When I was in high school, I applied for a job as a lifeguard at the local YMCA. I had grown up taking swimming lessons at “The Y” and spent my summers with my brother and sister at their pool. In all my time there, I barely knew what “YMCA” stood for; I just knew it was the local pool. However, when I was interviewing for the lifeguard position, the director of this particular branch emphasized to me that the YMCA was the “Young Men’s Christian Association” and that he expected all his employees to act in a Christian manner. Since I had recently received Jesus as my personal Lord and Savior (remember, I was not Catholic at this time, but Evangelical), I enthusiastically embraced the director’s vision of what YMCA employees should be. Of course, most of my fellow lifeguards spent the weekends partying and drinking; I think there was only one other self-professed Christian on the lifeguard staff. But nonetheless, the director still believed there was something Christian about the YMCA.

Well, it looks like the YMCA no longer agrees: they are officially changing their name to “The Y” ^[1]. Aside from the silliness of the new name, I do feel a certain sense of loss from the change. I know that The Y has been no more traditionally Christian over the past few decades than many mainline Protestant denominations, but it is still sad that they have formally abandoned their roots. Like the universities and colleges that were begun by sincere Christians but now reject that worldview, The Y no longer wants to be associated with Christianity, as they feel it might hurt their bottom line. This is the reality we now live in, and in many ways it shows the need for a re-evangelization of the Western world that Pope Benedict is calling for.

And an even more important issue: what will happen to that standard song of all dances: the Village People’s “Y-M-C-A”? I really can’t see it catching on without the “M-C-A,” can you?