c. 2003 Religion News Service

(UNDATED) Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ International, an evangelical organization that began on a Los Angeles campus and grew to include dozens of ministries, died Saturday (July 19). He was 81.

Bright died from complications from pulmonary fibrosis and prostate cancer, Campus Crusade said.

Bright, the longtime president of Campus Crusade, was officially succeeded by Steve Douglass, former executive vice president, in 2001. But Bright, who co-founded Campus Crusade with his wife, Vonette, in 1951, was still working on books, preparing videos and planning training for Christian leaders in recent months despite his illnesses.

In an interview last year with Religion News Service, Bright sounded a positive note about his declining health.

“I’ve learned that life and death are not that much different and, you know, to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord so a Christian can’t lose,” he said.

Former U.S. Senate Chaplain Lloyd Ogilvie described Bright earlier this year as a man who brought “dynamic leadership” to Campus Crusade, exuding confidence as he depended on God.

“He has a capacity of seeing what God is doing in challenging as well as difficult circumstances and then finding a strategy of bringing God’s power into that situation,” said Ogilvie, who served as pastor to Bill and Vonette Bright when they attended First Presbyterian Church of Hollywood while Campus Crusade was based in California.

“He has a deep reverence for the power of God to do what we might consider to be impossible.”

In 1991, Crusade moved its headquarters to Orlando, Fla.

Famed evangelist Billy Graham, a longtime friend of the Brights, said Bright carried a lifelong “burden for the evanglization of the world.”

“He is a man whose sincerity and integrity and devotion to our Lord have been an inspiration and a blessing to me ever since the early days of my ministry,” Graham said in a statement.

Former Southern Baptist Convention President James Merritt said members of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination have long admired Bright, who he considered a great follower of Jesus’ command to evangelize the world.

“I can say without question or qualification that Southern Baptists have a tremendous love and respect for Dr. Bright,” Merritt told RNS in 2001. “I don’t know of any man in the 20th century that did more to promote the Great Commission … than Bill Bright.”

A native Oklahoman who once owned a confections business, Bright liked to refer to himself as a former “happy pagan.” He studied at Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey and Fuller Theological Seminary in Pasadena, Calif., but chose to remain a layman because he thought some people would be more comfortable around him without the ordination credentials.

His ministry expanded from campuses to include outreaches to diplomats, professors, executives, military personnel, athletes and families. In addition to overseeing Campus Crusade, Bright authored more than 50 books and booklets.

Dennis Rainey, executive director of FamilyLife, a Campus Crusade division focused on supporting families, said Bright’s faith led him to embark on new ministries.

“He once told me in a meeting `That when I die, I want to be found guilty of believing God for too much rather than too little’ and I think his life has exemplified that,” said Rainey, whose division is based in Little Rock, Ark.

“No one would ever accuse Bill Bright of having small plans.”

In five decades, his ministry grew to include 22,000 full-time staffers and almost half a million volunteers.

Bright, the winner of the prestigious Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion in 1996, was honored in 2001 by prominent evangelical organizations. The Evangelical Christian Publishers Association awarded him its Gold Medallion Lifetime Achievement Award and the National Association of Evangelicals chose him for its first-ever Lifetime Ministry Award.

Among his most noteworthy evangelistic accomplishments was the creation of a little pamphlet titled “Have You Heard of the Four Spiritual Laws?” The small booklet, which explained how people can become Christians, has been printed more than 2.5 billion times in more than 200 languages.

His ministry also has been known worldwide for the distribution of a movie about the life of Jesus. The film, simply called “Jesus,” now exists in more than 800 languages.

Other Christian leaders have lauded Bright for his role in fostering Christian unity through such efforts as “Fasting & Prayer” conferences that began in 1994 and his endorsement of “Evangelicals and Catholics Together,” a controversial statement addressing issues on which Christian leaders from different perspectives found agreement.

“This idea of division is not of God,” Bright said. “Criticism and fault-finding and anti-anything in the life of believers on the part of another is wrong.”

Rather than accepting praise for his wide-ranging work, Bright often gave God the credit.

“Can you imagine a little old movement started by two little old people like Vonette and me, but see incredible things happen?” he marveled. “It has to be God’s doing.”

Bright is survived by his wife, a sister and brother, two sons and four grandchildren.

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