Real Clear Religion’s Jeffrey Weiss thinks that, regardless of what happens with the Boy Scouts and gay scouts and leaders, the organization will still hold the line (unfortunately from his point of view, I suspect) against atheists and agnostics.
Since I share Matthew Franck’s bleak view, I don’t think so.
Here’s the dynamic that will inexorably work its way out. What begins as a local option, with different councils and troops taking different views, will move toward uniformity. As the weight of opinion within scouting changes, those who favor the new orthodoxy will have less and less patience with those who hold morally traditional views. Churches that have long sponsored scout troops will either withdraw their sponsorship or be encouraged to do so by those who wish to solidify the new face of scouting.
To be sure, churches that have found ways to parse Scripture that don’t put them at odds with the new orthodoxy will continue to sponsor troops, so scouting will continue to have a substantially religious cast. But the religion will be modernist and accommodationist.
As such, I really don’t think that these sponsoring churches will erect barriers against atheists, so long as they’re “ethical” and “morally serious.” They will be loathe to impose even their minimal theology on anyone who wishes to embrace the new modernist, pluralist, accommodationist vision of scouting.
So Mr. Weiss has nothing to worry about.
I would add (from my experience as the father of a young man who need only pass his final board of review before he attains the rank of Eagle) that scouting in its current form is already quite tolerant of anyone who wishes externally to conform himself to the American mainstream. So long as you can recite the Scout Law and the Scout Oath, no one asks what you do with your private life or whether you in fact are a person of faith. Atheists who respect the religion of their fellows and do not seek to disrupt the relatively anodyne civil religion of scouting can certainly work their way through the ranks. Everything else–faith (or lack thereof) and sexuality, for example–is a matter for the scout and his parents.
That we cannot leave well enough alone is a testimony to the sad state of our culture.
January 30th, 2013 | 10:13 am
Thanks for the shout-out!
My position on the Boy Scouts is from the bleachers. I’m way too old to be a scout and I have no sons. It’s a private organization with a relatively small membership. If it wants to take atheists or agnostics, that’s its own call.
I am more troubled by your statement that the Scouts are perfectly happy to encourage lying about what ought to be, in this context, a serious and thought-out central tenet of one’s philosophy and/or beliefs.
Clearly the BSA HQ feels strongly about the religion thing, or it would have dropped the requirement long ago or done so now.
January 30th, 2013 | 11:15 am
It is false that an atheist can recite the Scout Oath and be ethical. The oath includes the following:
On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
So, an atheist would have to lie to take this oath. And lying is not ethical, now is it?
How is this not a barrier to atheists?
There is also the issue of whether someone who is openly atheistic would be accepted in BSA. Would they? Of course not. They cannot even honestly recite the oath. And why should an atheist have to hide their beliefs, hoping to fly under the radar?
So, claiming that no one cares if you are a person of faith is absolutely false.
January 30th, 2013 | 11:28 am
My argument is twofold.
First, I believe that if BSA goes forward with this proposal, the most faithful adherents to religious and moral orthodoxy will eventually leave or be pushed out. Those who remain will have much less reason to insist upon adherence to the theological or religious weak tea that remains. In the name of openness and toleration, everything will be permitted. The “God” in “God and Country” will be personalized or relativized.
Second, I argue that the current arrangement, which is functionally quite tolerant, already accommodates all those who respect the oprganization’s ideals, even if they don’t fully share in them. That BSA doesn’t engage in an Inquisition into the religious beliefs of the scouts, their leaders, and their families, and is willing to accept public conformity, doesn’t amount to requiring or expecting people to lie.
BSA is a voluntary membership organization. In any such organization, people are going to join on their own terms. Mental reservations may well be a part of the arrangement. To have them is not to be a hypocrite. If we always and in every instance made an organization’s conformity to our allegedly integral visions, there would be almost as many organizations as there are potential members.
January 30th, 2013 | 12:33 pm
I’m inclined to the pessimism of Messrs. Knippenberg and Franck.
And the reason why is that the Scouts are a relic of a culture that no longer exists, either in Britain or even America: a homogeneous, identifiably Christian culture. In such a culture, a group like the Scouts could succeed as a “Mere Christianity” youth group, with all the generally agreed moral codes that go with that.
But with that culture gone now, and a new, aggressive secular libertine culture fighting to take its place, I don’t see how the Scouts resist the pressure, lacking a strong cultural identity of their own.
What will happen, I think is the gradual breakup of the Scouts as churches take over its troops, or create new entities to siphon families away. The churches are better positioned to resist such pressures, both constitutionally and culturally, although it won’t be a walk in the park for them, either. Some rump of a watered, liberalized BSA might survive, but only that – a small rump. That looks like the future to me, I’m afraid.
And as a Catholic myself, when the time comes in several years to look for Scouting organizations, I will frankly look hard for ones tied as closely as possible to the Church, either formally or informally. And I would fully understand Baptists or Pentecostals or other evangelicals who chose the same course.
January 30th, 2013 | 12:59 pm
Right now, today, BSA embraces membership from pretty much EVERY faith, including a non-theistic strain of Buddhism. How do churches parse THAT? Why is it that so many people on this blog regard embracing Jesus as their Lord and Savior as option, but rejection of atheists and homosexuals as fundamental?
Perhaps this should be the new policy of First Things? “There’s no shame in professing things you don’t believe publically and maintaining your true beliefs privately! Therefore, if secular society asks you to behave secularly capitulate and conform!”
That we cannot leave well enough alone is a testimony to the sad state of our culture.
Someone – David Brooks, maybe? – offered this same thought when the BSA decided to get doctrinaire about excluding homosexuals and atheists. He basically argued, “Look, the way big organizations deal with these things is to overlook them. Taking a stand will win you no points with anyone who isn’t already in your corner. It will lose you points with liberals. And it will lose you points with conservatives when you eventually have to back down.”…
January 30th, 2013 | 1:43 pm
I’m reminded of the various cases upholding the “under God” part of the Pledge of Allegiance. In Elk Grove Unified School District v. Newdow, the Supreme Court’s majority declined to consider the question. But concurring/dissenting opinions, Justices O’Connor and Rehnquist concluded that “under God” was not in fact a religious reference, but merely a secular act to lend ritual solemnity of some occasion in the manner prescribed by our nation’s history. Only Justice Thomas stood up for the proposition that God means God, God is not just a historical artifact, and that we could not justify using God’s name for purely secular purposes. (He then proceeded to justify the Pledge on other grounds.)
Basically, when “public” organizations promote theology, you get weak tea theology. There’s something to be said for (then) Cardinal Ratzinger’s view that the Catholic Church might become smaller but purer. The Cardinal saw the choices before us:
We can keep weakening the tea in the hope that eventually no one will object to drinking it.
Or we can keep the tea strong. We can eliminate the presumption that people will drink it. And we can then truly celebrate those who freely choose to take up the cup.
Me? I’m in the mood to celebrate.
January 30th, 2013 | 2:41 pm
Allowing local control is an old tradition in the Boy Scouts. Wikipedia tells us:
The NAACP sued the Boy Scouts in 1974, and the suit was settled out of court.
“That we cannot leave well enough alone is a testimony to the sad state of our culture.”
I assume some people said that about the NAACP’s lawsuit.
January 31st, 2013 | 1:17 am
And cue David Nickol…Selma analogy now…and anyone who does not believe that sodomy should be a valid part of the Boy Scouts is a Mississippi Burning racist. Got it! That’s a wrap.
January 31st, 2013 | 1:39 am
Perhaps the best analogy to what is likely to happen to the Boy Scouts is the Episcopal Church, wherein the Scouts will eventually have their own Jefferts Schori leading the organization. The leader will say something embracing the practice of sodomy, which will trigger a massive exodus, as Joe Kippenberg describes. Their Schori-leader will then make some statement that the celebration of sodomy is in good standing with the proud Scouting tradition of tolerance, blah, blah, blah.
The Scouting Schori will do interview after interview where he/she will be asked about the exodus of boys from the organization and he’ll say that the dwindling numbers are not a primary concern, and he’ll also invoke the Selma analogy as David Nickol does above. And all the while their Schori will relish the exodus from the Boy Scouts and the rush to sell property to keep the organization afloat.
January 31st, 2013 | 6:59 am
Kent –
Since I didn’t believe in God, my ‘duty to God’ was zero and I could take the oath in good conscience. I eventually became SPL and made Eagle.
January 31st, 2013 | 8:24 am
Are the scare quotes meant to imply that atheists cannot be such?
January 31st, 2013 | 8:30 am
Douglas Johnson -
Huh. Douglas Johnson’s the only one who’s said that here. Is this a case of Proverbs 28:1?
January 31st, 2013 | 10:49 am
And cue David Nickol…Selma analogy now…and anyone who does not believe that sodomy should be a valid part of the Boy Scouts is a Mississippi Burning racist. Got it! That’s a wrap.
Douglas Johnson,
Crying “Selma analogy” is about as helpful in these conversations as crying “class warfare” is in politics.
If you have paid any attention to what I have been writing, you will see that I have taken the position that it would not be discriminatory for scouts to have a code of conduct that prohibited sex outside of marriage. I would hardly describe that as a radical position promoting sodomy in the Boy Scouts.
January 31st, 2013 | 12:34 pm
Um. So if the Scouts promoted *heterosexual* sex, presumably with Girl Scouts, that would be OK with you folks? I’m thinking that taking a position on technique (sodomy or whatever) is a lot less relevant than teaching something about the benefits of abstinence for kids that age and the necessity, otherwise, of practicing safe sex. Which transcends sexual orientation, yes?
January 31st, 2013 | 2:34 pm
Um. So if the Scouts promoted *heterosexual* sex, presumably with Girl Scouts, that would be OK with you folks?
Jeffrey Weiss,
Lifting a ban on gay scouts does not promote homosexual sex any more than not banning straight boys from the scouts promotes heterosexual sex.
By the way, does anyone believe that all Boy Scouts keep their virginity until they turn 18 and leave? Perhaps someone involved in scouting can tell us if it is standard procedure to expel boys from the scouts if they are discovered to have had (heterosexual) sex. The average male loses his virginity at 16.9 years of age. Even assuming the average Boy Scout is more chaste than the average boy, there certainly must be tens of thousands of Boy Scouts who have had (heterosexual) sex.
February 1st, 2013 | 10:31 am
I have to wonder, which policy would prompt a swifter demise for the boy scouts:
1) Admitting that some scouts are gay, and accepting those scouts.
2) Truly enforcing traditional standards of sexual morality for EVERYONE. For example, having every unmarried scout to recite a Pledge of Virginity (just after the Pledge of Allegiance), having all these scouts wear virginity badges on their uniforms, and expelling unmarried scouts who claim to be, or are alleged to be, not virgins.
For people who object that a BSA “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy on homosexuality would reflect a compromise on sexual ethics, face it – the BSA has always been compromised, because they’ve always had a “don’t ask, don’t tell” standard with respect to heterosexuals.
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