Driving back from Leeds this morning I passed a church in Huddersfield which had one of those 'Trendy Vicar' advertising slogan type notices outside, designed to 'get down with the kids' and have the punters flooding in of a Sunday. I couldnae photograph the actual sign, due to negotiating a tricky junction at the time, but I have masterfully reproduced it here.
Now on the face of it we seem to have the usual 'Jesus is Love' message, but zanily [and quite possibly 'Bonkersly'] dressed up as a mathematical equation [These trendy vicars sure know how to target the youth market!] but let’s just doublecheck here and make sure the Skypilot’s sums add up:
Life - Love = Zero
OK. This either means that; 'Life' and 'Love' are opposites, eg.
Life = 1 and Love = -1
or identical negatives, eg. both are equal to '-1' or both are Zero.
Life + Jesus = Love
Well, we’ve already established three possible scenarios for the value of 'Life' and 'Love', so we can try each possibility and use simple Algebra to deduce the value of 'Jesus'. So let’s see now:
1: If 'Life' and 'Love' are opposites, eg.
Life = 1 and Love = -1
then
1 + Jesus = -1
which means
Jesus = -2
Hmmm.. Surely that cannae be right? Isn’t Jesus meant to be a positive influence?
2: Alright. Maybe 'Life' and 'Love' are identical negatives, eg. both are equal to '-1'. In that case
-1 + Jesus = -1
which means that
Jesus = Zero
That cannae be right either, can it?
3: OK. Last possibility. Both 'Life' and 'Love' are equal to Zero. That would mean
0 + Jesus = 0
which once again gives us the result that
Jesus = Zero
So there you have it. Believing in Jesus has at best Zero effect and at worst a Doubly Negative one. And this is not just my cynical opinion. That is the official message of The Church itself. I’m still not quite sure how this is meant to drum up more custom for the 'Bible-Bashers', but I’m sure the Reverend Trendy Trenderson knows what he’s doing.