YMCA Theology

I am fortunate to live within walking distance of a YMCA. (I drive.) My autistic son Luke also goes there, though we don't often go together. There, like everywhere else, I am usually (and proudly) known as "Luke's father." Case in point: Yesterday, while checking in, the woman looked at my name on her computer screen and, as I was walking away from the desk toward the locker room, she chased me down and said, with an expression that bordered on envy: "Are you Luke's dad?" So I replied, as always, with my best Vader voice, "Yes, I am Luke's father."

That has nothing to do with today's post. The shower at the Y has something to do with today's post. It is a typical shower with a rotating control, from 0 to 180 degrees of rotation, that turns the water on and (allegedly) sets the temperature from cold to hot. The actual plot of water temperature vs. rotation angle of the control looks something like this:

You've been there, right? You aim the shower to one side, stand on the other, and try adjusting the control in the milli-degree range to hit the sweet spot.

In doing so, it occurred to me how useful this plot for describing the church at large. For example, for years I have followed internet bread crumbs on the near-and-dear to me theological topic of the Law. After years of exhaustive, unproductive research I have reached but one conclusion. I am convinced that we all have a plot that looks like this:

And another, with the same useful plot, regarding musical instruments in the worship service:

I don't find this particularly troublesome--it's probably more amusing than problematic.

Unless it goes too far. Unless the dreaded H-bomb is dropped:

Now for the gospel itself, the plot above is accurate. And for the Trinity. And for the Deity of Christ. But for many other doctrines, including many I affirm with all my heart and mind, it should, in my opinion, look something more like this, assuming that the H bomb is even applicable:

You want to know what I believe the bullet-proof red-flag is when someone is using the H-Bomb when they shouldn't? It's when they cannot bring to bear a simple biblical argument, but instead employ the logical fallacy of the slippery-slope. AIG YECs (and some who should know better, like Al Mohler--unless he's recently changed his view) are masters of this technique. They will start with an assumed old earth position, and knock down the dominoes until the arrive at the "inevitable" conclusion that Jesus could not atone for our sins.

I learned all this at the YMCA! The Village People were on to something!

Tomorrow I'll explain how the elliptic machine taught me the real story of Paul's thorn in the flesh (all other views are heresy.)