Adult Religious Emblems

[scoutldr]

The reason, IMHO that "nominatable" awards are so rare is not because the standards are so high, but because few people will take the time and effort to write up a nomination. There could be several reasons for this; many don't know enough about the candidate to provide all of the information required, without coming out and asking the person to help you fill out the paperwork. I was asked to serve on the District Awards selection committee this year and was saddened by both the number of nominations submitted and the quality of those submitted. Some nominations were merely a name and unit number without any supporting information. Needless to say, many available awards will not be presented this year, due to lack of interest. This includes the District Award of Merit, in addition to many other unit level awards that we offer (SM of the year, CM of the year, etc).

[Trevorum]

FatherJim states, "All you have to do is get an organized religious group or Native Americans together and have them work up a criteria ... I would imagine almost any religious group could make up their religious award program..."

 

That's a good idea but it isn't that simple. The BSA Religious Relationships Subcommittee, which administers the religious awards program and reviews the curriculum of any newly proposed award, has adopted a "rule of 25" which states that to be eligible for the creation of a religious awards program, a faith must be the chartering organization of at least 25 units nation wide.

 

The purpose of this rule is to facilitate administration of the program by establishing a minimum threshold of interest. I can certainly understand them not wanting to administer 100 programs with a single congregation each. In practice however, it has been used to prevent minority and non-mainstream faiths from establishing an awards program and thereby achieving formal BSA recognition.

 

I don't know whether any Native American churches have expressed interest in an awards program. However, you may recall that several years ago, a minority faith, the Covenant of the Goddess, had their proposed Hart and Crescent program denied on the basis of the rule of 25. This was interpreted by many as religious discrimination against minorities. Others were relieved that BSA had grounds to deny a religious awards program to pagans.

 

At this point I would like to remind everyone that pagans and other minority faiths are welcome in Scouting. "BSA does not define what constitutes belief in God or the practice of religion" (BSA Position Statement 6/91)

[ScoutNut]

"to be eligible for the creation of a religious awards program, a faith must be the chartering organization of at least 25 units nation wide."

 

 

The BSA does NOT have the authority to stop any religious organization, however small or out of the mainstream, from creating, and administering their own religious awards program. They do NOT have the authority to tell families what religious awards their boys can or cannot earn.

 

BSA DOES have the authority to approve the wearing of a religious award emblem on the official BSA uniform. It also has the authority to say what publications and products are sold in it's Scout Shops. But that's it.

 

If a group of Native Americans or Druids wish to create their own religious awards program they are well within their rights to do so. If they have youth members who are Scouts, the Scouts are perfectly able to earn the religious award of their belief. They just can not wear the award on their scout uniform until the program has been approved by the BSA. Also the Bear & Webelos faith requirement both say "Earn the religious emblem of your faith." It does NOT say earn the "approved" emblem.

 

[Trevorum]

Yes, of course you are right. I assumed that we were all talking about the programs that are recognized by BSA and the awards for which a boy may wear on his uniform.

 

To clarify: Under BSA's "rule of 25", the religious awards of only those faiths which are the chartering organization of at least 25 units nation wide will be recognized as valid for uniform wear, after review and approval by BSAs Religious Relationships Subcommittee.

 

 

[Proud Eagle]

Perhaps allowing local councils to recognize the awards in some way would be a work around for the administrative problems. Or, perhaps BSA could figure out some way of passing on any administrative burdens to that faith community. I don't really know. There has to be some method of providing for recognition of the religious awards of small faiths without bogging BSA down in reviewing the awards of 10,000 little independent churches and such.

 

 

[Trevorum]

From what I can tell, BSA's "administrative burden" consists mostly of reviewing and approving the proposed program curriculum. After approval of the curriculum materials, BSA has very little involvement.

 

IMHO (and yours may well differ), the rule is a device which BSA has found useful in these fractious times. It allows BSA to avoid having to approve of (or even discuss) awards programs for a variety of minority faiths. While these faiths are 100% legitimate, they are not well understood by the majority of BSA membership (or for that matter, most Americans) and are the subject of some degree of religious prejudice. There are some of us on this forum for example, while certainly excellent Scouters, have nonetheless let it be known that they would never respect a nature-based faith which views God differently than does their own faith.

 

There has been some suggestion of developing a generic religious awards program which could be modified/interpreted as appropriate for any faith which does not qualify under the rule of 25, or which does not want to develop a unique awards program. There is some precedent for this. A variety of Protestant denominations use a single awards program. However, all these denominations share perhaps 90-95% of their core Christian beliefs and a single Christian curriculum is easily appplied. A more generic program that could be meaningful to a much wider variety of faith traditions would be significantly more difficult to develop. I'm not optimistic for it's success.