The Decline of Christendom (& the YMCA)

I work out at our local YMCA, and every day the staff posts a different "inspirational" quote at the facility's entrance.  Last week, they posted a quote from Freud: "The more the fruits of knowledge become accessible to men, the more widespread is the decline of religious belief."  I found myself more puzzled than inspired, wondering what figures such as D.L. Moody (who was a YMCA missionary in the 1860s) would think of Freud being the welcome mat for the instition they had labored so long to build.

Most signs of the YMCA's religious roots dropped away long ago, of course.  Today's Chicago Tribune reports on a movement to put the "Christ" back into the Young Men's Christian Association.  Not surprisingly, it is not being embraced on all fronts.  As the president of the YMCA of metro Chicago explained, "Religion is a very personal thing, not an institutional thing."