Category: Christianity

The Boy Scouts’ Bankruptcy Is Not Just Financial. It’s Moral


Originally published at The Federalist Jan 2, 2019
Although it may be near declaring bankruptcy, Scouting’s problems go beyond the financial, deep into the problems with America’s civil culture today.
Alfred Siewers

By

January 2, 2019

What’s left of the Boy Scouts of America (now operating as Scouts BSA) is on the brink of declaring bankruptcy, according to recent news reports. With estimated assets of more than $1 billion, Scouting’s problems go beyond the financial, deep into the problems with America’s civil culture today.

The U.S. Boy Scout movement reached its numerical height in 1969 with 6 million members, in a year with President Richard M. Nixon as honorary head of the Scouts and Eagle Scout astronaut Neil Armstrong stepping out on the moon.

I was a Cub Scout that year, once a week proudly wearing my uniform to Armstrong Elementary School in our Chicago neighborhood, heading to our well-attended den meeting right after school. My liberal Democratic parents signed me up, my dad a World War II veteran supportive of Scouting’s patriotism.

Fast-forward ahead nearly 50 years: Scout membership has dropped toward 2 million. The impending departure of the Latter Day Saints troops this year will drop that total by one-fifth. Our local school district in conservative central Pennsylvania won’t allow promoting Scouting at school. In our college town, many in the woke local elite now despise Scouting as neo-Nazi and white nationalist, despite efforts to change the national movement to please progressives. My son’s local troop closed recently for lack of members, and so did others in the area.

The national organization faces large lawsuits due to alleged cases of sexual abuse as state legislatures change the statute of limitations on such cases. It also faces a lawsuit from the Girl Scouts for poaching on their membership by changing its name recently to Scouts BSA and recruiting girls.

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Interest in Alternative “Traditional Christian” Boy Scouts Skyrockets


Available via the Wayback Machine.

By Kimberly Smith
April 29, 2017 at 9:19am

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Over the years, the Boy Scouts of America has been making steps to become more “accepting” and “inclusive” — at the risk to its traditional values.

In 2013, the organization allowed members to identify as gay, then a couple of years later, the group welcomed gay leaders. And beginning this year, “transgender” scouts — girls who pretend they’re boys — were allowed to join the once all-male group.

Not everyone has viewed these changes as positive. A new group that recognizes the traditional values that the Boys Scouts left behind is gaining popularity because of the BSA’s shift to serve a liberal agenda.

Trail Life USA, which focuses on “traditional Christian values” already has more than 20,000 members across the country.

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No More Boy Scout Religion


From a sermon preached at Christ Church, Lakeland Fl:


January 31, 2017

The Boy Scouts of America was one of the most cherished organizations in the American culture. It seemed to sum what “a good American” was all about, and it captured the general outlook of our national character. It is what many people think of when they think of how to “just be a good person.” But, sadly, what was once only a rhetorical saying now has a new and literal meaning– there are no more Boy Scouts.

What killed the Boy Scouts was sex. They thought–wrongly–that everyone knew what sex was and how to use it responsibly. But this has been proven false. Three years ago, the Boy Scouts began to revise their position on human sexuality, eventually coming to admit homosexual members and even scout leaders. You can read about how that came about here. This week the Boy Scouts announced that they will allow transgender members. This has left many Americans who traditionally supported the Scouts for reasons of moral and spiritual formation dismayed and depressed. On a surface level it all seems rather absurd. After all, this is the BOY Scouts we are talking about. If boys no longer have to be boys, what’s left? But on a deeper level, what this reveals is that the Boy Scouts do not actually have a shared moral and spiritual foundation. Whatever they thought they once had is now definitively gone.

Continue reading “No More Boy Scout Religion”