OFFICIAL: LDS to Scouting, "Good Day Sir!"

[Brent]

https://www.deseretnews.com/article/900 ... ative.html

Fini.

[Brent]

and

https://www.sltrib.com/news/2018/05/09/ ... h-program/

You will understand why I'm not linking to the Pravda account....

[MoPag]

The LDS Church has said that despite the Scouts’ changing admission standards, the church-operated Scouts programs — and the LDS-sponsored equivalent girls programs, Activity Days and Personal Progress — would remain the same.

Equivalent?!?!

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[Corsair]

The LDS Church has said that despite the Scouts’ changing admission standards, the church-operated Scouts programs — and the LDS-sponsored equivalent girls programs, Activity Days and Personal Progress — would remain the same.

Whatever comes out of this change will be subject to all of the foibles of leadership roulette. I am certain that some wards are going to do a fantastic job with the new programs. The effectiveness of the organization will, however, depend directly on the institutional LDS church and will no longer have benefits of the reputation or experience of the hundred year old BSA.

[JustHangingOn@57]

Over at the DN website there is an article titled "Mormons to drop scouting as part of a global initiative".

The comments section is always interesting to visit, but on this particular topic holy cow! An overwhelming amount of anti-gay rhetoric and a lots and lots of testimony bearing.

[Jeffret]

The effectiveness of the organization will, however, depend directly on the institutional LDS church and will no longer have benefits of the reputation or experience of the hundred year old BSA.

Whatever they do will only be recognized within Mormonism. That's one of the things girls have been excited about in joining the BSA. The BSA Eagle has much better recognition than the GSA Gold. One approach would be to increase the recognition of the Gold, but I believe an integrated, non-discriminatory organization is the way to go. Some organizations give some advantages or preferences to Eagle Scouts but not Gold Scouts. Only within Mormonism will anyone give any consideration to whatever the Church ends up creating. Given their history, I expect it to be pretty drab and dull all the way around.

One of the reasons the Church has held onto the BSA as long as it did was that the BSA provides them resources that are hard to replicate on their own. Within Utah, or even the Morridor in general, they'll probably be able to create some decent camping opportunities. Outside, it will be harder. I imagine they'll do it much like they do Girls Camp these days, organize it on a stake-wide basis. My daughters each attended Girls Camp a year or two before being totally annoyed and bored. They had experience with real camping and outdoor activities. The extended testimony / feelings experience intermingled with a few activities didn't really cut it for them.

What they ought to do is to run Girls Camp and Boys Camp together. They've stated in this release that boys and girls will use the same program so it would make the most sense to combine their camping experiences. I'd be very surprised if they ended up doing that, though. If they did, it would probably improve the outdoor activities for the girls. Whatever they do will almost certainly lead to marked decrease in the experience for boys. I don't know how they've done it the past few years, but I think there's long been one significant difference between the boys' and girls' camping experience. For the girls, they throw all of the ages together. For the boys, they do different experiences by age group.

One thing they're certain not to do is to retain the BSA idea of a boy-led program. Because of the way they separate out the boys by age, that has always been a difficult thing to implement in Mormon units. The older ones don't really get a chance to lead the younger ones. They don't get a good chance to pass their experience down, so the adults end up primarily running things. At least when things get done. I doubt the Church really wants to promote allowing people to make their own decisions.

[Rob4Hope]

I never saw the "patrol method" work a single time in my 30 years of involvement. Most of the leaders didn't even know what that was.

I do recall that the events primarily were "basketball night"....then "service project night"....then "screw around and do nothing productive night"....and then "bishop wants to talk to us about porn night"....then "basketball night"....

The church is loosing its youth, families, and everyone else. Its not looking good for them....

[Hagoth]

As far as I'm concerned, everybody loses. The boys are going to get a watered-down lame-ass attempt at scouting that is really just another thin veneer stretched over the same ol' indoctrination. All to avoid the dreaded thought of He Man and the Masters of the Priesthood sharing equally with females and LGBTQ people. I almost wish my boys were still scouting age so we could show our support for real scouting.

[Jeffret]

I kind of think the BSA wins in this situation.

[2bizE]

i didnt see that coming.

[mooseman]

The new youth program

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[moksha]

The LDS dilemma of what to do in place of the Boy Scouts can easily be corrected by allocating 80% of the funding to the boy's program and 20% to the girl's program. Activities could be similar to before, only this time with an even greater emphasis on obedience to Church Authority.

[Archimedes]

This new Scrouting program will be a hopped-up Duty to God, with camping.

Church troops are already viewed very poorly by other community troops, who see the church programs as watered down merit badge mills.

So I guess now the Bishop will also be your scoutmaster, since the new church scouts will be modeled after existing church structure / Duty to God achievements. And the Bishop is the boss of the Priests Quorum, right?

[1smartdodog]

I kind of think the BSA wins in this situation.

I think so. The BSA will be more free to taloir programs that work for today’s youth without the oversight of very old church leaders,who are so far removed from the youth of today as to make it near impossible to relate.