LDS?????

[acco40]

I think the main issue is not the religion but to Scouters who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) they view Mormons as participating in the BSA. To many Mormons, they see folks who are not part of their religion as participating in their youth program. Their youth program and the BSA are one in the same but viewed through a different lens.

[King Ding Dong]

I think the main issue is not the religion but to Scouters who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) they view Mormons as participating in the BSA. To many Mormons, they see folks who are not part of their religion as participating in their youth program. Their youth program and the BSA are one in the same but viewed through a different lens.

I hadn't looked at it like that before, but I can see tension when one group or another claims the BSA as "theirs".

[Pack18Alex]

I think the main issue is not the religion but to Scouters who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) they view Mormons as participating in the BSA. To many Mormons, they see folks who are not part of their religion as participating in their youth program. Their youth program and the BSA are one in the same but viewed through a different lens.

Pretty much. BSA considers itself non-sectarian, and partners with just about all religions. That said, with the turn towards religious involvement of the last 30 years, it's been a defacto Western-Church organization (Protestant and Roman Catholic). There is limited tension between Protestants and Catholics in this, because they are on the same schedule and the Catholic Church is so large that it can run it's own groups for anywhere there is tension.

 

For smaller minority religious groups, we participate in BSA, but we are definitely second class citizens. The Jewish Scouter mailing list was aflame with local counsels that planned things on Yom Kippur this year, things like OA elections that would basically prevent Jewish youth (including relatively non-observant ones) from participating that year and in reality going forward because they missed the election.

 

For the Mormons, I think that that is a very apropro statement. The parents are sending their children to the LDS Youth Program, that happens to run the BSA program. They are signing up for (well, signed up for) their Church Youth Group, not BSA. So when others are upset that they aren't hardcore BSA people, they aren't BSA people at ALL, they are LDS people.

 

Many of my parents are just happy to have their boys in a Jewish after school program. They have more Jewish friends, they have fun, maybe do the religious medals, go into Synagogue for the meetings, etc. The BSA program is incidental to their interest.

 

For Christian Americans and Catholic Americans, there is NEVER this tension. Their schools are already a mix of Christian and Catholic students, their friends are all Christian or Catholic, their major holidays are national holidays, their minor holidays are often school holidays. They don't have the need to engage in programming to maintain their religious identity.

 

Minority groups in BSA, including LDS, Jews, Muslims, etc., may have alternative reasons for participating.

[Peregrinator]

I think the main issue is not the religion but to Scouters who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) they view Mormons as participating in the BSA. To many Mormons, they see folks who are not part of their religion as participating in their youth program. Their youth program and the BSA are one in the same but viewed through a different lens.

For Christian Americans and Catholic Americans, there is NEVER this tension. Their schools are already a mix of Christian and Catholic students, their friends are all Christian or Catholic, their major holidays are national holidays, their minor holidays are often school holidays. They don't have the need to engage in programming to maintain their religious identity.

 

When I was growing up our public schools had off on certain Jewish holidays (Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah). I believe this is still the case in that school district. On the other hand, "minor" Catholic holidays (e.g. Ascension, Immaculate Conception, Ash Wednesday, etc.) were never school holidays despite the large number of Catholics among the student body.

[acco40]

One can always tell non-Catholics by such statements as "Chistians and Catholics . . ."

[SR540Beaver]

One can always tell non-Catholics by such statements as "Chistians and Catholics . . ."

One can always tell non-Baptists by such statements as "protestant church".

 

 

 

http://christianityinview.com/protestant/denominations.html

 

 

 

The Baptist denominations are generally considered to lie within Protestantism, though some argue that the practice of "believers baptism" i.e Baptism on confession of faith by the candidate preceeds the Reformation and therefore Baptist churches should not be grouped in this manner.

 

 

 

http://www.baptistbasics.org/baptists/b007.php

 

 

 

.....First, let's define what a Protestant is. The Protestant movement began during the time of the Reformation in the 1500's. These groups "protested" certain doctrines and practices in the Catholic church. Among the things they protested were the sale of Indulgences, salvation by works, and papal authority. At first most of these groups sought to reform the Catholic church, not separate from it.

 

 

 

A couple of groups that can truly be called Protestant include:

 

 

 

•Lutherans, who began under the leadership and direction of Martin Luther.

 

•Episcopalians, who began when Henry VIII started the Church of England after not having a divorce granted by the Pope.

 

These groups are truly Protestant in that they protested the Catholics and would go on to start their own denominations.

 

 

 

Now with these fact in mind, let us address the question at hand: Are Baptists Protestant?

 

 

 

Baptists have a long heritage of disagreement with the Catholic church. As ecclesiastical hierarchies began to form and submit to the leadership at Rome, there were groups who remained independent. They spoke against such errors that had entered into that growing organization such as baptismal regeneration. It is from these groups which have always been separate from Roman Catholicism that are forefathers to the modern Baptist movement.

 

 

 

Although Baptists have disagreed with Rome, they have never been a part of the Catholic church. Nowhere in their history can they be found to be part of or in alliance with Rome. They have always been independent..........

[acco40]

Or, one could take make the simple definition of Protestants as any Christian who is not Catholic (the one "true" religion in the eyes of many Catholics). For myself, I chuckle at those who seek a label - either for themselves or others - be it Christian, Protestant, liberal, conservative, right, left, tea party or whatever. I guess many have a deep seated desire for belonging to something so stick or defend a group vehemently. Not my style, but then I've been accused of having soup dejour morals sometimes. I'll say one thing, for this non-Catholic, Pope Francis sure seems refreshing. He must have taken that advice from Stripes.

[King Ding Dong]

I think the main issue is not the religion but to Scouters who are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons) they view Mormons as participating in the BSA. To many Mormons, they see folks who are not part of their religion as participating in their youth program. Their youth program and the BSA are one in the same but viewed through a different lens.

Ash Wednesday was never a school holiday. We went to mass and then the nuns marched us right back to our desks to show us more pictures of aborted fetuses.

[NeverAnEagle]

I didn't know they had special underwear. That sounds like golden trivia stuff to me. Not much different than a yarmulke though is it?

 

BD are you talking about hating within the BSA or in the general population? Hating BSA program within LDS, or just plain ole hating them Mormon folk?

 

I've only known a few Mormon. I liked them all very much. Especially the ones that took the time out to explain bits of their religion to me when I had questions.

The magic underwear is refereed to as their "garments" which are more like a shorts set. The men's shorts come down to the knee and have an undershirt that goes with them. (No Idea what the ladies wear.) I do know that they are never to be taken off and that after marriage each spouse is allowed to open the seams in the crotch area to allow for intercourse. The truly devout don't even take them off to bathe.

 

We have LDS haters here too. You find hating where you find people unwilling to learn about each others religions; fear spawns hate.

[NeverAnEagle]

This last election, we had a Mormon running for President.

 

I very personally observed and personally experienced what happens when Mormons take over an institution, such as BSA, Inc. For backing, I refer to Penn and Teller's ZBullshit! episode which cited the Mormon take-over of BSA in the 1980's.

 

I did not vote for Romney, but it was not because he is a Mormon. Really, there were so very many problems with voting him, Mormonism was the least of my concerns. But still, having seen what an absolutely mess they have made of BSA, how could we ever trust them with the US government?

If they ran the government we wouldn't be in debt, LOL! Heck, we'd have enough surplus to last for three years!

[NeverAnEagle]

Man y'all would hate my unit. Won't come to an event on Saturday, have to camp over from Friday. We bring our own food, religious services Saturday morning, can't do Scout's own... Campsite construction stops cold 18 minutes before sundown... Yes my district works with us to include us instead of using our differences to excuse bigotry.

Are you Jewish? I've only met one Jewish Scout in my life-time. He offered to pray at a Summer Camp and had to endure taunts of "Hats Off!" because he was wearing that special cap they have. It was the opinion of the surrounding Scouters that he should not be allowed to pray i he wouldn't show the "proper respect" by taking off his hat. I'm betting he never went back to that camp.

 

Glad to hear you found somewhere that will work with your unit.

[NeverAnEagle]

I guess some people have stated frustration with them packing up Saturday night. This does seem small minded.. With most of our District camporees nothing happens on Sunday anyway.. Eat breakfast, pack up your gear and leave. All the activities fall on Saturday (except a recent one that had the activities in the dark, so events started at 9 or 10pm and the event didn't end until about 2am on Sunday morning.)

 

As for people bemoaning LDS not finding ways to socialize outside of their own group.. It might not be the right way to say "Hey we want the pleasure of your company".. But, sometimes after people ask and ask and try to accommodate to make the LDS community feel welcomed, they themselves feel LDS is being the one who is snubbing them, and it just starts turns into complaining about the whole thing.

 

I myself tried to run IOLS trainings that did not run over Sunday in order to accommodate the LDS people.. But, after advertising and promoting and personally calling a representative of each LDS group to let them know about the trainings that were LDS friendly, then having a total of 0 LDS people show up for it, while the other participant number also was small due to it taking two separate weekends instead of one.. It was scrubbed, and we don't do it anymore. This year our summer camp added the IOLS training to their summer camp program for adult training.. Hopefully they can get that training there.

 

I wasn't hinting that they be banned from future campouts or anything.. Just curious how unbendable this rule was, and if totally unbendable then what did you do.. I just know that the best laid plans in camping rarely turn out and no matter how hard you try to plan to have daylight to set camp, it seems 9 out of 10 times to not work out.. Maybe other units don't have the religious rulings around not setting up in the dark, but they try not to anyway simply because doing so is a royal PITA..

"I guess some people have stated frustration with them packing up Saturday night. This does seem small minded.. With most of our District camporees nothing happens on Sunday anyway."

 

Sunday is when the mandatory religious service is. The only way to avoid it is to leave Saturday night on the pretense of attending service with your CO. We escape Saturday night with the Mormons just to avoid the Church service on Sunday.

[NeverAnEagle]

It's not an option. Jewish law prohibits establishing a new structure during the Sabbath. So the tent needs to be up before Shabbat starts. Can't cook on the Sabbath, food has to be cooked before hand (or started just before and left to cook overnight, which is how our lunch is made. We have the gear to do it, and the plans on how to do it. The Jewish Committee is planning adult training to take place during our Kinnus (Jewish Campout, Hebrew for gathering), so we can get people trained during Sunday (and some training that is more discussion based can take place on Saturday).

 

The rule is pretty unbendable in Jewish law. So you have to get the sites up. It also meant we couldn't repair guy lines that kids tripped on, so we got docked points at camporee, oh well.

I'd be interested to see how you do overnight cooking. That just sounds like fun. (I'd be afraid that everything would end up over cooked or dry out.)

[NJCubScouter]

Man y'all would hate my unit. Won't come to an event on Saturday, have to camp over from Friday. We bring our own food, religious services Saturday morning, can't do Scout's own... Campsite construction stops cold 18 minutes before sundown... Yes my district works with us to include us instead of using our differences to excuse bigotry.

Well, NeverAnEagle, you have now "met" at least two Jewish Scouters online. It is unfortunate that the one Jewish Scout you met had to endure bigotry because of his religious headwear, which is called a kippah (Hebrew) or a yarmulke (Yiddish.) Even worse is the fact that some of the intolerance and ignorance was coming from adults (which is where it almost always starts anyway; show me a kid who is a bigot and I already know something about their parents.)

[Builder]

one could take make the simple definition of Protestants as any Christian who is not Catholic

Yup, somewhat simplistic, but that's pretty much my definition as well.

 

Of course, a good friend who's Catholic calls me a "heathen protestant"