Boy Scouts of America

I was the worst Second Class Boy Scout in the history of Boy Scouts.  I say this with a high degree of confidence that no other Scout who reached Second Class as his highest grade ever burned down his Scoutmaster’s tent!  (Buy me a cup of coffee sometime and I’ll tell you that story….)

But, even after almost 50 years, I can still recite the Scout Oath and the Twelve Points of the Scout Law, the twelfth of which is “A Scout is reverent.”

In order to encourage reverence and participation in their churches, the BSA has worked with various religions to confer awards.  (I never got that award, either!)

According to the BSA website on Religious Awards, “A Scout is reverent. He is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties and respects the convictions of others in matters of custom and religion.”[i]

The BSA is very inclusive in its religious membership.  It has awards for 28 different denominations of Christian Churches.  Plus awards for eight other religions:  Baha'I, Buddhist, Hindu, Islamic, Jewish, Meher Baba, Sikh, and Zoroastrian.

I enjoyed my few years in Scouts, and the several more I spent as an adult advisor when my son was going through the program.  (He was a much better scout that I was – to the best of my knowledge, he never burned anything down!)  Scouting teaches young men a lot about self-reliance and leadership.

It also teaches a lot about religious toleration.

It seems to me that if the Boy Scouts of America can welcome and recognize its members from 36 different religious denominations, we should be able to do the same.

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[i] http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/Awards/ReligiousAwards.aspx