The battle for freedom rages on was an opening line in the trailer for Return of the Jedi in 1983. Now the call from the wilderness is return of the Girl Guide and their pledge to God. Select British Girl Guide groups continue to defy the national organization by refusing to change the part of their pledge that says “to love my God”, and replacing it with “be true to myself and develop my beliefs.”
According to the Christian Institute the 37th Newcastle Guide Unit, who wants to give girls the choice of using either the traditional promise or the new version, has been told their membership will end at the end of this year if the choice is not withdrawn. This will affect all age groups – about one hundred girls.
Glynis Mackie, has led the group for over 25 years, and says “(the move) is an example of faith being sidelined in society. They are trying to force us out of Girl Guiding with no process. The girls are really incredibly angry and they just want their voices to be heard. This is the first substantial change to the promise in the 103-year history of the Girl Guides”.
Meanwhile Rev. David Holloway, the Vicar of Jesmond Parish Church in Newcastle, was critical of the pledge change and added that the Church of England law forbids “vain” or “rash” promise making, and so for his church to endorse this pledge could be illegal.
But Gill Slocombe, the Chief Guide in the UK, said: “Girl guiding is extremely sorry to hear of any Guide group leaving our organisation. By changing the wording of our promise, after an extensive consultation with over 44,000 people, we have opened our arms to welcome even more girls and adults – of all faiths and none – who will benefit from all the fantastic things we do in girl guiding.”
And right there Slocombe misses the point. Girl guiding is based on Christian faith in God and teaching principles in line with that. When you exclude the Christian foundation you change the basis on which the organization stands and for which it exists.
The whole point of having a pledge is that it should stand for something. The current leadership seems to passively drift towards ambivalence, changing the meaning of the Guiding from raising young girls into young women with moral principle and character, into Guides who are just a bunch of girls gathering together before they guide-lessly drift in to premature teenage mistakes.
Writer and TV presenter Victoria Coren said the phrase “be true to myself” does not mean anything, but carries a suggestion of something “utterly individualistic”, while commentator Melanie Phillips said the Guides’ change was “nothing other than secular totalitarianism”.
Coren hits the nail on the head! To be “true to myself” is a self-centered concept. It leaves the idea of what you should be totally fluid. Children need standards to be impressed on them, this tells them to make up their own.
Laws in ‘western’ nations are based on the Judeo-Christian principle i.e. The Ten Commandments. Morality breaks down in a hurry when you take the basis for it away. If you remove the standards of thou shalt not kill, steal, cheat on your spouse etc. then you have a society that has descended into anarchy as is seen before the great flood in the book of Genesis.
What is a ‘good turn every day’ – that the Guides are instructed to perform - if it is not based on religious principle. And how do you cope with anything that comes your way as Guides are taught, if character building is barred from including Godly examples –where the greatest character is seen and from which it is produced.
Rather than demanding standards from girls, Guide groups without a meaningful; pledge to serve others will begin to accommodate unacceptable behavior. How long before the permissiveness of gay-Guiding is expected to be accepted and the organization turns into another giant social experiment?
But the national leadership is undeterred, concerned more about their standing with radical lobby groups than with serving their own members. At least 839 official complaints have been made and the national organization has received media criticism but to no avail.
My recollection of lobbying the old-fashioned way (before personal computers) was that a written complaint was considered to represent a thousand voices. If this is the case then the objections outweigh the consultants by 20:1.
Meanwhile churches in Northern Ireland, who frequently make their properties available to Guide, Brownie & Rainbow groups, are joining together in an inter-denominational effort voicing “deep concern” over the changes.
An online petition urging Girlguiding Ulster to reinstate the old promise, and make an atheist pledge optional, has already been signed by more than 1000 people. In the meantime the Chief Guide in the province of 2 million has written to Guiding leaders saying they were already setting in place financial help for groups wishing to leave churches that ‘no longer support them’.
Secularism in on the march to remove Christian influence from the world in which we live and to marginalize Christianity in general! There is no accommodating position. Either the changes are refuted or else we will be assimilated by them.
