Christian Scout leader expelled for expressing concerns about the Scout Association’s anti-Christian bias

Feb 14, 2018 by

by Archbishop Cranmer:

Brian Walker has been a member of the Scout Association since he was a boy. He got all his badges and tied all his knots; he swam and climbed and camped and cooked, and rose through the decades to become a senior Scout leader to guide other young boys (and now girls) in fun, adventure and skills for life. Mr Walker has dedicated a lifetime of being prepared for whatever Scouts have to Be Prepared for.

But he really wasn’t prepared for this.

On reading through recent editions of the Scouting Scouting magazine, he became concerned at the extent to which the Association’s disposition toward diversity and inclusion was including and diversifying to accommodate everyone and everything except Christians and Christianity. So he wrote to the magazine’s editor. His letter wasn’t published, for the magazine has no ‘letters’ page: it was a private email expressing his personal concerns to the editor about the magazine’s anti-Christian bias.

Four days later, his membership of the Scout Association was summarily terminated, and he was expelled.

He appealed their judgment, and their decision was upheld on the basis of his transgression of the Scout Association’s Equalities Policy: “The Scout Association opposes all forms of prejudice and discrimination, including racism, sexism and homophobia.”

What had he written? Well, you’ll find snippets from his email reported on a few websites (see here, here, here and here), but the essence of his concern is the magazine’s (and so the Association’s) anti-Christian drift. Yes, he might have expressed himself a little better (he needn’t have compared the woman wearing a niqab to Darth Vader; he needn’t have said that ‘camping’ is taking on a whole new meaning with the emphasis on LGBT inclusion), but to expel him for his limited capacity of expression is hardly very inclusive, is it? Do they summarily eject every scout who jokes about the Saudi oppression of women or who quips about matters of sex and sexuality? Do they censor all conversation while they’re cooking around the camp fire?

These are the sorts of things the Scouting magazine announces in its calendar:

Read here

 

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