Trail Life confused over who they are?????

[DWise1_AOL]

I am King of the Forest....

 

I am a Scoutmaster of a troop of 30 young men. We camp as a troop monthly, our patrols have monthly patrol outings. We participate in community service and are working on being Boy led. the patrols have a very strong patrol identity and I couldn't happier.

 

Very Little national says actually impacts the youth in my program......We have, I suspect, gay youth as members already. We have gay scouters. we have muslims, jews, catholics atheist and all variety of protestants.

 

 

I jump thru the training hoops, I jump thru the paper work hoops, I jump thru the rules hoops.......But ya know the boys never see it and probably could care less.

 

 

 

Because I understand that scouting isn't about me.

A commendable approach, Basementdweller. Run the program within the troop as it should be run and act as a buffer between the troop and BSA. Continue to keep BSA as far away from your unit and from your people as is possible.

[Scouter99]

Welp, a church down the road is killing its charter and forming a TL group. Guess how many of the boys are interested . . . if you said "0" claim your prize.

None so far, a couple visitors, but holding off to find a new CO for the whole troop if possible.

[Scouter99]

I was wondering about that Scouter99.. If the BSA group is mainly of the boys whose families are members of the church, their parents may have enough "buy in" to this change, but if the youth are not members of the church, the parents and boys may not have the same attitude toward it, and will move to units still running the BSA program.

This troop is mostly "aliens" to the church, so I doubt they've got youth buy in. My own troop hasn't had a boy from the CO church since the 1990s.

[tgrimstead]

Let's see: the TLUSA was started mainly by Southern Baptists and they get to make the rules and decide the leaders. They devised rules such that the CO and unit leaders must believe in the Triune God and belong to "pure" churches. Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Mormons and others are not "pure" since their churches allow gay members and/or clergy; they are welcome to join but are prohibited from leadership positions and decision making. They've set up two classes of membership. Why would anyone join if they are stuck in the lower class?

 

​Also, the way I read their Statement of Faith, divorced men and women are also excluded from leadership. They sure are fishing with a small net.

Moosetracker:

1.) Protestant is vague. Like saying you were born on Earth.

2.) You are claiming your experience is the rule not exception. Paint brush kinda big.

3.) There is about 40 different denominations based on Methodism. The Episcopal Methodist Church merged with the Methodist Protestant Church creating the United Methodist Church in 1968. "Episcopal" is a form of church governance. The Roman Catholic Church is "Episcopal". LDS also, though they never use the term officially. Most Methodist Churches use "Connexionalism" for governance. You also have "Congregational" and "Presbyterian" forms of governance. There is no stand alone Methodist or Episcopal identity. (Usually they are in the name somewhere though.)

 

4.) United Methodists i would NOT say are liberal. I can say they accept everyone as sinners, as we ALL are. Most people don't want to admit they are however....

 

5.) I don't see what the fuss is with TLUSA? Now The Salvation Army people and their agenda, We got to stop!! wink wink..

 

6.) Actually it saddens me. To include we seem to exclude. To tolerate ones beliefs we turn intolerant to anothers.

 

7.) Time will tell that we all lost on this division. Hopefully my son won't have to explain to is son what BSA "was".

 

8.) Your only Liberal until the next generation makes you Conservative.

 

Keep your matches dry.

[WAKWIB]

When there is more revealed about TLUSA's actual program and organizational structure , it might be interesting to have a topic where there is some comparisons made between their operation and the ours in BSA. There may be some good ideas floating around in a new and forming group that we could borrow and modify to make our program better.

Hopefully if that more positive and constructive topic is introduced it will not get deleted by a moderator or the site owner. Yeah, I know this topic that survived the purge about TL being "confused" about who they are makes it easy to take shots at them and makes us real Scouters feel so much better about ourselves. I do think a more objective study of the nuts and bolts of a potential competitor could be more constructive and helpful to us as we do our jobs of serving youth.

I agree, Pack. At least with what you say about the incendiary tone. It wasn't there, yet. Even this topic thread is quite tame compared to dozens I have seen in the past.

[WAKWIB]

Well the Pure of heart, mind, word and deed, sounds familure, put the addition part is definitely just people making their own rules.

 

The highlighted statement is funny though.. So, that means no one who has divorced (even if not remarried), nor a widower starts a new relationship (regardless of if they marry or not.), nor anyone whose relationship turns physical before they wed (even if it is their one and only).. That rules out pretty much everyone on the planet, except maybe those whose looks or personality causes them never to find love.

The way you folks can put words into people's mouths is nothing short of remarkable. I doubt it would do much good to help supply a correct Christian and biblical context to certain topics. I've seen that attempted before by others to no avail.

[JoeBob]

JoeBob - "And while we're on the subject of things I don't know, I can't figure out your avatar. Is that supposed to be bat wings, or a butt hole? "

 

That's funny JoeBob, because I did the same thing either this morning or yesterday.. I saw the butthole, then looked closer and saw the (what I thought to be flaming wings, sort of like a Phoenix".. It certainly is sort of like those inkblots where maybe you see the face or you see the vase..

 

I do think church members are relatively nice to fellow church members, and agree it is not an aristocracy/peasant thing.. You can have rich or poor in any denomination.. But, not so sure that all religions are equally civil to members of other religions.. You definitely do have many who believe their religion is the one true belief, and everyone not of their faith is going to hell. Not ALL faiths mind you.. Not saying that.. But, it is in some failths, sometime taught by the leaders of the faith and sometimes. if not preached to think that way, you just have your independent thinkers who think and act that way..

http://www.bing.com/images/search?q=ruger+logo&id=F955E640AA6D27A3267F9EBBF30919838E7F82B6&FORM=IQFRBA#view=detail&id=F955E640AA6D27A3267F9EBBF30919838E7F82B6&selectedIndex=0

 

Ruger's logo is not that far off. Good catch, Packsaddle.

[JoeBob]

Let's see: the TLUSA was started mainly by Southern Baptists and they get to make the rules and decide the leaders. They devised rules such that the CO and unit leaders must believe in the Triune God and belong to "pure" churches. Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Mormons and others are not "pure" since their churches allow gay members and/or clergy; they are welcome to join but are prohibited from leadership positions and decision making. They've set up two classes of membership. Why would anyone join if they are stuck in the lower class?

 

​Also, the way I read their Statement of Faith, divorced men and women are also excluded from leadership. They sure are fishing with a small net.

" a lifelong commitment before God between a man and a woman."

 

No worries. I've had a lifelong commitment before God to a single woman three different times. If God wanted me to stay with the same woman, why did he keep serving up such definitive reasons to leave them? My final marriage (17 years and counting) was a huge leap of faith for me.

Again? JoeBob, really? You're going to try this marriage stuff again? Fool.

 

What is even more curious is that I've always married Catholics. Don't try that at home....

[tgrimstead]

Well the Pure of heart, mind, word and deed, sounds familure, put the addition part is definitely just people making their own rules.

 

The highlighted statement is funny though.. So, that means no one who has divorced (even if not remarried), nor a widower starts a new relationship (regardless of if they marry or not.), nor anyone whose relationship turns physical before they wed (even if it is their one and only).. That rules out pretty much everyone on the planet, except maybe those whose looks or personality causes them never to find love.

WAKWIB,

Not worth losing sleep over. Everyone has a quality of stating concepts one wishes or believes to be true, rather than the facts.

Keep your matches dry.

[qwazse]

Well the Pure of heart, mind, word and deed, sounds familure, put the addition part is definitely just people making their own rules.

 

The highlighted statement is funny though.. So, that means no one who has divorced (even if not remarried), nor a widower starts a new relationship (regardless of if they marry or not.), nor anyone whose relationship turns physical before they wed (even if it is their one and only).. That rules out pretty much everyone on the planet, except maybe those whose looks or personality causes them never to find love.

Not everyone ...

 

Lots of us bought the cow before taking the milk, and are still kicking.

 

But, again, I'd rather have the permission to go scouting with the army I have. If that includes "broken leaders", I think I can work with that.

[DWise1_AOL]

Well the Pure of heart, mind, word and deed, sounds familure, put the addition part is definitely just people making their own rules.

 

The highlighted statement is funny though.. So, that means no one who has divorced (even if not remarried), nor a widower starts a new relationship (regardless of if they marry or not.), nor anyone whose relationship turns physical before they wed (even if it is their one and only).. That rules out pretty much everyone on the planet, except maybe those whose looks or personality causes them never to find love.

moosetracker, could you please refer us back to the posting you are responding to? I find this site particularly difficult to navigate, so any trail signs you could leave would help immensely.

 

I have suffered the great misfortune of having had a friend talk me into taking her Baptist mega-church's DivorceCare program (though her ulterior motive was to not take a competing program on the same night as the Single Ministry's dance classes since the ratio of men to women in those classes was typically 50:150 and also since I was one of the few men who had any clue how to dance -- apparently a rare and valuable commodity). I would also point out that California divorce laws is "divorce on demand" for which no actual reason ever needs to ever be given, so I don't even have a reason for being divorced. In the world-view that you see expressed in that unidentifed link, do they differentiate between those who initiate divorce and those who have divorce forced upon them? The reason for this question is, since the creators of that link apparently view divorce as some kind of moral failing, do they even bother to draw any kind of distinction between who initiate a divorce and those who have divorce forced upon them? Because the law in states with "divorce upon demand" does indeed create an entire population of those upon whom divorce has been forced.

 

To begin with, that mega-church had policies that everybody's primary responsibility while going through a divorce is to try to reconcile with your estranged spouse. That was also the primary concern of DivorceCare. While that may make sense within Baptist theology (and I would personally, as an atheist, agree that divorce should be avoided and that reconciliation should be attempted, barring cases of abuse, especially physical abuse), there is also the fact that some divorce filings are legitimate attempts to escape abuse (a dance teacher I assist had suffered through years of physical abuse and fearing for her own safety and for the safety of her children). Again, I would ask what your link says about those cases. Also, I must point out that a number of postings on-line that I have read (a very small number compared to what must actually exist) have been from victims of abuse who were so outraged by DivorceCare's insistence that they reconcile with their abusive spouse they then decided to become Divorced from God (for which there was a documentary, but its website seems to have gone away).

 

Anyway, the result of DivorceCare on me, an atheist, was this. In video tape after video tape, they repeatedly emphasized that we ourselves can never ever possibly have any hope of ever recovering from divorce through our own powers and efforts. Only Jesus could ever possibly enable us to recover from divorce. that told me that, according to them, only a Christian could ever hope to recover from a divorce. So then according to the training that I was receiving, I personally could never ever recover from divorce. OK, that's a complete waste!

 

But long after that, I read something even worse. I read that the US Army chaplaincy had decided to require every single soldier going through a divorce to also go through the very same DivorceCare program I had gone through. DivorceCare is only appropriate for a narrow population. To require it for all is inexcusable.

 

But we haven't examined the funny part yet. There is a stock and standard joke about Baptists and dancing: "Why do Baptists condemn sex while standing? Because they fear that it could result in dancing." That local Baptist-like mega-church I mentioned (but will not name) has a single ministry of about 15,000 people. What would be the healthiest kind of social event for singles to meet singles? A dance. But what do Baptists think about dancing? The mind shudders.

 

The singles ministry of that mega-church had to function kind of outside the bounds of the top pastors. My friend had to go up before the mega-church's top leaders in defense of the singles' dance classes and events and very nearly was excommunicated (or the Baptist equivalent) over it. There was a time when the church sponsored country dances, but the top pastors exacted very strict restrictions. Only line dances were allowed. After all, if partner dancing were to be allowed, how could they possibly control it to the point where they could ensure that married individuals didn't dance with unmarried individuals?

 

In reality, the organizers of that dance just went ahead and allowed partner dancing. Nothing at all collapsed as a result.

 

Not so interestingly, some people look at the world as black and white. While the world is in reality gray. Their boundaries are not set in black and white, but rather they need to define the degrees of gray.

[DWise1_AOL]

It's not too surprising that not many want to join. TLUSA sounds like a great program if you are in the aristocracy (Southern Baptist, Pentecost, Church of Christ) but not so good if you are peasant (everyone else).

OK, so what is your avatar's origin? I know that it is not the Resistance ("Star Wars") and certainly is not the symbol of the Twelve Colonies of Kobold. Care to enlighten us?

[King Ding Dong]

Let's see: the TLUSA was started mainly by Southern Baptists and they get to make the rules and decide the leaders. They devised rules such that the CO and unit leaders must believe in the Triune God and belong to "pure" churches. Catholics, Methodists, Episcopalians, Mormons and others are not "pure" since their churches allow gay members and/or clergy; they are welcome to join but are prohibited from leadership positions and decision making. They've set up two classes of membership. Why would anyone join if they are stuck in the lower class?

 

​Also, the way I read their Statement of Faith, divorced men and women are also excluded from leadership. They sure are fishing with a small net.

Ah maybe someone that can explain this to me. The majority of my education was in Catholic schools. How can a person be married three times and be a Catholic ? The whole Newt Gingrich thing really had me confused. The Nuns and Jesuits obviously did not explain all the loopholes to us. Once and done was the rule we were taught.

 

18 years on Monday.

[DigitalScout]

It's not too surprising that not many want to join. TLUSA sounds like a great program if you are in the aristocracy (Southern Baptist, Pentecost, Church of Christ) but not so good if you are peasant (everyone else).

DWise1_AOL, you had it. Rebel Alliance - Jedi Order. I'll admit it: a Star Wars geek. http://swfanon.wikia.com/wiki/Jedi_Order_(Free-edit)

[moosetracker]

Well the Pure of heart, mind, word and deed, sounds familure, put the addition part is definitely just people making their own rules.

 

The highlighted statement is funny though.. So, that means no one who has divorced (even if not remarried), nor a widower starts a new relationship (regardless of if they marry or not.), nor anyone whose relationship turns physical before they wed (even if it is their one and only).. That rules out pretty much everyone on the planet, except maybe those whose looks or personality causes them never to find love.

Sorry D-Wise.. Should have been a comment to the post above it, as it was related to a comment from there.. Then others added on other comments, on the above post, so it no longer reads one after the other..

 

I was responding to DigiScout statement in #56.4 :

 

The TLUSA Statement of Faith, which must be commited to by chartered orgs and all leaders, includes the following:

 

"We believe God calls us to lives of purity, service, stewardship and integrity:

 

Purity – God calls us to lives of holiness, being pure of heart, mind, word and deed. We are to reserve sexual activity for the sanctity of marriage, a lifelong commitment before God between a man and a woman. "