First, the Boy Scouts of America Organization removed God from their oath.

Now, they are about to pay a heavy price for their latest excursion into Liberal Social Experimentation.

The Christian Post reports that

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has said it will be re-evaluating its long-standing participation in the Boy Scouts of America, following the latter’s decision to end its blanket ban on openly gay adult leaders.

“The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is deeply troubled by today’s vote by the Boy Scouts of America National Executive Board. In spite of a request to delay the vote, it was scheduled at a time in July when members of the Church’s governing councils are out of their offices and do not meet. When the leadership of the Church resumes its regular schedule of meetings in August, the century-long association with scouting will need to be examined,” the Mormon church said on Monday.

“The Church has always welcomed all boys to its scouting units regardless of sexual orientation. However, the admission of openly gay leaders is inconsistent with the doctrines of the Church and what have traditionally been the values of the Boy Scouts of America.”

The BSA executive committee voted to end its historic ban on openly gay adult leaders earlier in July, a decision that was ratified by the National Executive Board on Monday in a 45-12 vote.

“For far too long, this issue has divided and distracted us,” said the BSA’s president, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates. “Now it’s time to unite behind our shared belief in the extraordinary power of scouting to be a force for good.

While ending the blanket ban, BSA has said that church-sponsored troops will be allowed to set their own policies on adult leaders. The Boy Scouts leadership said in a memo earlier this month that it “rejects any interference with or condemnation of the diverse beliefs of chartering organizations on matters of marriage, family, and sexuality.”

Some Evangelicals, such as Southern Evangelical Seminary President Dr. Richard Land, have backed the policy that allows for religious exemptions, but said that other concerns remain for children in scouting.

“If you put them in the compromising situations that you are sometimes in with Scout leaders and Scouts, in terms of camping and other situations, it could lead to great tragedy for children,” said Land, who is also the executive editor of The Christian Post. “It’s best to avoid the temptation.”

CBS News noted that the decision remains a controversial one, and the Mormon church, which sponsors more Scout units that any other organization, could look at forming its own organization to replace the Boy Scouts.

The Boy Scouts have experiences a membership decline in recent decades, while the ongoing debate over the participation of gay members and leaders has stirred the formation of other youth groups based on upholding conservative values.

Trail Life USA is one such group, which formed after the BSA decision to allow gay youth members in 2013, and now claims a membership of more than 25,000 youths and adults. 

The Boy Scouts are over one hundred years old. On January 24, 1908, the Boy Scouts movement began in England with the publication of the first installment of Robert Baden-Powell’s Scouting for Boys. Baden-Powell was already well known by English boys, and thousands of them quickly bought up the handbook. By the end of April, the serialization of Scouting for Boys was completed, and a lot of impromptu Boy Scout troops had sprung up across Britain.

Baden-Powell became a national hero in Britain in 1910, for his 217-day defense of Mafeking in the South African War. Soon after, Aids to Scouting, a military field manual he had written for British soldiers in 1899, caught on with a younger audience. English boys really took to the lessons on tracking and observation and organized elaborate games using the book. Upon hearing about this, Baden-Powell decided to write a nonmilitary field manual for British youth that would also emphasize the importance of morality and good deeds.

First, though, he decided to try out some of his ideas on an actual group of boys. On July 25, 1907, he took a diverse group of 21 adolescents to Brownsea Island in Dorsetshire where they set up camp. With the aid of other instructors, he taught the boys about camping, observation, deduction, woodcraft, boating, lifesaving, patriotism, and chivalry. Many of these lessons were learned through inventive games that were very popular with the boys. The first Boy Scouts meeting was a huge success.

American Scouting began with an event that happened in London in 1909. Chicago publisher William Boyce become lost in the fog and a Boy Scout came to his aid. After guiding Boyce to his destination, the boy refused a tip, and explained to Boyce that, as a Boy Scout, he would not accept payment for doing a good deed. The gesture inspired Boyce to start several regional U.S. youth organizations, specifically the Woodcraft Indians and the Sons of Daniel Boone, into the Boy Scouts of America. Incorporated on February 8, 1910, the movement soon spread throughout the country.

In 1916, Baden-Powell began the Wolf Cubs, which caught on as the Cub Scouts in the United States, for boys under the age of 11. Four years later, the first international Boy Scout Jamboree was held in London, and Baden-Powell was acclaimed Chief Scout of the world. He died in 1941.

Since then, scouting has produced a lot of good men, rooted in faith and trained to be leaders.

I remember it like it was yesterday yesterday, I was in Seventh Grade, and we were living in an area of Memphis, behind the Veterans’ Cemetery, affectionately known as “Nutbush”. I was a sickly undersized asthmatic kid, who was always getting picked on in the neighborhood. Anyway, my buddy Bobby and his older brother Ronnie were Boy Scouts in a troop, which their Dad, a mechanic, was the Scout Leader of. They asked me to join up, so I did. It was a lot of fun, and I “set the record” for making Tenderfoot, by learning all the knots and stuff in two days.

Unfortunately though, my severe asthma kept me from going out on the camping trips, so I had to drop out of the Boy Scouts.

That being said, I believe what irritates me the most about this whole situation, is them turning an organization with Christian roots, into a Liberal Social Engineering Experiment, just as they have our Armed Forces.

Being a Boy Scout shouldn’t be about discovering your sexual preference, it should be about learning self-reliance, love of God and Country, and how to be a leader of men.

On my honor I will do my best 
To do my duty to God and my country 
and to obey the Scout Law; 
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong, 
mentally awake, and morally straight.

This latest decision by the BSA blows their oath all to Hades, doesn’t it?

It is also, going to cost them their biggest financial backer.

I suppose I could make a point about “legalizing sin”, and America’s churches’ reaction to it, but, hey…

It’s self-evident.

Until He Comes,

KJ