Since this issue first arose last week, I have been pondering why it has impressed upon me such a sense of evil. All my insides shout out NO! Stand Firm, you are on the side of truth. Bill’s article below really nailed it for me. This is the perfect example of how upside down our society has become. Why on earth would we be against what the Scouts stood for. And there is the answer. Why on earth. See as an Eagle scout I grew up trying to embody the Boy Scout Motto and oath. It was, in my youth, the bedrock in which I developed as a man. I thank the Lord that it was so closely grounded in the Rock of Christian faith, Jesus Christ. But that a side, who in their right mind would have an issue with the things spoken of in the motto and oath.
Scout Oath
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.
What is reflected in this oath is exactly what is wrong with our society. We do not want to make an effort to be mentally awake, instead we are rocked to sleep by mind numbing TV shows and video games, more reality TV. Tough problems to be solved?, let someone else think about those, let alone try to solve them, I need to make level 50 in my MMO Game (massively multiplayer online game).
Morally straight? What is that? It’s uncool to be straight, they never have any fun. Not with condoms for free in our schools and sex education in kindergarten.
God and country? What duty to I have to them? It is all about me and how I can get ahead. How can I be entertained? How can I be happy through seeking pleasure.
Scout’s Law? I need to obey anything but my own hearts desire? Instant gratification.
Scout Law
A Scout is:
Trustworthy, Loyal, Helpful,
Friendly, Courteous, Kind,
Obedient, Cheerful, Thrifty,
Brave, Clean, Reverent
So are these bad things? Trustworthy, I know that one gets stretched these days, oh sorry, spun, the “no spin zone”. Courteous and Kind, we have certainly lost these, rarely do you see men holding doors for ladies or letting them on the elevator first, even if it means taking the next one. Helpful and Kind, go along with that. How many times have we seen someone in trouble on the tracks and no one helps, they just snap pictures.
Thrifty. Now there is something we have certainly lost in our disposable society of “its cheaper to buy a new one than fix it”.
Clean and Reverent could also be on trial as new fashion has brought in tattoos, piercings, torn cloths (that you bought that way) and a bed head hair style. While we are at it, I think many of our mouths need to be cleaned out with soap.
So yes, I guess you could say the Scouts were from a time that is out of step with today’s society. Yes, they haven’t changed. They are still anchored on the Rock of faith, Jesus Christ. Their moral position, ethics better put, have not changed. And that is a good thing. You don’t want your foundation to move or shift. God also promised us that He will not change, He is the same today, tomorrow and yesterday and until the end of time.
It saddens me greatly, that the Scouts would even consider detaching from the Rock, their foundation.
But yet Satan attacks overwhelm in this world…
Maranatha, Lord come quickly!
myblessedhope
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The Scouts Versus the Ugly Moods of 2013
The Boy Scouts of America got front-page ink, as we say in the newspaper trade, for their currently postponed meditations on the topic of admitting avowed gays to membership.
Word had leaked out that the Scouts were considering a local option solution to the vexed question of their supposed right to determine who can become a member and who can’t. At a top-drawer meeting in Irving, Tex., the topic proved too vast and complex for immediate resolution. Consultation and deliberation will take place prior to May meeting of Scouts’ national council.
I spoke of the Scouts’ “supposed” right to oversee their membership rolls. A decade ago, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld that right in the Scouts’ case, in response to court challenges seeking the overthrow of policies that “discriminate” against gays. That might have settled matters, but for restlessness and motion in the larger society whose present values sometimes cause the Scouts, with their old-fashioned devotion to God and country, to look more and more like outliers.
What courts can’t accomplish, social pressures sometimes bring about. The up-tilted eyebrow, the sneer, the lordly putdown in elite journalistic commentary — such events and occasions collectively have the power to overwhelm.
The oddness of the Scouts’ situation has to do with the oddness — the bizarreness, really — of efforts to overwhelm an organization whose core principles, you might think, were beyond impeachment.
“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.” So goes the Scout oath — the pledge that millions of boys have conned and recited. What is wrong with it? A Scout promises to be trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient, thrifty, brave, clean and reverent. There is something the matter here? We’d prefer disloyal, boorish, mean, disobedient, and cowardly and so forth?
It could be so. The war against the Scouts has about it a littleness of spirit, an un-generosity that should be unthinkable. That it no longer seems unthinkable is among our modern blights. That the Boy Scouts of America are bidden by the intellectual-political community to roll over, bark cheerily, and change their practices and thought patterns along lines improvised by the enlightened is further, scarier testimony to the cultural mess we’re in.
If an ex-Scout of mediocre attainments may speak — on his honor, naturally — I wish to observe that society’s increasing spite against scouting is likely bigger than the gay members thing. With non-heterosexual marriage winning acclaim in some states, the topic of gay rights and privileges indeed comes up constantly. Nonetheless, the flap over scouting’s membership requirements reflects modern America’s weariness with norms of any kind. That is the larger point.
Norms — e.g., do my duty, keep myself thus and so, to this or that end — look down from a towering height onto the squiggling mass of personal tastes, outlooks, biases, caprices, humors and moods that make up modern life. A norm counsels or reproaches: this is right; this isn’t. A mere mood sticks out its tongue: shut up, lemme alone, none of your business. Guess which mode we lean toward in 2013.
[Read the rest of the article at Townhall.com.]
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Click on the article title for a link to full original referenced article.
In Romans 10 Paul lays out how salvation is open to all, Jew and Gentile. He writes:
“For Christ is the end of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes.” – Romans 10:4-5
What he is saying is now it is not about works or how closely to a “T” you follow the law. But that it is through God’s gift of grace through faith in His Son, Jesus Christ. It is really that simple, and yet a hard step for some of us.
“That if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.” – Romans 10:9
Christ is the narrow gate (Matthew 7:13-14), through faith in Him you will be saved. It is the only “works” that God requires for eternal salvation.
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By Dr. Thomas Ice
myBlessedHope 