- March 28, 2024
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As the debate continues to rage within Boy Scouts over the admittance of openly gay persons to its ranks, a new twist has arisen for the organization. USA Today recently ran a column, titled “Boy Scouts don’t need God” by Tom Krattenmaker (tinyurl.com/BoyScoutsUSAToday).
The column raises at least a couple of interesting questions: 1) Do free-association organizations like the Boy Scouts have the right to limit membership to people who are willing to abide by its tenets, and 2) Can people really be good without God?
Let’s tackle the free-association question first. The Boy Scouts of America describe the ideal scout as being “reverent,” implying a belief in and respect for God. In practice, this has been interpreted as broadly as possible to include a variety of Christian and a host of non-Christian expressions of reverence. The reason for balking at the acceptance of atheists as scouts is the question of Whom one would be reverent towards if no One is there?
In a Supreme Court case (BSA vs. Dale 2000), the Court ruled that the Boy Scouts of America, as a free-association organization, had the right to determine its own membership standards. If they want to require belief in God as a prerequisite for membership, they have the right to do so. If people don’t like the prerequisite, they don’t have to join. They can learn camping and leadership skills elsewhere. The problem with the challenge is that people want the benefits of scouting without assuming its obligations, a growing problem throughout American civic organizations in general.
If the shoe were on the other foot and an evangelical Christian sought to join the International Humanist and Ethical Youth Organization, I wonder how receptive that organization would be to the possibility?
The Boy Scouts are not being mean in enforcing membership standards; they are simply preserving organizational integrity.
Now on to the wider philosophical question of can a person be good without God? I am reminded of what Mark Twain once said about infant baptism. When asked whether he believed in infant baptism, Twain responded, “Do I believe in it? Why, I’ve seen it!” Likewise, do I believe atheists can be good, moral people? Why I’ve seen them be just that! The idea that all Christians believe all atheists are hopelessly immoral is erroneous. Many of us have witnessed and applaud great ethical behavior in people who do not share our beliefs. The question is whether an atheistic culture can keep producing good people over the long run.
This is not so much because we have a need for a cosmic bogeyman to keep us in line, but because without someone transcendent to determine the good we are left to our own devices. Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and other militant atheists have tried to lay the blame for human suffering at the feet of religious people, especially Christians. However, the three greatest causes of human suffering in the 20th Century were all atheists: Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, and Mao Zedong. They were all supposedly men of reason who followed reasonable arguments, and they attracted men and women of reason to participate in heinous crimes.
This does not mean that all atheists will necessarily participate in such evil, nor does it exempt religious people from doing bad things. However, I would want to suggest that a worldview built on the principles of Jesus is self-correcting. Religious people supported the slave trade in America, but religious people were also passionately behind its abolition. Religious people devised South Africa’s apartheid, but it was Desmond Tutu (a religious person!) who helped to broker a post-apartheid future based on forgiveness rather than revenge.
In my experience, ethical systems based on human reason alone eventually devolve into utilitarianism, which seeks the common good for the most people. But who is it that determines the common good? And how is it evaluated over the course of history?
It just may be that the Boy Scouts were on to something in requiring reverence from their members. It may ensure that people try to be good generation after generation, even when it isn’t so useful.
Rev. Jim Govatos currently serves as Senior Pastor at Aloma United Methodist Church located in Winter Park. A former atheist, Jim is passionate about helping people understand and experience a living faith in Jesus Christ. Please share your thoughts by emailing him at jimg@ alomazone.org