It’s certainly possible that I’m wildly optimistic (it would not be the first time), but I am inclined to disagree with the recent suggestions of Joseph Knippenberg and Matthew Franck, based on recent (possible) changes in policy on sexual orientation, that the Boy Scouts of America would change its position on theism and atheism, at least at any point in the foreseeable future. There are several reasons to think this.
(1) Scouting as the Boy Scouts conceive it structurally involves at least a very minimal theism.
Policies like those governing rank requirements and eligibility for being a scoutmaster are easily changed, but the very conception of Scouting on which the organization is based is another matter entirely. The Boy Scouts of America have always seen themselves as the legitimate representatives in the United States of the pure Scouting movement, as originally concevied by Robert Baden-Powell.
Robert Baden-Powell, who was the son of the liberal theologian Baden Powell, explicitly developed Scouting to teach boys brotherhood under God. It was intended to be an educational movement suitable to a British Empire united not by blood or race but by ideals, among which were that of a moral order involving respect for God, whatever else one might think about God. The early founders of the Boy Scouts of America, who were mostly deists or liberal Protestants themselves, made this particular element of Baden-Powell’s vision even more central to their organization.
(2) Even the Girl Scouts handle this question in a relatively conservative way.
Contrary to popular belief, Girl Scouts of the United States of America is not the sister organization of Boy Scouts of America. It is the exact opposite: the only successful rival organization. The sister organization for Boy Scouts of America was Camp Fire Girls. The Boy Scouts spent much of their early history unsuccessfully trying to eliminate the Girl Scouts by legal attack and social pressure.
In other words, the Girl Scouts and the Boy Scouts have radically different organizations, with distinct visions of Scouting, and much less commonality than their names might imply. Most of what they do have in common are simply things they both independently took over from Baden-Powell. One of the consistent differences between the two is that the Boy Scouts have always been a much more conservative organization; even on moves that have widespread support, the Boy Scouts will often lag anywhere from ten to thirty years behind the Girl Scouts. Part of this is due to the fact that the Girl Scouts have always had a more unified and centralized structure, and part is due to the fact that the Boy Scouts are built on a much more conservative vision of what a Scouting movement should be. The Girl Scouts have always prided themselves on being ahead of the game on social issues; it is for them one of the things Scouting is about.
So what has the Girl Scout position been on this particular point? In 1993 the Girl Scouts voted to allow members to avoid using the word ‘God’ in the Girl Scout Promise. This was sometimes presented in news outlets as opening up the Girl Scouts to atheists. However, as often happens, quite a bit of nuance was dropped in these reports. The actual decision re-affirms that God is important for the organization’s vision of Scouting. The traditional Girl Scout promise is still the expected default, and Girl Scouts cannot simply drop the “To serve God” part of the Promise.
What the Girl Scouts decided was that if the girl in question believed in something that allowed for the same traditional Scouting function of religious education — religious and spiritual self-cultivation based on the principle of a moral order of which the Scout can be a part — she could substitute her preferred name for that instead of using the word “God.”
This is a very conservative change, entirely consistent with Baden-Powell’s original vision. The Boy Scouts still require one to use the word “God” in the Boy Scout Oath, but their substantive position has never been very far from this. You don’t have to understand the word “God” in any particular way for it to count. It is entirely possible, and has always been possible, to be an atheist as a Boy Scout, if you can accept the basic idea of a moral something-or-other to which we should hold ourselves accountable, as long as you are comfortable calling it God at least as a metaphor. It has long been established that you can be a polytheist, a pantheist, or a believer in God as an “ideal”; none of these stand in the way of membership.
At-least-metaphorical theism is a very weak commitment. All the Girl Scouts did was loosen up the requirement that you actually call it “God,” which was the smallest possible change they could make. If the Girl Scouts are still being that conservative, the Boy Scouts are not even close to a change.
(3) The World Organization of Scouting Movements stands in the way of any sudden change.
There’s a good explanation for why the Girl Scouts are so much more conservative on this point than they usually are, if you don’t accept the explanation that they really do take their original conception of Scouting seriously. The Girl Scouts have to remain part of the world Scouting movement, which for them means maintaining their position in the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Membership requires maintaining the key elements of Baden-Powell’s original vision, as encapsulated in the Scout Promise and Scout Law. Making any more drastic change in their position than they did would have put them in clear danger of violating the requirements. For that matter, even the change they did make was very controversial for precisely this reason.
The counterpart of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts for the Boy Scouts is the World Organization of the Scout Movement. It also requires members to base themselves on the value system in the Scout Promise and the Scout Law. The Boy Scouts are even more unlikely than the Girl Scouts to put itself in danger of doing anything that could put into question its membership in its world Scouting organization.
To sum up: Until the World Organization of the Scout Movement drops its current requirements and the Girl Scouts stop insisting that they still think duty to God-or-something-just-like-God is essential to Scouting, I wouldn’t bet on the Boy Scouts making any significant changes here. It is a much more difficult change to make than just deciding who can be a scoutmaster.
January 31st, 2013 | 4:40 pm
Do the Tzofim, or Israel Scouts, have a religious requirement?
January 31st, 2013 | 4:50 pm
I beg to differ-having been a GS leader I can assure you that duty to God is not believed to be essential to GS. The word “God” and any thought of duty to him is pretty much limited to the GS oath. A look at the current state of GS program materials (the Journey books) would show you that new age spirituality is where it’s at for GS in terms of program materials. In addition, GSUSA and WAGGGS is committed to a radical feminist agenda that is out of line with “conservative” ideas of God. GS somewhat slowly evolved into an organization with a liberal agend and it is this evolution that we want to avoid in BS.
January 31st, 2013 | 6:02 pm
Let’s say I am a Boy Scout leader and I work for the national organization. I am also an orthodox Roman Catholic. After interviewing a candidate for a job post I find out he is gay and he once voiced the opinion around scouts that there is nothing morally wrong with homosexuality. I decide not to hire this otherwise wonderfully qualified candidate because of this.
The candidate sues and the BSA fires me because I violated their anti-discrimination guidelines, which they are allowed to set as a private organization.
Here’s the thing. The Boy Scouts made me take an oath to uphold my duty to God, which cannot, in any religion, tolerate such false teaching. Does anyone think we won’t be seeing a lawsuit that forces this issue very soon.
So it doesn’t really matter what the cultural pace of the Boy Scouts is to change. The BSA is poised to make a vote that will force that change very quickly through the courts. And no one at the BSA could be so blind to that.
January 31st, 2013 | 6:13 pm
nobody.really,
They have the same requirement on this point that all genuine Scouting organizations do: non-sectarian affirmation of duty to God; like the BSA, they are members of the WOSM. Like some of the older European Scouting organizations, they don’t have the word ‘God’ in their version of the promise. But the requirement is not exact wording, but that, given the way the organization understands its version of the Promise in practice, it is nonetheless equivalent to the Baden-Powell version.
January 31st, 2013 | 6:49 pm
Ann,
Given that the Scouting movement itself was a progressive educational reform mostly associated in its early days with liberal Protestantism, and given that the Girl Scouts have always been more liberal-leaning in policy than other Scouting organizations in the U.S., I’m not sure it’s fair to criticize the GSUSA for lacking content that requires “‘conservative’ ideas of God” or for having slowly evolved a liberal agenda.
Likewise, New Age spirituality, whatever may be said about it, is already entirely consistent with the official Boy Scout position on God, which is only slightly less minimal than that of the Girl Scouts. From the beginning Boy Scout religious materials have simply carried on Baden-Powell’s original formula of general nature spirituality + basic moral theism + self-cultivation. Very New Age-friendly, that.
January 31st, 2013 | 7:38 pm
The candidate sues and the BSA fires me because I violated their anti-discrimination guidelines, which they are allowed to set as a private organization.
Douglas Johnson,
The problem with your hypothetical scenario (aside from the fact that it is off topic) is that there is no talk of BSA setting an anti-discrimination policy regarding gay people. Also, as an orthodox Roman Catholic, what would you be doing working for an organization that had an anti-discrimination policy you could not in good conscience follow? If you apply for a position in an organization that has a non-discrimination policy, and you are going to have the authority to hire, you have an obligation to make it clear that if you become an employee, you won’t follow company policy. Inn which case they wouldn’t hire you.
January 31st, 2013 | 8:00 pm
I am struck by the extraordinary pessimism and trepidation expressed by almost everyone except Brandon Watson over a step the Boy Scouts have not even taken yet. And we know that if they do institute a new policy, this will be the case:
Be not afraid!
January 31st, 2013 | 10:07 pm
You’re overlooking the importance of the British Empire as the model for scouting. This was quite explicit in Baden-Powell’s day, and the form it took and skills it imparted – operating independently, living from the land in unmapped wilderness in bands of a few dozen that might further split into handful-sized squads – were exactly those useful to colonial efforts. To the extent Scouting embraced the idea of a brotherhood of man under God, it was because this was the ideology embraced by (and convenient to) the Empire at the time.
The US never developed a Colonial Service – its colonial territories (like the Philippines) were administered through military structures – so there was no comparable state institution to link up with. (In terms of embracing state ideology and acting as Junior State Apparatus, the Hitler Youth and the communist Pioneers were more on-model.)
What America did have when Scouting arrived was a strongly mission-oriented Protestantism, and with the American linkage of scouting with churches what scouts were being prepared for is the mission field. In this position a religious imperative makes sense – orienteering and radio operation and wilderness medicine all make for a better missionary, but a missionary with no religion is pointless.
Since then, mission work has fallen from prominence in American life. While America still produces the occasional Protestant missionary, the only major church that still centers itself around mission work to the same degree is Mormonism – a church disproportionately involved in Scouting. I could see them breaking off and building an in-house equivalent, maybe open to other traditionalists (Mormonism as the institutional base of American orthodoxy being theologically absurd but sociologically likely). Beyond that, religion in American scouting is a matter of institutional inertia and ideological…
January 31st, 2013 | 11:49 pm
anachronism.
That last word was “anachronism”. Dang, and I’d thought I came in just under the word and character limits.
January 31st, 2013 | 11:54 pm
I’d don’t think it’s wise to bet on things staying the same. I’d say expect Scouts to embrace atheism relatively soon, and work to strengthening or creating explicitly Christian versions like AWANA. The idea that Christians really need to expend energy strengthening civil religion at the expense of their own is no longer a wise idea. It seems when we do so, we wind up losing even the meager concessions to our faith that it gives.
February 1st, 2013 | 12:45 am
Membership policy change is a terrible proposal. Charter orgs such as Methodist Church will be at odds with units in conservative areas. Units in politically mixed areas will split. Boys will lose friends when parents leave on principle. Charter orgs will be on their own to face frivolous lawsuits. Public charter orgs will force units to comply or drop charter. Not every area has multiple unit options within reasonable drive. Boys will suffer and be abused so that liberals can think better of themselves. Welcome to utopia.
February 1st, 2013 | 12:50 am
David Nickol,
In 1999, the NJ Scout troop had the financial and institutional backing of the national organization that took them all the way to the Supreme Court. When the Scouts lift their opposition to gay scoutmasters next week (do you honestly think this decision is up in the air at this point?), future troops that face targeted lawsuits will not have any financial or institutional backing of the national organization. For those troops their choice will be to cave to LGBT opposition or to see their resources burned up before they ever get to trial. In other words, the seemingly neutral policy you quoted isn’t neutral at all.
Second, in my hypothetical I am an orthodox Roman Catholic who has worked for the BSA national organization since 1999 when there was no conflict between the oath I took and their opposition to gay scoutmasters.
February 1st, 2013 | 1:01 am
David Nickol,
I saved your 8:00 comment in my Evernote files for future reference. Just so I am clear, you are saying that since the proposed BSA policy takes no position on local troops that wish to ban gay scout leaders, then those troops that continue the ban have nothing to worry about?
Let me know if I have that wrong. I will repost your comment in about six months once the lawsuits start up.
February 1st, 2013 | 6:45 am
I agree. What the national Scouting organization has done is transfer the risk of lawsuits to individual troops. Those troops simply will not have the means to defend themselves.
February 1st, 2013 | 7:50 am
Brandon Watson,
In 12 years of scouting (2 boys and husband as registered leader) we have never run into a new age type spirituality in BS. We have experienced troops with close relationships with their charter organizations because the troop is officially part of the church’s youth program and/or outreach, for example United Methodist Men. Not so in GS. BS is much more adaptable to a religious program than GS. I don’t care what the history is or what you think the program materials say-I know how it works on the ground. And I wonder if you have ever seen the GS program materials “Journey”. It is a bunch of new age, radical feminist junk. Have you ever been a BS or had a daughter in GS? We have in several different regions of this country and BS is more traditional and more conservative overall in it’s view of God than GS.
February 1st, 2013 | 10:19 am
I saved your 8:00 comment in my Evernote files for future reference.
Douglas Johnson,
Just that one? I assumed you saved all my comments.
I would not go out on a limb and predict there will never be any lawsuits involving the Boy Scouts and anti-gay discrimination. Anyone can bring a lawsuit. However, I don’t see why the Supreme Court decision regarding freedom of association for the national organization would not hold even more strongly for local organizations.
I am not predicting that nothing you disapprove of will come to pass as the result of the lifting of the national ban on gays in scouting (if it happens). I am predicting the world will not end, the Boy Scouts will not end, the Boy Scouts will not remove the reference to God in their oath, the Boy Scouts will not promote sodomy, the Catholic Church will not be destroyed, and so on, and so on.
It seems to me that Christianity is a religion of optimism—of Good News—and in the unlikely event even of utter catastrophe, Christianity should still be a religion of optimism.
February 1st, 2013 | 11:56 am
The Family Research Council Blog points out that only six months ago, the Boy Scouts announced that, after a two-year study, they were reaffirming their policy against gay scouts and scout leaders. However, in the BAS statement reproduced in the blog post (but now unavailable on the BSA web site), there is this rather “un-militant” statement:
February 1st, 2013 | 12:08 pm
Ann,
Yes, I have been a Boy Scout and know people who are or have been in Girl Scouts. I agree that the BSA is more conservative than GSUSA; but this has always been the case. The BSA has always had the more conservative organizational structure, in the sense of being resistant to change, and the more conservative understanding of Scouting, in the sense of taking it to encourage being rooted in a tradition without any attempt to push them into this or that kind of tradition. The GSUSA has always been both quick to change policies and quick to embrace the cutting-edge of social change, even if the cutting-edge of social change was once Eleanor Roosevelt and is now something else entirely.
The BSA won the Scouting Wars in part because it made active attempts to establish alliances with churches of all types. But BSA religious policy was especially designed to accommodate the most liberal religious views: the early founders all had liberal religious views. It’s just that they were liberal enough to be active in courting all religious denominations, and were successful with many of those that place strong emphasis on the family, which gives a conservative tone at the local level.
If Martian anthropologists went to Utah knowing nothing about Boy Scouts, they might come away with the mistaken view that the BSA was a youth organization dedicated to the teaching of Mormon values. But the BSA is really religiously pluralistic: it advocates duty and reverence toward God, any God, anything you could possibly be comfortable with calling God; it just so happens in Utah that the Scouts themselves often are Mormons, glossing that duty and reverence in Mormon terms, and BSA as usual avoids meddling with that.
February 1st, 2013 | 5:14 pm
Why hypothesize an undocumented alien anthropologist? There are plenty of highly skilled hypothetical American anthropologists looking for work, you know. You could think about that the next time you draft a hypothetical. I mean, hypothetically.
February 4th, 2013 | 5:11 pm
The Church of Jesus Christof Latter-day Saints (nicknamed “Mormons”) uses the BSA program as its youth activity program for young men ages 12-17. The program is highly integrated with the Sunday religious instruction of the boys, with the same men acting as adult leaders and teachers in both aspects of the overall program. The BSA program is the only fund-raising activity that the LDS Church sponsors other than its own church contributions system. The generic content of the BSA religious program is filled with LDS religious instruction. And yes, there is a strong emphasis on preparation for the young men to serve two years as volunteer missionaries, which can begin as early as age 18 after high school graduation. The LDS Church has been a sponsor of Scouting units for over a century, and many of the people who become professionals in the Scouting organization are Mormons. The standard for participation in LDS-sponsored Scouting units is the same as for participation in the LDS Church, meaning that a person could be a member in good standing despite a homosexual attraction, so long as he promises to not engage in any sexual contact outside marriage to a woman. Any lawsuit to force a change to LDS-sponsored scouting units would be attempts to force the church to change its standards, since the scouting participation and leadership are integrated.
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