The Golden Rule in many faiths

When Introducing scouts to the idea of an Interfaith service, it can be very tricky for them to understand. Most have only grown up with a single faith, and may not be as exposed to the faiths of others. One brief example to give them is the Golden Rule. There are many ways to express it, and most of the world's religions contain that sentiment in some form or fashion. (Thanks to MacScouter.org for the list)

Blessed are those who prefer others before themselves. -- Baha'i Faith

Hurt not others in ways that you would you yourself would find hurtful. -- Buddhism

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. --Christianity

This is the sum of all duty: treat others as you yourself would be treated. -- Hinduism

No one of you is a believer until you desire for another that which you desire for yourself. -- Islam

In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, regard all creatures as you would regard your own self. -- Jainism

What is hateful to you, do not do to your neighbor. -- Judaism

Be not estranged from another for God dwells in every heart. -- Sikhism

Human nature is good only when it does not do unto another whatever is not good for its own self. -- Zoroastrianism 

No, it doesn't mean that all religions are interchangeable or that it doesn't matter which you follow... But we do have some commonalities among them.

How to tread lightly while inquiring about a family's faith

One of the tricky parts about incorporating Faith into a Scouting program is that modern society has made it a taboo subject. For example, a Teacher would probably get fired if they asked everyone in their class what faith their family was.

While many families who are in a religion that is common in your area may speak about it casually, other families in a less mainstream faith might have a concern about bringing it up. 

At the website Scouting For God they suggest including it on a survey form, along with a number of other similar "Getting to know you" questions. For example:

• What activities are you involved in?    
• What religion does your family practice? If so, what church/temple/mosque do you attend?
• Do you have any food allergies? If so, what?  
• Do you have any food restrictions or preferences (e.g. vegetarian, non-beef, non-pork, vegan, kosher)?  
• Anything else that you want the Troop/Pack to know about you?

It can be a lot less confrontational to ask about it that way, along with a number of other questions that help you get to know the family and their needs better.

How can we make people of all faiths comfortable in Scouting?

At my first Cub Scout roundup for Pack 704, there was one father and son who waited until the end, and wanted to know if it was OK to join the pack, because they were Muslim. I hate to think that people of other faiths felt so out of place they felt the need to ask permission before joining us. 

I know, and you know that the BSA welcomes all faiths, but how good of a job are we doing as scouters displaying that message? Let's face it, the Scouting community is largely populated by Christians, probably more heavily than the general US population. 

If you look at the list of Chartered Organizations for the BSA, You will see a trend... From Largest to Smallest, it goes LDS (Mormon), Methodist, Catholic, Presbyterian, Baptist, Episcopal.... You have to get down to # 16 on the list before you see a non-Christian faith.

The problem isn't that so many Christians are involved in Scouting. That's a great thing, and I wish there were more churches involved in Scouting. The problem is that to many non-Christians, they do not feel comfortable in Scouting.

 

What are some ways that we can reach out and demonstrate to the community that we are open to all faiths?  

Interfaith Calendar

One of the Things that my Cub Scout Pack does every year is to plan out our calendar of events, in an annual planning calendar.

We go and get a copy of the local School System's calendar, community calendars, for us the Schedule of Nascar Races at the local speedway is important, because so many families have jobs either in the racing or hospitality industry that will be impacted on those weekends.

If your scout group encompasses people of several faiths, when you plan these things out, be sure to check for major religious events among those various faiths when planning.

One resource I found was the Interfaith Calendar which has religious observances from multiple faiths around the world. It's a great starting point, and note that the items in Bold type are generally the most important dates, although even minor ones may be mentioned.

"The Spiritual Training of Scouts"

While searching on the USSSP site here, I came across some excerpts from a speech titled "The Spiritual Training of Scouts"given to the 18th International Conference of the Boy Scouts World Bureau in September 1961.  The speaker was John Thurman, Camp Chief of Gilwell Park, England.  It was printed in the May 1962 issue of The Scout Leader [Canada] .

I conceive it possible that if we abandoned all our principles we might recruit more leaders and consequently could handle more boys and perhaps -- although I doubt it -- in ten years we might double the number of registered Scouts, but we would have lessened a hundredfold the true strength of Scouting for we would end with something that had betrayed its past and in so doing had betrayed its purpose. . . .

My overriding fear in regard to Scouting is that it will die of respectability, having lost the urge to attempt the difficult and ending as a rather nice middle-class Movement.  It is more important to be proud of what Scouting does for the boyhood of the world than to be proud of Scouting.

. . . I want to appeal too that we strengthen our tolerance towards other faiths. "None has a monopoly of truth." Tolerance does not mean weakness or a weakening of your own faith, for it says in effect, "This is what I believe but I respect your right to be different," but that is not the same thing as tolerating the right to be spiritually lazy or to believe nothing. . . .

Why should a Movement like this set out to please an agnostic or an atheist adult? Why should we allow him to contaminate (and I use the word deliberately) the efforts of tens of thousands of adults who accept the principles of Scouting without question and who try to carry them effectively into the lives, the hearts, and the spirits of their boys? Don't tell me that it is brotherly to countenance evil. I believe that Scouting must be militant in its approach to fundamentals, and the fundamentals of Scouting without duty to God are worthless.

These days, I hear from a number of people that Scouting is unpopular because of the emphasis on religious belief as an important part of the program. If only we could drop all the religious stuff, we could attract more scouts. It seems that even in the 60s, this argument was being made also. I'd much rather be right, than be popular.

Inquiry.net's guide to several Faiths

Nick Trierweiler sent me a link to a page on Inquiry.net that has a lot of good reference material on several different faiths. If you have a new family join your pack or troop who is of a faith you are not familiar with, this is a great place to look to understand the basics of the faith.

Faith Modeling vs. Faith Teaching

For those of us who view our scouting program as part of our church's ministry, this can be a very tricky line to tread. This is true especially for those serving in a role like Chaplain in a multifaith Boy Scout Troop.

Within Scouting, generally speaking, we don't want to try to impose our specific religious beliefs on others. These scouts each come from families which have their own faith tradition. As a Scout Leader, It's not my role to give religious instruction to the scouts. If they have questions, I can answer them, but my main role in regards to faith is to set a good model for them to follow. As I've heard it stated before, "We should be able to set an example, so that people around us will know we are Christians, even if we don't tell them." But from a scouter's point of view, I want to encourage the scouts to follow their family's faith. This is Faith Modeling, where I can show the boys what someone who sincerely follows their faith looks like. That means I've got to be on my best behavior and set a good example for them at all times.

Faith Teaching is something quite different. This is what one might do as a Sunday School teacher, or at Vacation Bible School, or in some specifically religious setting. If you have done a good job reaching out to the scouts in your unit and inviting them, hopefully some of the youth from scouts will also be in the sunday school class. But at any rate, their presence there at this kind of event means that the parents have entrusted you and your congregation to lead the child in a religious education. Although it might be the same leader, and the same kid, and in some cases even in the same classroom in the church basement... It's two different settings.

It doesn't mean that you quit being a Christian when you put on your scouting uniform. But it does mean that you respect the differences in situation, and remember that some parents have entrusted you with imparting Scouting's Values, while other parents have entrusted you with imparting specific religious beliefs. Although there is a HUGE overlap between the two, there is a distinction, and that's the difference between Modeling your faith and Teaching your faith.

Don't forget about your own differences

Way back when I was a Cub Scout, for one year our Pack was chartered by a Catholic Church. I had been brought up in a family that generally attended a Baptist church. Being in NC, most of the boys in the pack were more than likely from some protestant denomination.

In many protestant denominations, communion is considered open to all who profess Christianity. In the Catholic church, they practice closed communion, where it can only be offered to those who follow their particular faith.

(I'm not going into the details of why here, but there are deeply held theological opinions on both sides as to why each church handles it the way it does.)

On Scout Sunday, all of us Cub Scouts were sitting there together, all in uniform, hopefully being well behaved. Anyway, when we got to the part of the service where it was time to receive communion, all the cub scouts lined up, not realizing that it was not open to all, as we had probably seen in our home churches. Our Den Leader who was Catholic had to grab us out of the line, and it was a little embarrassing to both us and her. I don't think it was ever explained well to us why we could not participate.

Anyway, my point of bringing this up, is that before you invite Scouts to participate in your own church's services, remember that you too may have some unique part of the service that the scouts and possibly their parents need to be made aware of. In that particular case, it was who was eligible for communion. At my current church, I had to make sure that all the parents knew what ages were welcome to go down to the Children's church part of the service, and where to get their kids after service was over.

Look over your own church service, and think about what things might need to be explained in advance to those who are visiting. That's probably a great rule for every Sunday, not just Scout Sunday.

A Prayer by Chief Yellow Lark, of the Sioux Tribe

O’ great spirit, whose voice I hear in the winds, and whose breath gives life to all the world, hear me!  I am small and weak, I need your strength and wisdom.
Let me walk in beauty and make my eyes ever behold the red and purple sunset.
Make my hands respect the things you have made, and my ears sharp to hear your voice.
Make me wise so that I may know the things you have taught my people.
Let me learn the lessons you have hidden in every leaf and rock.
I seek strength, not to be greater than my brother, but to fight my greatest enemy – myself.
Make me always ready to come to you with clean hands and straight eyes.
So when life fades, as the fading sunset, my spirit may come to you without shame.

Written by Chief Yellow Lark, Sioux, 1887

Worship in the Outdoors

I've been in a number of beautiful churches, with stained glass windows, Comfortable cushions on the pews, elegant lighting, and a wonderful sound system. Our family was dressed up in our sunday best, ready to sit and listen.

But the most beautiful church I've ever had the opportunity to attend had none of those things. In fact, we didn't even show up in our sunday best. I'm pretty sure most of us still had yesterday's clothes on, and smelled of campfire smoke.

At Camp John J. Barnhardt, as you head toward the Outdoor Chapel, you come to the top of a hill. From the top of that hill, you look down on a beautiful forest, with a lake in the background. If you luck out on the weather, you might see rays of sunshine peeking out from behind a cloud as you find a seat.  It's a beautiful place to spend part of a Sunday morning, before breaking camp and heading back into civilization.

I love to think of nature as an unlimited broadcasting station, through which God speaks to us every hour, if we will only tune in. ~George Washington Carver

What is your favorite place for an Outdoor worship service?

Avoiding Faith is like a Starvation Diet

I wanted to highlight a website I came across, named Scouting For God. On the main page of the website, it has an interesting letter that you would never want to send out as a scout leader.

Dear Scouts and families,

This is to inform you that effective immediately, we will no longer be serving food on our campouts.

While we have always enjoyed preparing and serving food with your sons each weekend, we recently discovered that one of the boys is a vegetarian. Since we are used to serving meat with most meals, we have decided it is easier to simply not serve any food over the campout weekend. Those boys who are interested in eating should bring their own food and eat privately within their own tents.

Your Scoutmaster

This is the way quite a few scouting units approach religion. In order to avoid offending everyone, they leave out everything related to religion. While religion is intensely personal to the scout and their family, the answer is to be inclusive, not to exclude everything equally.

A Scout's Own Service

A "Scouts Own" Service is an interfaith worship service, conducted on outings or at camp. In most cases, this is a situation where people of multiple denominations and faiths will be present. Effort should be taken to make sure that the service does not only reflect one specific faith or tradition, It should be something that is as inclusive as possible.

A large number of troops typically schedule these on Sunday mornings, to make up for the fact that they are keeping their scouts from their worship services at their regular church.

From the BSA training Materials:

It is not necessary to attempt to account for the sensitivities of every conceivable religion on Earth; rather, seek to account for those religions whose members reasonably might be expected to be present.

My rule of thumb is to be as inclusive reasonably possible. For example, if you know all the scouts in a particular patrol or troop are of various Christian denominations, it would be fine to reference Jesus in a prayer. However, if it is a larger group, and there may be people of non-Christian backgrounds there, try to be as sensitive as possible, and avoid putting them in an uncomfortable situation, while still respecting their faith.

Some faiths ask that it's members do not participate in interfaith worship services, and it is important to remember that. No Scout should ever feel forced to participate in an interfaith worship service, particularly when it violates the tenets of his own faith.

Before asking a Scout or Leader to run one of these services, make sure they are aware of some of these potential pitfalls. The BSA website has the outline of a training course for this, and I think it is something that would be very useful for troops and local districts to educate it's scouts and scouters about.

Interfaith Scouting

Abdul-Rashid Abdullah, a Muslim Scoutmaster, talks about some of the challenges and opportunities faced by Islamic Boy Scouts in this Scouting Magazine Article. I was especially interested in the description of a joint pinewood derby with Jewish and Islamic Packs.


One of the Assistant Den Leaders in our Pack was Muslim, but unfortunately, they had to move away partway through his son's first year in the pack, so I never got a chance to get to know their family well.