Trail Life USA

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Boy Scouts push trans button: So in which pulpits and pews are people celebrating?

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

So the Boy Scouts have made another move to dance with the Sexual Revolution, opening the doors to transgender boys.

As you would expect, there are all kinds of religion angles to this important culture-wars story. As you would expect, the New York Times led with words of praise from "critics of the organization who for years have called for more inclusive membership rules." The story also understands that, while some people celebrated the decision, others were grieving.

The twist in this particular Times report -- "Conservatives Alienated by Boy Scouts’ Shift on Transgender Policy" -- was that the story focused almost exclusively on the voices of the losers, thus missing a key element of where this story may be headed in the future.

Yes, you read that right -- the Times pretty much ignored the views -- religious and cultural -- of key leaders on the victorious Religious Left. Maybe that angle will get ink in future coverage? Here is a crucial piece of background material, which follows extensive comments from the Rev. Russell Moore of the Southern Baptist Convention:

Whether the new rules would lead to an influx of transgender scouts seemed uncertain. Besides one highly publicized case of a transgender boy being excluded from a New Jersey Scouting unit, there had been limited attention on the issue before this week. Boy Scouts officials declined to be interviewed, and would not comment on how many youths the decision might affect.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for the Boy Scouts said it was “no longer sufficient” to rely on a birth certificate to determine gender. “The B.S.A. is committed to identifying program options that will help us truly serve the whole family,” said the spokeswoman, Effie Delimarkos, adding that those efforts would remain “true to our core values, outlined in the Scout Oath and Law.”
For many years, the Boy Scouts have found themselves facing conflicting forces on issues of sexuality and inclusion. The Scouts contended with a pattern of declining membership, canceled corporate donations and public criticism over the group’s restrictions on gay youths before easing those rules in 2013. And the move this week to allow transgender youths was hailed by some as a positive, overdue step toward equality.

So the Southern Baptists -- a major player in terms of churches hosting Scouting programs -- are disappointed and this latest BSA policy shift may push more religious conservatives toward the exit door (to alternative programs such as Trail Life USA.

But who are the other major players, on the religion side of this debate?


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Backpacker heads out into the woods and gives Trail Life USA a fair shot

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There is the Boy Scouts of America story, which is complex and getting more so every minute -- especially among decision-makers for American Catholics and leaders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Journalists are covering these stories, of course.

Then there is another story that could be covered, one that focuses on the people in religious flocks that are not interested in compromising on centuries of basic doctrines about marriage and family. There have been a few stories about these folks, but, so far, they have been rather thin and packed with stereotypes.

The former Boy Scout in me is interested in knowing what happens to the folks who have left. I'm interested -- as an Eastern Orthodox layman -- in some of these other options because I know that many members of Orthodox parishes are starting to look for ways out of the Boy Scouts. But do they want to join some kind of hyper-Evangelical Protestant alternative?

I'm happy to report that a freelancer linked to Backpacker Magazine -- a bible, of sorts, for people who wear out more than their share of hiking boots and rain slickers -- has turned out a serious story about Trail Life USA, one of the largest of the faith-friendly alternative camping-and-outdoors operations.

The key: This story focuses more on what boys are doing in these troops out in the woods, as opposed to what their lawyers are saying in courtrooms. There are sections of this piece that will make the palms of Unitarian Universalists or urbane Episcopalians sweat.

I also appreciated that reporter Patrick Doyle, who works out of Pittsburgh, didn't focus on a Trail Life unit in, let's say an evangelical megachurch in Bible Belt, Mississippi. He focused on a troop in a northern setting, based in a mainline Protestant flock. Here is the overture, focusing on the roots of this troop:

Boy Scout Troop 452 has been meeting at Concord United Methodist Church in Beaver Falls, Pennsylvania, as long as there’s been a troop, nearly 70 years.
But this isn’t the usual weekly gathering of the boys and their scoutmaster, Richard Greathouse. This meeting is just for their parents.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

Mormons, Southern Baptists and the new math facing the Boy Scouts of America

, , , , , , , , ,

When I was growing up as a Southern Baptist kid in Texas, it was almost unheard of for a healthy Southern Baptist congregation not to have a Boy Scouts troop for boys in its neighborhood. At the same time, almost all of these churches had a Royal Ambassadors program, a Southern Baptist-sponsored project built completely on biblical themes and promoting national and international missions work.

In other words, while the RAs were covering openly Christian material, the Boy Scouts were viewed as a semi-secular, but faith-friendly, organization that would not conflict with what the church was teaching.

That was a long, long time ago. I was shocked -- as the gay Boy Scouts coverage began to rise two or three years ago -- to discover that only 4,000 or so Southern Baptist Churches in America still had Boy Scout troops.

I thought of those numbers when reading a very interesting comment, by a long-time reader who is a Mormon, on Bobby's recent survey of coverage of the Boy Scouts vote to allow noncelibate gays to hold leadership roles in local troops, while also allowing religious groups to opt out of that change. John Lambert wrote:

In this article we learn that one of the LDS Church's issues is that outside of the US there are very few places it has managed to set up a working relationship with the boy scouts.
On the other hand, journalists have to bear in mind that the LDS relationship to the boy scouts is different than some groups. The LDs Church uses the boy scouts as the activity arm for the Aaronic priesthood. It is intertwined with the religious mission of the Church very deeply.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

#DUH — Key to Boy Scouts story is located in pews, pulpits and debates on doctrine

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

When I was growing up in Port Arthur, Texas -- certainly one of the most racially divided cities in America -- one of the primary forces for change was the Boy Scouts of America. My father was the pastor of an inner-city Southern Baptist congregation and working with children in the neighborhoods around our church was one of his priorities.

As you can imagine, some of the people in church pews in the late 1960s didn't share his perspectives on that issue. My father did what he could.

Thus, there was a simple reality: Look at a church's Boy Scouts troop and it told you quite a bit about the leadership of that church, as opposed to the policies of the Boy Scouts.

That's why I was interested, to say the least, in the following passage in the recent Washington Post story about the remarks by Boy Scouts of America President Robert M. Gates in which he urged the organization to reconsider its ban on openly gay Scout leaders.

... Steeped in tradition as they were, the Boy Scouts often struggled to handle change. Though the Girl Scouts formally banned segregation of its troops the 1950s -- prompting the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. to call the group “a force for desegregation” -- the last Boy Scout troop wasn’t integrated until 1974, according to NPR. ...

And unlike the Boy Scouts of America, from the beginning the Girl Scouts declared themselves to be “non-sectarian in practice as well as theory.” In 1993, when a prospective member protested the phrase “serve God” in the Girl Scout Promise, the organization ruled that members could substitute whatever phrase fit their beliefs. The Girl Scouts have never had a policy on homosexual members and have admitted transgender members since 2011.

The Boy Scouts, on the other hand, have long been inextricably tied to tradition and religion. The Scout’s oath pledges boys to “do my duty to God and my country and to obey the Scout Law; to help other people at all times; to keep myself physically strong, mentally awake, and morally straight.” A 2011 study of messaging in the Girl Scout and Boy Scout handbooks found that the Boy Scouts handbook relied on “organizational scripts” rather than autonomy and critical thinking, promoting “an assertive heteronormative masculinity.” Meanwhile, more than 70 percent of all troops are chartered to faith-based organizations, most of them Christian.

It doesn't take a doctorate in gender studies to find good and evil in that paragraph.


Please respect our Commenting Policy
, , , , , , , , ,

Ghosts haunt Associated Press story on the decline of the Boy Scouts of America

, , , , , , , , ,

When my oldest son was a Boy Scout, the entire experience was couched in church settings. His pack meetings took place in church halls,  and ceremonies were scheduled in church sanctuaries and auditoriums. His pack leaders often doubled as congregational lay leaders, and the boys were asked once a year to don their uniforms and lead a special “Scout Sunday” worship. When the boys recited the oath, the “Under God” portion no doubt resonated within their surroundings.

I was surprised, then, by The Associated Press’ story on new statistics released Wednesday that show a 6 percent membership decline in the last year — a year during which new rules were put in place to accept and protect openly gay Scouts, from Cubs to Eagles.

The story had a Dallas dateline, undoubtedly tied to the organization’s national headquarters in nearby Irving, Texas. Beyond that obvious connection, what better area in the country to find a wide array of faith groups willing and able to speak intelligently about the impact of the change on troops with which they might have alliances or sponsorship?


Please respect our Commenting Policy