UUA renews relationship with Boy Scouts of America

[WAKWIB]

http://www.uuworld.org/articles/renewed-relationship-boy-scouts-america?utm_source=f

 

Copy of memorandum:
http://www.uua.org/re/children/scouting/memorandum-understanding

Edited March 25, 2016 by WAKWIB

[Krampus]

We will see if this generates any rise in membership. So far the decline has doubled, not risen.

Edited March 25, 2016 by Krampus

[NJCubScouter]

It can only help.

We will see if this generates any rise in membership. So far the decline has doubled, not risen.

This can only help. Although, for me, the impact on membership was never the point. My only hope was that the change would not split the BSA apart, and it hasn't.

[Eagledad]

I don't see how it helps, the only restriction on Unitarians was recognition of their church specific religion badge. We had a couple of Unitarian families in my troop. Any family that decided against scouting because of the restriction wasn't really wanting the scouting program anyway.

 

Barry

[gumbymaster]

I don't see how it helps, the only restriction on Unitarians was recognition of their church specific religion badge. We had a couple of Unitarian families in my troop. Any family that decided against scouting because of the restriction wasn't really wanting the scouting program anyway.

 

Barry

 

My experience with the UU was a little different ...

 

While not related to Scouting, the members of my congregation were very ... almost militant ... in making sure that you believed in their causes and beliefs, otherwise you were made to feel very unwelcome ...

 

So I could easily see where a UU family that wanted Scouting, might forgo it due to the peer pressure of the congregation for wanting to belong to that ... discriminatory organization.

 

Hopefully, now that won't be so much the case.

[Krampus]

This can only help. Although, for me, the impact on membership was never the point. My only hope was that the change would not split the BSA apart, and it hasn't.

Yet.

 

Pendulums swing both ways. We are merely and the back stroke of this issue.

[Eagledad]

My experience with the UU was a little different ...

 

While not related to Scouting, the members of my congregation were very ... almost militant ... in making sure that you believed in their causes and beliefs, otherwise you were made to feel very unwelcome ...

 

So I could easily see where a UU family that wanted Scouting, might forgo it due to the peer pressure of the congregation for wanting to belong to that ... discriminatory organization.

 

Hopefully, now that won't be so much the case.

Yes, your experience describes the Unitarian churches around here. But the religious awards is such a small part of the program, that families who valued the scouting program at all were willing to except that restriction. Members who claimed religious award was their reason for not considering scouts were likely not interested for other ideological reasons as well.

 

The basis, I'm told, of the church is for individuals to find their own God. That is kind of an anti values approach to conservative spiritality anyway, so Unitarians in general struggle ideologically with the BSA program. Those accept the BSA program for what it is and represents in comparison with their personal spiritual beliefs would have likely joined anyways. This is what I learned from our Unitarian parents.

 

Spiritality in the BSA is conservative in its nature, so it isn't as attractive to the more liberal ideological person. My fear is spiritual values, which are the foundation of the program vision, will be diluted over time from pressure of the culture. like the YMCA and Canadian Scouts, the BSA will turn into a weekend outdoor activities club for youth to just pass the time. Growth of character from a standard set value traits will be taught as anti individual and politically incorrect.

 

Barry

Edited March 25, 2016 by Eagledad

[NJCubScouter]

I don't see how it helps, the only restriction on Unitarians was recognition of their church specific religion badge. We had a couple of Unitarian families in my troop. Any family that decided against scouting because of the restriction wasn't really wanting the scouting program anyway.

 

Barry

Barry, I don't think the issue was just the badge. I could be wrong, but my impression was that either the BSA was not issuing charters to UUA churches, or that the UUA was actively discouraging its churches from seeking charters, or both. Maybe one of the UUA'ers around here can provide the actual facts, but my understanding seems to be supported by the UUA statement:

 

“We have always acknowledged the many shared values between the Boy Scouts and our Unitarian Universalist tradition,†the Rev. Peter Morales, UUA president, said in a statement. “I am happy to see our two organizations form new bonds of mutual understanding which will allow Unitarian Universalist boys and young men who want to participate in scouting to be able to do so within their own Unitarian Universalist community.â€

(Emphasis supplied.)

 

So, yes, individual UUA'ers could join Scouting, just as individual Wiccans could join Scouting even though National would not issue charters to their organizations, and individual Reform Jews could join Scouting even though the largest Reform rabbinical organization in the U.S. strongly discouraged its member congregations from being CO's. (A policy which, I hope and expect, has been discontinued.) But, as I am sure you will agree, when one's religious organization forms its own Scouting unit, there is more of a tendency for members of the congregation to join, and when the national hierarchy of a religion or denomination actively encourages its local congregations to do so, that has even more of a chance of increasing membership from that group, beyond just the right of an individual congregant to join a unit chartered to some other organization. In fact, that's a large part of the whole purpose of having the CO system in the first place, and it's a large part of the reason why the major religions have national committees on Scouting. The LDS Church takes that idea to the ultimate level, and their numbers speak for themselves. On a more typical level, the UUA seems to think that is the case as well, as shown by the above quote.

 

That's how it helps.

[NJCubScouter]

Yet.

 

Pendulums swing both ways. We are merely and the back stroke of this issue.

I prefer to have a positive outlook where the future of Scouting is concerned. Your mileage, as they say on the Internet, may vary.

[NJCubScouter]

Spiritality in the BSA is conservative in its nature,...

As people are so fond of saying around here, show me where THAT is in "the book."

 

...so it isn't as attractive to the more liberal ideological person. My fear is spiritual values, which are the foundation of the program vision, will be diluted over time from pressure of the culture. like the YMCA and Canadian Scouts, the BSA will turn into a weekend outdoor activities club for youth to just pass the time. Growth of character from a standard set value traits will be taught as anti individual and politically incorrect.

I'm sure people get tired of hearing me say this, but my immediate family has been continuously and actively involved with the BSA for close to 80 years, and I think that by most measures, all of the people in that chain (mainly my father, myself, my youngest brother and my son, the last two of whom are Eagle Scouts) would be described as "liberal", both ideologically and religiously. (Though "progressive" is more in vogue now.) My older cousin was also a Scout, and he is more "left" than any of us - though now that I think about it, also more religious than any of us, though the "denomination" in question is considered to be very "liberal". And I know that me and my family are not unique.

 

Or to put it in a sentence, liberal thought and belief are perfectly compatible with the values of Scouting.

[Krampus]

I prefer to have a positive outlook where the future of Scouting is concerned. Your mileage, as they say on the Internet, may vary.

You can be against the membership changes and still have a positive outlook for Scouting.

[NJCubScouter]

You can be against the membership changes and still have a positive outlook for Scouting.

I didn't say you can't. What I did say is that the change has not split apart the BSA, and you said "Yet." I do realize there was a smiley face attached to "Yet", and a smirky-smiley one at that, so maybe you didn't really mean the "Yet". If you did mean it, though, I would say that shows a lack of positive outlook for the future of the BSA.

 

Or to put it another way, it isn't that "you" (in the generic sense) "can't"; it is that perhaps "you" (meaning specifically You) don't. But if "Yet" really was a joke, then I probably leaped to the wrong conclusion.

 

And I think it is great if people who opposed the change have a positive outlook for Scouting. It has seemed to me that a few people in this forum do not. I do not "yet" know which category you fall into.

Edited March 25, 2016 by NJCubScouter

[Stosh]

"And I think it is great if people who opposed the change have a positive outlook for Scouting. It has seemed to me that a few people in this forum do not. I do not "yet" know which category you fall into."

 

Why does everyone need to be pigeon holed as to what camp they are in. I can be a great fan of the scouting program and still believe that National's policies are eventually going to run it into the ground.  What camp/pigeon hole does that put me in?

[SeattlePioneer]

<<The basis, I'm told, of the church is for individuals to find their own God. >> 

 

 

Man creating God in his own image.

[NJCubScouter]

Stosh, I didn't say anything about camps or pigeonholing. (Though we do like camping here, right?) But if you want my opinion on where you stand on the optimistic/pessimistic scale, you sound pretty pessimistic where the future of Scouting is concerned. Not that there's anything wrong with being pessimistic. I am pessimistic about a number of things - including the outlook for my own troop, for reasons that have nothing to do with the subject at hand. So when I can be optimistic about something, I find some pleasure in that.

 

I think Scouting is going to be fine.