The Boy Scouts of America (BSA) recently announced that for the first time in its 114-year history, it is changing its name and will become Scouting America -- a significant shift as the organization emerges from bankruptcy following a flood of sexual abuse claims and seeks to focus on inclusion.
Its downfall began when the decision was made to allow open homosexuals and then females to be members and troop leaders. That followed the U.S. Supreme Court's 2000 decision in Boy Scouts of America v. James Dale, a homosexual who lost his position as an assistant scout master when the organization learned he was a homosexual.
Mark Hancock of Trail Life USA, which was founded in 2013 in reaction against the Boy Scouts changing its membership policy, says the BSA lost its moral compass.
"They started in a Christian culture, and I think there was the assumption they were a Christian organization because we were a Christian nation," Hancock submits. "But because they didn't really found themselves on that specifically and call that out, it allowed the culture to pretty much take over and begin to make their way for them."
Since it began its desertion of Christ, membership has dropped to almost half what it used to be -- from two million to just over one million.
"They would point to people not being interested in the outdoors or COVID or all these other things, but we've proven that an organization that values boys and the outdoors and biblical values can make it in spite of COVID and anything else going on in the culture," Hancock says. "Now we've got over 1,200 troops in all 50 states, almost 60,000 members participating in Trail Life, and we just continue to grow."
The BSA is "committed to creating a welcoming, safe environment where Scouts can freely express themselves, share their experiences, and become the best version of themselves by learning from and respecting each other."
Conversely, Trail Life USA mentors boys based on the "timeless values derived from the Bible" and challenges them to "grow in character, understand their purpose, serve their community, and develop practical leadership skills to carry out the mission for which they were created."
