The Story of Christis

Photo: Lizzie Freear

Well, we’ve got this Christian magazine at York, you see. And last issue, we had these two articles about Purgatory. And they went by the working titles, right, of “Purgatory: Fluffy” and “Purgatory: We’re gonna burn.” The magazine, you say? Oh, it’s called Christis.”

Thus did I learn of Christis. I’d just fi nished my A-levels, and was at my youth leader’s house, chatting with the students who’d gone out before me from the sheltered life of Christ Church youth groups, and entered the wild fray of university life. One such soul was my conversant, Chris Charlton; former Christis subscrip- tions rep; production coordinator to be; and close friend of that noble and lamented master of his art, Dorian du Richard.

By the time I got to York, I’d forgotten most of what Chris had said. That was, until he grabbed me at Freshers’ Fair, and bodily hurled me towards the Christis stand. Then I remembered.

So began my association with Christis. I’d better not let this history of Christis turn into a history of Greg, so I’ll summarise: Greg remembers he’d actually rather liked the idea of Christis, and turns up eagerly at their fi rst meeting: Greg is duly elected to the post of production coordinator along with Chris and an unfeasibly normal-looking electronics student named David: Greg spends many long nights slaving at a computer (and learning that David isn’t so normal after all): At the next AGM, Greg gets drawn in even deeper: Greg takes a year out, and presumably because they think he’s bone idle, gets asked by the committee to research a history of Christis.

I’m quite grateful they asked me to do that, actually. If they hadn’t, I’d probably never have come across one gem of an archived letter to the editor, stating that, “Finally, and the main point of this letter, I would like to congratulate Mr X. Never before have I seen one person so easily offend or slight the faith of so many different people in so few words.” I wish I could think up insults like that.

Trivia aside, we’ve had our eventful moments. After being started in 1989 by a meeting at Bede House, made up mostly of SCM types looking to comment from a Christian perspective on secular issues (or something like that. It sounds uncannily like the stated aim of Third Way, which is an evangelical magazine, but hey), Christis was apparently subject to an unwitting ‘second wave’ infl ux of eager CU members, which changed the direction somewhat. The name came from a suggestion of “Crisis”, which was noted to sound rather like “Christ-is” and then altered to sound more Latin and intellectual, coming to rest as “Chris-tis”. After the fi rst few issues, the new magazine obtained society funding. The SU weren’t too keen on giving money to a religious publication, apparently, but were eventually won over by Peter Carr’s cartoons. These would again come to the rescue fi ve years later. After being reduced to a working membership of four, it was decided that a do-or-die attempt must be made to salvage the magazine. During freshers’ week, the funniest of the cartoons were “plastered all over campus, giving Christis far greater ex- posure than its modest committee deserved. The impact they made was signifi cant and, along with some judicious cajoling, arm twisting and emotional blackmail, Christis membership by the end of the Fresher’s Fair stood at eighty members.” (Thanks to Nic Tall for the account, and Ian Jones for a conversation on the same subject.)

That wasn’t the last time Christis hit troubled waters. During my digging, I heard rather a lot about the ‘committee of three’ just before Ian Miller came in as chair. Surprising, really. One wouldn’t expect many memories to exist from a time when after all, the society contained very few people to do the remembering.

Perhaps this showed when I tried to determine precisely who comprised this committee, and the other committees around that period. Suffice to say, I now have more respect for biblical scholars constructing a canon, and tracing original manuscripts. I’m also less surprised that an apocrypha exists. (Okay, deutoerocanonical books, if you must.) I think the disputes have fi nally been settled, so if you’re really interested in what committees down the ages looked like, or think you have some information to add, email socs90@york.ac.uk — they should have the authoritative list.

As you may see from our front cover, Christis hasn’t always looked the same. To start off with, it was written in Tex format, printed at the SU print room, and illustrations were drawn and stuck in by hand. Word Perfect then came into fashion, and nowadays we have our own (admittedly, not exactly cutting edge) copy of PageMaker, our own (well, shared with URY and the other media societies) bit of office space, and our own computer (OK, that’s shared with the other media societies as well.) The one thing that seems to be a hangover from the days of Tex is the somewhat alarming abundance of Computer Scientists etc. in the society.

Another change from early days is that we’ve lost the committee positions of Deity, King, Queen, Queen Mother, Cuddly Toy, TULIP Rep, Lord Ambassador to the Beer Gardens of Germany, and alas, the Honorary Giraffe. According to Peter Tylor, these ‘silly’ positions were lost at a time when the ethos of the magazine shifted from that of a ‘fun’ society to a more efficient producer of quality (well, I wish) magazines. Look at the covers, and judge for yourself. I suppose that to be able to judge what Peter meant by ‘fun’ and ‘silly’, we’d better hear his account of one day in the life of Christis. “I remember the barbecue of summer 1999 especially well. To begin with, the cooking apparatus was set up in Hes Churchyard, near the Church entrance; the smoke spread quite widely! This was followed by a game of rounders on Hes Green which, as I was later to discover, gave the sun ample opportunity to burn my arms. After fleeting visits to the Derry and then the Charles, we ended up at the Saturday evening main meeting of the CU in Vanbrugh, at which, not being a habitual CU attendee, and having had more to drink than usual, I felt a little embarrassed!”

Aah, the CU. Lovely people. We’ve had some interesting times with them. For a start, there was the issue of Christis that contained both a very nearly direct attack on a part of their Doctrinal Basis, and a parody of the CU mission, set in the backwards world of “FCCU: The Fellowship for Correct Conversion and Union”. On yet another occasion, Christis’ credits list included Buck the Bear, the CU’s cuddly mascot, who had recently been abducted from the president’s house. How did that come about? Relations have often been good though — one early issue was devoted to reporting the CU’s recent mission, for real this time. And in more recent history, five of the previous CU committee said they’d write articles for us. Only two have actually done that, but I have hopes.

What is Christis actually about, anyway? Perhaps telling are the responses the Thinker (our now-deceased habit of sitting on Vanbrugh Stalls and asking passers-by questions each issue) received when in issue 51, they asked, “Is Christis doing its Job?” One response was that, “It makes people think. Bit like the Thinker, really.” Someone else was more specific; “What is Christis’ job? Recently it seems to have taken on a quasi-evangelistic mantle, preaching a narrow, individualistic and spiritualised gospel.” But then, surely that didn’t fit with someone else’s opinion, “No, it could do a lot more to reach and interest those who don’t consider themselves Christians.” By far my favourite response was that, “I think it does its best under a set of difficult circumstances, against opposition for being too liberal and too evangelical at the same time and against blatant apathy from those who are criticising it.” Yes, I like that. If we’re accused of being too liberal and too evangelical at the same time, we must be doing something right. By the grace of God, long may it continue.

Greg Melia