One of the country’s best-known charities has changed its name, losing the clearest link to its Christian roots.
The Young Women’s Christian Association has dropped its historic title after 156 years because ”˜it no longer stands for who we are’.
Instead the organisation ”“ which is mainly funded by legacies left by Christian supporters over 15 decades ”“ will be known as ”˜Platform 51’.
I remember visiting a local YMCA about 20 years ago and being upset seeing a framed picture of Jesus in a closet. YMCAs that secularize risk becoming nonprofit competitors to for-profit health-club businesses with very little to distinguish between them. Fortunately some YMCAs do keep ties to their Christian roots.
The YWCA left the C name a long time ago – most YMCAs still retain their name.
It appears that non-Christians who are now ‘holding the reins of power’ are ‘coming out into the open’ in another originally Christian organization.
Maybe these people in the former YWCA have been studying the secular takeover of The Episcopal Church.
Is this for real? That sounds like something off The Onion.
Platform 51…is that like Area 51?
The YWCA does maintain one religious connection of note: the organization is an affiliate of the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice (RCRC). Sad.
From the [i]Daily Mail[/i]:
[i]It also appeared to open a rift between the renamed grouping in England and Wales and the worldwide YWCA that grew after the charity was founded by two Englishwomen in 1855.
Officials at the World YWCA headquarters in Geneva said none of the 124 branches in other countries are changing their names.
Spokesman Sylvie Jacquat said: ‘The name has been there for more than 150 years and we are not even discussing a change.
‘We see our name as an opportunity for promoting Christian values and principles.’[/i]
Well, it’s the US YWCA that declared their mission statement a couple decades back as “Ending racism – by any means necessary.”
Those last four words still put a chill down my back. They may not change their name, but with “by any means necessary” I’d say they’ve declared their non-Christian-ness as clearly as Platform 51 has.
To be fair, I just took a quick look at the ywca.org website, and to give them credit, I see I’m a year or so behind:
[copy/pasted from their website]
our mission
The YWCA General Assembly voted by 91% on May 3, 2009, to revise the YWCA mission statement to the following:
YWCA is dedicated to eliminating
racism, empowering women and
promoting peace, justice, freedom
and dignity for all.
At least the comments in the Daily Mail article are overwhelmingly against the name change and the denial of Britain’s Christian heritage that motivated it. Usually comments in British (and increasingly also American) newspaper articles are overwhelmingly from atheists or humanists who spout the usual bilge – good riddance to religion, Christianity is to blame for the world’s ills, etc. Even one atheist in the comments expressed dismay and noted Christianity’s positive contributions to the world and the goodness and decency of the Christians he knew. All is not lost!
In the US the YMCA officially became “The Y” in it’s branding; the name behind the brand remains ymca, however.
The YMCA began as an evangelistic organization focusing on bringing young men to faith in Christ. To attract young men, they began to use a gymnasium, rooms to let at an affordable rate (in the 1800’s, many unmarried men lived in rooming houses), etc. The focus started on evangelism and discipleship, using the physical resources as tools to that end.
As we see now, however, the tool became the purpose – and the Y lost its Christo-centric aims.
[blockquote]”Platform 51 aims to ‘lobby for changes in the law and policies to help all women”[/blockquote]
I am glad that they no longer claim the name Christian if they are nothing but another organization of lobbyists who want to get hold of taxpayer’s money.
It is sad that an organization that used to represent Christian Charity has come to this but it is better that they change their name than to pretend to represent a Christian organization.
And therefore, the tax laws apply, sign up the Y for all the taxes other organizations pay.
Tax-exempt no longer. Show me the money, show me your IRS return.