30 September 2008
boyandgirlscouts.islam
Posted by admin under: religion .
Though still a small percentage of all Scouting programs, more all-Muslim units have been formed nationwide in recent years, bringing a new dimension to what traditionally has been associated with Christian, particularly Mormon, churches.
Local Muslim troops start meetings with an Islamic prayer and the Scout oath. They incorporate teachings from the Quran and hadiths — the sayings and deeds of the Prophet Muhammad — into their work toward merit badges. They strive for “religious emblems” — medals that can be pinned to uniforms much like merit badges, earned for learning about subjects such as Ramadan, the Islamic holy month, which ends this week.
So far, Scouting has been a hit among local Muslim families. Waiting lists have formed, and organizers hope to create more troops.
The nice thing about Scouting, said Cub Scout leader Mohammed Abdel-Aziz, is that it provides structure and opportunities to interact with other Scouting groups, not just Muslim ones. Plus, “it builds character. It’s fun.”
I am a little concerned with the heavy influence of religion in their meetings. Scouts are non-denominational although there is plenty of precedent for troops that are sponsored from a particular institution that tend to have only that religion in their units. I know of Mormon, Catholic, and even Scientology units that happen to have no other religions represented in their troops. None of those, though, that I’m aware of make their religion such a big part of their program.
The religious programs in BSA and GSUSA aren’t part of the national program. Each Scout individually signs up with his or her religious institution in order to do a religious program. At the conclusion, the pastor or priest or whoever signs off that the Scout has completed the program and the Scout can be recognized for having learned about it. However, this religious teaching isn’t done at Scout meetings.
I’ve only heard of one of my area’s units incorporating religious instruction in their program and it wasn’t a success. The kids didn’t think it was any fun and my unit ended up acquiring that units dissatisfied Scouts. Just from a practical standpoint it doesn’t make sense to me. You can’t exclude anyone from your unit based on their creed. Why would you want to make it such a big part of the program? That sounds more like Sunday school (or Friday school in this case) than a Scouting program. We always have a Scouts Own at our outings where we give thanks to our creator for our good times and opportunities, but it’s all very general.
In fact, to dive off into a tangent, when our unit was at summer camp one of the traditions was for a unit to lead a prayer at the beginning of each meal. A few of them ended with, “in Jesus name, Amen”. We found this strange because it automatically excluded non-Christians so one of our dads spoke to the camp director about it. The director explained that each unit was free to do the grace in their custom and they’d had a Buddhist troop do something in their style in another language. While this was equatable for all troops we still felt more comfortable delivering a more generalized prayer which the dad did at the next opportunity.
So, while I am happy that Muslim Scouts are joining our venerable institution I would be happier if they would follow the traditional model of allowing the religious instruction to be done outside of the unit meetings and concentrating on skills and leadership for their program.
Update: The program I was talking about is here: http://www.praypub.org/
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