Chaplain's aid prayer policy

[meyerc13]

Excellent post SSScout!  While you'll get many opinions and pieces of useful advice on these forums, ultimately the conversation should be happening within the unit.  Pose the question to the boys - Does a Chaplain's Aide need to modify how he prays to suit the needs of the unit?  Why or why not?

 

Let them hash it out and you'll come up with a much better answer than anything you'd find here - because it will be the answer best suited to your unit.

[qwazse]

At summer camp this year the camp chaplain said the word Jesus 77 times in 15 minutes.  At the end of the service he mentioned that Jews and Muslims should pray too.  Even the most religious in our troop where pretty offended by his daily service.  That was from our Southern Baptist parents, I'm Jewish and more sensitive to it.  We attended every day as a manner of respect but even Adults need to learn to understand what interfaith service actually means.

@@mashmaster, every day? That's 20% Islamic!

 

FWIW, nearly everyone I've met from the Southern Baptist convention has broken any stereotype applied to them.

 

I've always maintained that attendance at vespers (which at our camp was only once during the week) be strictly voluntary. Certainly with our troop, we've felt the boys did just as well themselves.

 

I agree with @@meyerc13, except with the OP you have a situation where a boy thinks that how he does things may offend, and maybe he thinks that if he changes how he thinks he does things, it will be worse. The CO has made clear that it wants things done in a way that everyone from every walk of life including parents can be comfortable. Therefore, it's the boy who will have to adjust. (Gotta give the kid credit for knowing this in advance.)

So, having the boy talk to his clergy (maybe even giving the clergy a call yourself to understand where the boy may be coming from) might be a useful growing experience. It might help him understand what his boundaries really are, and why. It would also allow him a way to explain it to his troop-mates so that when he does lead prayer even when not fulfilling his PoR (say, grace at table), he does so in a way that makes others welcome. In the long run, that might actually make some lost sheep amenable to his Lord.

[miranthis]

I'm Catholic in a Catholic sponsored troop.  I stopped going to vespers at out summer camp because it was unabashedly a Christian service and I didn't think that was appropriate given the inevitability that there were non Christians who were asked to or even made to attend the service without it being clearly labeled as Christian.  I don't mind attending services of other faiths, but I need it to be completely voluntary and well described up front.

 

Just a reminder here, one Catholic scouter to another, 'Catholic' and 'Christian' are not opposites.  We Catholics ARE one christian denomination of many, but we are still christian (i won't get into the 'first Christians' issue here as that is not ecumenical).  You can contrast catholic and protestant, or even catholic and a specific other denomination (Catholic and Lutheran), but Catholic is a subset of christian and can't fairly be contrasted to the whole.    In our council we clearly denote the various faiths for services, and if it is all faith we make that clear.

[T2Eagle]

Just a reminder here, one Catholic scouter to another, 'Catholic' and 'Christian' are not opposites.  We Catholics ARE one christian denomination of many, but we are still christian (i won't get into the 'first Christians' issue here as that is not ecumenical).  You can contrast catholic and protestant, or even catholic and a specific other denomination (Catholic and Lutheran), but Catholic is a subset of christian and can't fairly be contrasted to the whole.    In our council we clearly denote the various faiths for services, and if it is all faith we make that clear.

Thanks, I am clear on the distinctions and non distinctions between Catholic and Christian.  By non-Christian I wasn't referring to my fellow papists, I meant the truly non-Christian Jewish and Buddhist and maybe Muslim and other faith scouts in my unit and in others.  Our camp's service is billed as being for everyone, but is in fact very specifically Christian.  For our troop we actually begin summer camp by attending Mass together before embarking Sunday morning, my unit is mostly Catholic but has several protestant scouts, and currently one Jewish and one Buddhist scout, some of these latter scouts attend Mass that morning, some of them just meet the rest of us in the parking lot afterwards.

 

At camp I leave it up to the individual scouts whether they want to attend the camp's service.

[perdidochas]

I have a scout who is running for Chaplain's aid this month but he is stating that he needs to say "In the name of Jesus Christ, amen" at the end of each prayer.  I know that guidelines state the prayer should be faith neutral but I wanted to get your take on if we should be allowing him to say this at the end of his prayer's or if we should have him run for a different leadership position within the troop instead.

 

IMHO, it depends on the religious situation of your scouts/leaders.  If there are any non-Christians, that would be inappropriate. If all in the troop are Christian, it's fine. 

[Eagledad]

IMHO, it depends on the religious situation of your scouts/leaders.  If there are any non-Christians, that would be inappropriate.

Even if the non-Christian families don't have a problem? I approached our Jewish family on the subject once and the father interrupted me to say they don't have a problem with the troop services. His tone emphasized that they would rather us not change any part of the program for their family. Their sons (4 of them) are mature enough to participate without feeling as outsiders.

 

I don't know why the tone, maybe they get more special treatment than they want.

 

Barry

[mashmaster]

Even if the non-Christian families don't have a problem? I approached our Jewish family on the subject once and the father interrupted me to say they don't have a problem with the troop services. His tone emphasized that they would rather us not change any part of the program for their family. Their sons (4 of them) are mature enough to participate without feeling as outsiders.

 

I don't know why the tone, maybe they get more special treatment than they want.

 

Barry

It might be that they don't want to be thought of as being singled out?    That is probably the reason.   Sometimes it is easier to just go along.

[David CO]

Just a reminder here, one Catholic scouter to another, 'Catholic' and 'Christian' are not opposites.  We Catholics ARE one christian denomination of many, but we are still christian (i won't get into the 'first Christians' issue here as that is not ecumenical).  You can contrast catholic and protestant, or even catholic and a specific other denomination (Catholic and Lutheran), but Catholic is a subset of christian and can't fairly be contrasted to the whole.    In our council we clearly denote the various faiths for services, and if it is all faith we make that clear.

 

I don't agree with your statement that Catholic is a subset of christian.

[T2Eagle]

I don't agree with your statement that Catholic is a subset of christian.

What part do you disagree with?

 

Webster's online defines subset as "a part of a larger group of related things."

 

And Pope Francis refers to non Catholic Christians as "Christians of other churches"

 

“As bishop of Rome and pastor of the Catholic Church, I want to beg for mercy and forgiveness for un-Gospel-like behaviour on the part of Catholics against Christians of other churches,†the Pope said on Monday at a prayer service concluding the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity.

“At the same time, I ask all my Catholic brothers and sisters to forgive if, today or in the past, they were hurt by other Christians,†he said. “We cannot erase what happened, but we do not want to allow the burden of past faults to continue to poison our relationships.â€

I can't imagine you dispute that we Catholics are Christians, and if the Pope recognizes that there are Christians in other churches ipso facto Catholics are a subset of Christians. 

[David CO]

Pope Francis is often a wonderful speaker.  One of the things I like about him is that he usually speaks to us in a familiar way, using a more conversational language, rather than speaking in a boring, careful, legalistic, and pontifical manner.

 

This sometimes causes confusion.  Some people like to use his statements, given in a conversational style, to claim that he doesn't believe in or support the traditional teachings in our catechism.  This is a mistake.

 

I believe that the Four Marks of the Church (One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic) preclude the possibility of denomination.  So I do not believe the Catholic Church is one denomination of many, and I do not believe Catholicism is a subset. 

 

This is what I was taught in all of my catechism classes, both youth and adult, and this is what I believe.

 

I do not generally use the word "Christian" as a noun, as most Protestants do, but I often use it as an adjective.  I do hope that all Catholics would act in a Christian manner.

Edited August 2, 2016 by David CO

[qwazse]

Meanwhile the Orthodox wait patiently for y'all to come back to the fold.

 

(Reunions of mixed-religion family in WV were the best! Kinda prepared me for mixed religion troops.)

[Hedgehog]

So I do not believe the Catholic Church is one denomination of many, and I do not believe Catholicism is a subset. .

That view is not very reverent or respectful to others religions and I'm pretty sure that type of comment is what Pope Francis was addressing when he said:

 

“As bishop of Rome and pastor of the Catholic Church, I want to beg for mercy and forgiveness for un-Gospel-like behaviour on the part of Catholics against Christians of other churches,â€

I faced the opposite type of ignorance when I went to college when some evangelical Christians asserted that Catholics werent Christians. If someone believes that Christ is the Son of God, they are a Christian. Edited August 2, 2016 by Hedgehog

[SpEdScouter]

Our troop does a kind of "Great spirit" , native american type thing. Praying to our "great scoutmaster in heaven".

[gumbymaster]

Hopefully, before this topic devolves into an argument over whose more this and whose more that ...

 

I wanted to raise a couple of comments and thoughts.

 

My first is the concern that if you leave it up to the boys (i.e. they vote), and the majority of them are some form of Christian, then the majority would approve ending all prayers that way, and the unit might risk disenfranchising the non Christians.  Now, many of our youth are smarter than that, especially presented with the alternative positions of why that may be an issue, so rather than voting yes or no, have them as a group think about ways to address both concerns.  Now, for a church sponsored Troop, using the Scouts as an extension of their ministry, and everyone joining that unit understands this to be the case, absolutely be true to the tenants for that faith.

 

Sometimes the practitioner of a religion has no choice but to do things a certain way, without violating their own faith.  It does not mean they are necessarily being disrespectful to other religions, or failing to be reverent as defined by the scout law. We should strive not to put the potential CA into this situation, so if that is how they have to do things, if they are leading them, then that position may not be a good fit for them - or alternatively, what they do when they lead the prayer, but as the CA, their role is not to always lead the prayer, but to organize it - thus they could work with other less restricted scouts and have them lead some of the prayers.

 

As an example of not having a choice, we have a Scouter in our area, whom I believe is an Orthodox Jew, and one of the tenants of his faith (which may or may not apply to all Orthodox Jews - I don't know), is that he cannot enter a religious structure of another faith if he would be sheltered by the same roof line as the chapel (I hope I'm getting that right).  Cupolas and wings of a structure are apparently ok.  As many of our district training's and events (such as Roundtable) are often held with the generous contribution of other Churches in our area, this severely restricts his participation, unfortunately there isn't a really a good accommodation for this as of yet.

 

My faith would not generally be considered Christian by other Christians, but there is no restriction in Christians practicing as such.  Years ago, when I worked at summer camp, the staffer who generally ran the vespers service was unavailable to do so for a couple of weeks, and I found myself leading those services.  My faith does not take offense at the overt Christian references all around us, but as I was organizing and leading these services, I really started to take a critical look at how our interfaith-non denominational services really were very Christian (or at least Old-Testament) in nature, and I had to think of how to be more inclusive.  Even without constant references to Jesus, our common vespers songs like "This little light of mine", or "noah", while fun to sing and easy for audience participation without prayer books; would not be considered interfaith for many.  It is a hard thing to look at, and a harder thing to solve.

 

Often in scouting we devolve interfaith into saying prayers that seem very generic - and sometimes they are; or we use native American prayers, often glossing over that those really are the religious faiths of those people, and not something we should really appropriate as a generic (i.e. won't offend) prayer.

 

For me, personally, I think that mixing in the honest prayers of different faiths, so that everyone is eventually included is the most reverent (to the scout law definition) approach to make.

 

For those that remember the television show Babylon 5, there was a great episode where the leaders were each expected to put on a program or demonstration of the faith of the people of their world - to help the other alien species better understand one another.  In the end the leader for the Earth delegation set up a receiving line with dozens (hundreds) of leaders from each of the faiths of earth.

[Stosh]

Christians are separated more by tradition, arrogance, and bigotry than theology. That is what I was taught by a Catholic professor at seminary.

 

Your mileage may vary.