics, as a consequence of the increase in full-time students in that sector. Alongside this, the Colleges of Education Christian Unions (CECU) provided a similar function, supporting Christian Unions based in teacher training colleges. Work in these areas expanded rapidly in the late 1960s and early 1970s, such that by the mid 1970s it represented half the ministry, and resulted in ICCF and CECU merging with IVF to form the Universities and Colleges Christian Fellowship. A specialist group, the Religious and Theological Students Fellowship (RTSF), who published the journal Themelios, retained a separate identity.

Since then many colleges have themselves gained university status. Until 2007 UCCF continued to serve both the HE and FE sectors of tertiary education, but in that year a new organisation called FESTIVE - FE & Sixth Form Initiative came into being, leaving UCCF free to concentrate on HE.