Author: Aren Cambre

BSA uses its Declaration of Religious Principle (DRP) to bar atheists and agnostics. This graceless, bigoted policy is offensive to Christianity.

Jesus’s words and deeds command Christians to radical grace, compassion, and inclusion. Those are the opposite of BSA’s Declaration. Those who follow Jesus cannot support a policy of excluding those who are different.

(This article speaks to what I know, a Christian perspective. If you have a different faith perspective that leads to inclusion and tolerance, leave a comment!)

The Declaration’s contemporary point: bigotry

Religious observance, faith exploration, and tolerance have been encouraged since 1911 by the “Reverent” Scout Law (source, see page 10). That law gives full justification to features like the Religious Emblems Program or the Scouts’ Own concept.

Supplemental language that largely resembles today’s DRP was created around the same time. In its context–the tail end of the Third Great Awakening–the DRP was almost certainly intended as a magnanimous statement reflecting then-contemporary norms.

Religious extremists have warped the DRP into a statement of religious bigotry. This was affirmed by BSA’s litigation team.

The point of this article is that today’s religious-extremist interpretation of the DRP forces Christians to contradict Jesus’s words and deeds. Christians who prefer not to slap Jesus cannot align with the extremists’ interpretation of the DRP. That is the focus of this article.

The Greatest Commandment and Golden Rule: core to Christianity

Crucial to Christian faith are the Greatest Commandment and the Golden Rule:

1. The Greatest Commandment: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.”
2. The Golden Rule: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Source: Matthew 22:35-40. (The added boldface will be relevant later.)

Jesus commands you to love your God and love your neighbor. Any Christian belief or practice that contradicts this is heretical.

The next sections explain why Christians who value Jesus’s “main point” cannot support the DRP.

We must love the despised

The Parable of the Good Samaritan is Jesus’s first expansion on the Golden Rule.

In this parable, someone is severely injured by robbers. He is left lying on the side of the road.

A priest and Levite pass the injured man, leaving him for dead. In those days, priests and Levites believed they would be defiled if they touched a corpse. By moving to the other side of the road before passing the injured man, these two avoided becoming unclean.

Then comes a Samaritan, the Good Samaritan. He rendered aid and paid for the victim to convalesce at an inn.

Back then, Jews violently hated the Samaritans. The Jews believed the Samaritans had corrupted their worship of God and added false gods into the mix. The Jews felt they would be contaminated by Samaritans even with indirect contact, such as by using a dish once touched by a Samaritan. The hatred was worse than the worst modern societal conflict that crosses Americans’ minds. Like BSA’s DRP, maximal separation from a hated group was the goal.

Yet Jesus illustrated his Great Commandment with a story featuring a Samaritan as the good guy! The Samaritan was not to be hated. The Samaritan was worthy of grace and love! A dreg of humanity acted better than the the priests and Levites, holiest of society!

If we take Jesus’s words seriously, we can’t act as if atheists’ and agnostics’ presence defiles us. But we play that stupid game, acting like the priest and Levite, when we support the DRP.

When we use the Declaration for its main purpose–to discriminate against atheists and agnostics–instead of loving God and others, we’re copying the sins of those who Jesus condemned.

We must not harm children

The Declaration of Religious Principle is kin punishment, punishing children for a grievance against the parents.

Civilized societies have long moved past kin punishment. BSA’s DRP sends us back centuries, punishing innocent children over an alleged sin of the parent.

Belief systems of youth are mainly their parents’ beliefs:

• Minors generally reflect the religious beliefs of their parents.
• Parents have a general right to educate their children according to their own religious conviction, and children generally lack a right to resist reasonable religious practices (or non-practices!) ordained by their parents. (While beyond the scope of this article, I encourage a read of Children as Believers: Minors’ Free Exercise Rights and the Psychology of Religious Development, Harvard Law Review, June 2022.)

Therefore, BSA’s Declaration slaps innocent children.

Contrast BSA’s approach to Jesus’s: “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matthew 19:14)

Jesus was not barbaric. He did not impose a religious test. He ministered to all. BSA could learn from Jesus.

When we use the Declaration for its main purpose–to discriminate against atheists and agnostics–instead of loving God and others, we’re harming children.

We must not be rulemongers

Jesus’s Great Commandment was in response to a question from a Pharisaic “expert in the law” (a lawyer). Notable about the Pharisees was their obsession with rules, especially ones concerning purity.

Jesus’s responses to Pharisaical interrogations often illustrate how their rulemongering distracts them from what’s important. Tragically, the Woes of the Pharisees align with the woes that underly BSA’s Declaration, an obsession with outward appearance and superficiality.

Jesus told the Parable of the Good Samaritan in response to questioning of another “expert in the law”. Jesus was once again addressing someone obsessed with rules.

And in that parable, the priest and Levite were examples of people who were so rulebound, they missed opportunities to minister.

If Christians take Jesus seriously, we need to avoid the Woes of the Pharisees. We need to avoid allowing an obsession over rules to cause us to miss opportunities to grace and ministry. Essentially a Pharisaical document, BSA’s Declaration can’t be reconciled with Jesus’s own teachings.

When we use the Declaration for its main purpose–to discriminate against atheists and agnostics–instead of loving God and others, we’re missing opportunities to minister due to our rulemongering, a trap Jesus warned us about.

We must show grace towards the vulnerable

People are complex. Simple decisions can mask difficult circumstances leading to them.

Many atheists or agnostics are recovering from harms caused by past church experience. Avoiding the institution that caused harm could be a crucial part of that person’s recovery.

As an example, let’s use United Methodist Minister Teresa MacBain. In the nine years of her ministry, spiritual malpractice she experienced in her childhood–problematic biblical teachings from a different denomination–haunted her, creating questions so immense, the only reasonable path forward for her was to renounce religion entirely, becoming an atheist.

But Teresa’s story does not end there. A few years later, she came back to faith.

And who demonstrated the same gracelessness as BSA’s Declaration? The prominent atheist, former-clergy group she was in.

In addition to slapping Jesus and innocent children, BSA’s Declaration slaps adults who may simply be doing their best to overcome spiritual malpractice.

When we use the Declaration for its main purpose–to discriminate against atheists and agnostics–instead of loving God and others, we’re contravening the Golden Rule, which Jesus said is one of two most important commandments.

We must not compel faith tests outside of church

In the Greatest Commandment and the Golden Rule, Jesus used second-person pronouns, “your” and “yourself”. It’s hard to miss what it emphasizes: Your faith expression is your own private, personal, and core matter. Jesus’s key concern is your own faith, not how you coerced your neighbor.

This doesn’t mean your can’t share your faith. For example, a mainstream Christian practice is corporate worship experiences. You know, going to church. Regularly attending a church conveys to that congregation, and anyone who sees you walking in the door, your alignment with that church’s beliefs.

But how about outside of a voluntary, religious setting? That is where we find secular organizations, like BSA. In Matthew 6, Jesus cautions against demonstrations of religiosity in the secular world:

• Don’t practice righteousness in front of others.
• Gifts to the needy are to be done in secret.
• Don’t be like the “hypocrites” who visibly pray. Instead, pray in secret, behind closed doors.
• Don’t pray loudly by “babbling like pagans”.
• Don’t put on a show of somberness while fasting.

He follows with the Lord’s Prayer. This prayer again emphasizes the individual’s own relationship with God: individual reflection and individual acts. Corporate petitions (“our”) are on behalf of the voluntarily aligned in a religious community.

There’s much more to unpack from Matthew 6. But further exegesis won’t change Jesus’s strong preference for private religiosity and a focus on one’s own faith life. Jesus was deeply skeptical, sometimes condemnatory, of open demonstrations of religiosity, especially when one uses public religiosity to seek affirmation of others.

Let’s recap. Jesus exhorts us to a faith that focuses on the individual’s private relationship with God.

Religious tests in a secular organization oppose this. These tests are one party compelling a demonstration of religiosity out of another party. This isn’t the same as respectfully participating in a prayer at a Scout event. It is a test of an individual’s private matter.

It is difficult to reconcile a zeal for Jesus’s words and deeds with support of compelled religious tests in a secular organization.

When we use the Declaration for its main purpose–to discriminate against atheists and agnostics–instead of loving God and others, we’re disrespecting those who prefer to obey Jesus’s expectations for how individuals are to conduct faith practices and relate to others of faith.

We must offer immense grace

Another parable on grace is a cautionary tale. Jesus’s Parable of the Unmerciful Servant describes a servant who had received unexpected, undeserved grace in the form of cancellation of a massive debt. Shortly after that debt cancellation, the servant demanded payback from a peer who owned him money. Due to his lack of grace, the servant’s debt was un-canceled, and he was thrown in jail until he could pay it back.

Part of Christian theology includes a Christian’s receipt of wholly unmerited salvation. That is a profound act of grace given to us. We are expected to emit at least that much grace: “Not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” (source)

We are to show unimaginably vast grace to our fellow man. That starkly contrasts seeking to exclude others from a secular organization over a mere lack of outward religious signs.

Christians who use the Declaration to exclude others are not showing 77x grace or even 7x grace; they are sucking grace out of the room!

Part of grace is setting aside one’s pride and compassionately engaging with people unlike you. That includes theists doing the opposite of BSA’s Declaration: engaging with with and ministering to atheists and agnostics.

When we use the Declaration for its main purpose–to discriminate against atheists and agnostics–instead of loving God and others, we’re declining to show grace, contravening Jesus’s expectation of us to show 77 times as much grace as we receive!

We must serve society

Religiously unaffiliated people are already a large plurality that will keep growing:

Religiously unaffiliated are a mix of beliefs, occupying a spectrum from atheist to non-participating traditionalist. But 37% of religious “nones” are identify as atheist or agnostic (source):

Also, for 67% of religious “nones”, “disbelief/doubt/skepticism” is an “extremely or very important reason” for why they are a none (source).

By banning a large and growing percent of society, the DRP’s bigotry and gracelessness cause BSA’s irrelevance.

If society shifts, relevant organizations must shift with it. BSA has already shown the folly of trying to change society: costly, harmful, and stupid membership controversies that still sully BSA’s reputation.

BSA can be relevant by deleting the DRP and instead promoting tolerance and understanding in the world it inhabits. Or BSA can cling to the bigoted, harmful, backwards DRP and accelerate its decline.

A note about bigotry

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines bigotry as “blindly devoted to some creed, opinion, or practice” along with “having or showing an attitude of hatred or intolerance toward the members of a particular group…”

Just like BSA’s old gay ban and its “separate but equal” regime for girls, the Declaration of Religious Principle is bigotry.

“Legal” and “morally straight” are different

Private, secular, membership organizations, like BSA, have a Constitutional right to slap Jesus. BSA squandered enormous funds and goodwill to preserve this right, taking it all the way to the Supreme Court with BSA v. Dale.

But “legally permitted” and “morally straight” are different. A mentally awake and morally straight Christian cannot support a secular organization’s Jesus-slapping religious test.

Summary for Christians

When we use the Declaration for what religious extremists want–to discriminate against atheists and agnostics–we’re rejecting what Jesus said is the most important of all: loving God and others.

How we solve this

While the DRP was originally a magnanimous statement, religious extremists have warped it to suit their agenda. It is now poisonous, warped beyond recovery.

We don’t need the DRP! We already have the “Reverent” Scout law. That alone is sufficient to justify appropriate, voluntary observations of faith in BSA’s programs.

The DRP must go. Just delete it.

Families must be entrusted to define “Reverent” in the way that makes sense for them. And BSA must stop compelling Christians to behave in ways that contravene Jesus’s words and example.

Finally, BSA’s own mission statement calls it to “prepare young people … by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law”. BSA’s bigotry countermand this, limiting access to those who have already reached some preferred answer. If we’re serious about the instilling part, we have to be open to all, even to those with whom we disagree, with those whose answer is different than our preferences. Otherwise, we’re failing our mission.

Acknowledging my bias

I am a practicing Christian, a lifelong United Methodist. My view of the DRP is expressed through that lens.

As Christianity is the dominant religion in the USA, and certainly of BSA members, it has pervasive influence. I therefore find it helpful to review this Declaration through a Christian lens.

This is not out of disrespect to other religious traditions. It is me expressing myself authentically and avoiding speaking for others.

If you have a different faith perspective that leads you to grace and inclusion, I’d love to hear it! Share your vision for overcoming the DRP’s bigotry in a comment.

Summary

BSA’s national office just restructured. The changes were described as “strategic reassignments” to address “immediate and long-term needs”.

These changes send two messages:

1. BSA is betting the farm on raw revenue production and raw asset protection.
2. The least important concerns are now the unit program–the very thing that makes BSA distinct–and getting new members. I’ll explain more later, but throwing marketing to the bottom is why I wrote “raw revenue production”. This reveals that the revenue-production focus is on measures other than membership growth.

By betting the farm on bureaucrats and casting to the bottom what makes us distinct, BSA signals that its national office may be in a death spiral.

About as bad: The national office has deep cultural rot thanks to factors like an obsolete career system, pervasive throwback-reactionary culture, a mindset of bureaucratic bloat, and immense debt obligations. Instead of excising the rot, the new model reinforces it, even uplifting a prolific source of rot.

This is a defensive, circle-the-wagons move. It is not a bold vision of a viable BSA. Is it time to replace the national office and start over?

Winners and losers

In terms of CEO attention, we have winners and losers:

BSA’s old and new models

In the prior organizational model, all the positions on rung 2 were equal, all reporting to the CEO:

Some clarification: CDO is Chief Development Officer. That person leads fundraising. NST is National Service Territory. The two NST VPs nominally divided up duties of BSA’s 16 territories, and they had some other duties:

• NST 9-16’s VP also had unit-level program–Cub Scouts, Scouts BSA, Exploring–and Program Management.
• NST 1-8’s VP also had Council Services.

The new model, where most areas were demoted one or two rungs:

In the new model, you have an Office of the CEO, which includes the CEO and two direct reports. Everyone else on the old org chart got knocked down to third and fourth rungs. Per BSA’s internal announcement, the third rung reports not to an individual but to this new Office of the CEO.

NOTE: From here on, I use “program” to refer to unit-level program. It is in a group named “Program”. While there are other programs run out of national, like high adventure and camping, they roll up into differently named groups.

Winners list

First, let’s review the winners.

Legal/Risk Management and Finance won: they stayed on their same rungs while all their peers dropped to lower rungs. These areas each get half the CEO’s attention, far improved from an eighth. Also, a humiliating message was sent to five of their former peers: you now report to us two.

BSA is now defined by two bureaucratic functions. Not program. Not growth. But bureaucracy. Now, everything about the national office is filtered through bureaucratic lenses of income and risk.

Does it cause more Scout Shop sales? Does it make insurance more expensive? Does it make current members pay more? Would someone sue us? Does it scrape money together for its money-losing, Scouting-themed amusement park’s The Summit’s enormous debt? The new model invites questions like these to lead every last action of the national office.

Youth Protection also “won” but only through a title change. It used to be led an “officer” reporting to the Executive VP (EVP) over legal and risk. Now reporting to the Office of the CEO (more on that in the next section), it’s a Senior VP. It’s still on rung 3, and my guess is the legal/risk EVP will be assigned to supervise this function. This small change is part of how BSA is honoring a provision of the bankruptcy settlement.

Losers list

All other concerns are losers. Instead of reporting to the CEO, four concerns were demoted to the third rung, now reporting to the Office of the CEO along with the Youth Protection SVP.

Yes, that is correct, they report to an office, not to a person! But let’s be real: The point of this change is to keep these five out of the CEO’s hair. All but the Youth Protection SVP are now reporting to a former peer, to the CFO or to the EVP over legal/risk. (Since the YP SVP will certainly report to the legal/risk EVP, that’s no change in reporting for that role.)

While these five areas are losers in the reorganization, their executive leads got a minor win. A person reporting to a committee gains less accountability and more power over a kingdom. Given the national office’s rotted culture, I have fox/henhouse concerns.

Two concerns were double-demoted, from rung two to rung four:

• Marketing and Communications
• Program

Additionally, marcom’s lead is now reduced to a VP instead of an EVP. This is not a problem with the person. The former EVP over this concern retired, and a director was promoted to a VP. It remains that both a huge demotion and a title reduction happened to the role of marcom’s lead.

I am surprised program and marcom were deemed that unimportant. Isn’t our program what distinguishes us from other organizations? Isn’t marketing crucial to growing our program?

Strangely, despite being double-demoted, the lead of program got a title increase. This is vague messaging. The title was formerly VP. It’s now Senior VP.

Now here’s a detail that muddies things. The fourth-rung people also have a dotted-line report to the Office of the CEO. I don’t show that on the chart because all it likely means is the program and marcom leads will occasionally prepare reports for the CEO, EVP legal/risk, and CFO, and they will occasionally get to ask questions. It doesn’t change the unambiguous language in BSA’s internal announcement: these two still directly report to third-rung people. Program and marcom used to nominally get 1/8 of the CEO’s focus. Now they get scraps.

Let me pull together some things above to reemphasize a key point. We have two groups that own concerns that define BSA and most directly cause us to grow. Those groups suffered severe, collective blows:

• Dropped two rungs.
• Title reduction for the marcom lead role.
• Report into areas that now have less accountability.
• Report into areas that now have less CEO attention.

Altogether, this is a devastating slap to unit-program and marcom.

To make the effect of the double demotions clear, here’s some other national-office roles on the same rung as the VPs of marcom and program:

• Director of Council Services
• Senior Document Control Specialist
• Director of Tax Accounting

Do you think any of these are as crucial to BSA as program and growth?

Opportunities to correct cultural rot

I want to go into more detail on a few areas: Program, legal/risk management, and development. These areas are responsible for a great deal of the misperformance that, until now, I have characterized as general problems with the national office.

That said, I stand by my general characterization of the national office. It is no better than its premier products. Its premier products are the program itself and the ways it equips volunteer leaders. The development office also has a highly visible function. All these have deep rot.

Program’s rot

First, remember that the old model had two VP roles that split National Service Territories. These roles now have more distinct functions.

One of these VPs got demoted only one rung but got a title boost to Executive VP. I expect that person took on the six territory directors from the other NST VP. The person losing the territory directors got demoted two rungs, is now focused on program, and got a weaker title improvement, from VP to Senior VP.

Now we have a SVP who can focus more on program. This could be a good thing but only if that SVP is willing to expect better from his staff and volunteers.

Here’s the deal: the program SVP owns a national-office function that is overrun with anti-intellectualism and throwback-reactionary culture. That VP’s staff and volunteer committees are behind the epic blunder of the specious coed ban. The Order of the Arrow (OA), which has endemic brownface cosplay, reports into that VP. (To be charitable, I am aware of other dark forces, outside of the SVP Program’s area, that are also preventing OA from improving.)

Also, the SVP Program’s area sat on their hands while Legal/Risk Management eviscerated Cub Scout camping. I can understand wanting to avoid airing dirty laundry, but this staff has been ineffective, for months ignoring legions of bewildered unit leaders who were slammed by the change.

Legal/risk’s rot

And that leads me to Legal/Risk Management. That staff is also associated with cultural rot.

It has a track record of arbitrary and capricious decision-making. By declining to share rationales for the rules it creates, it shows arrogance and declines to equip volunteers for gray areas.

As an example, its recent, ham-fisted evisceration of Cub Scout camping was done in secret. This area has yet to provide a rational justification for this change. This is just par for the course. Transparency and public accountability are crucial concerns of effective groups, and these are clearly not priorities for legal/risk.

This area also delivers poor documentation. It is a large contributor to the national office’s bloated corpus of confusing and contradictory volunteer-facing documents. Their documents are so bad, they cause endless, repetitive questions and confusion across the volunteer landscape.

Development’s rot

Finally, we have Development, with its National Eagle Scout Association, a moribund, do-nothing, bloated clown show. In addition to doing next to nothing, NESA will soon celebrate its eleventh year of hustling families over an expensive who’s who-style yearbook, damaging the brand for little revenue.

Will this help clear the rot?

Legal/Risk’s org-chart promotion conveys how important the CEO believes its function is. I hope that leader uses this as justification to improve performance in its public-facing functions.

The Program’s leader’s title promotion and double-demotion sends mixed messages. I hope this area sees this as an opportunity to double down on improvements and make the case to rise back up.

Other than being demoted with three peers, Development’s standing did not change. No title or role changes were apparent. Development can reclaim the high ground by canceling NESA and folding its brand into an affinity group within BSA Alumni.

Summary

BSA’s dramatic organizational changes invite questions about the national office’s viability.

National would be wise to ditch its history of arrogance and instead be transparent: tell us what motivated this. Why did you anoint selected bureaucratic functions over everything else? Why did you cast to the basement matters related to our core distinction and our growth? What challenge does all this speak to?

Disclaimer, due to national’s extreme secrecy

Part of national’s cultural rot is arrogance: When you wear the gold epaulets, of course your wisdom is so supreme, you have no need to explain yourself to peasants. Hence, transparency must be avoided. (To be clear, many of our national volunteers are great and do not have this ethos. But a bad apple spoils the bunch, and national has way too many rotted apples.)

Among national’s most guarded secrets are the composition and function of its volunteer committees. For example, search Google for “National Cub Scouting Committee”. You’ll get little. All you can do is piece together a loose narrative from information fragments.

It is possible that an interpretation of BSA’s organizational changes could shift if expectations of national’s secret committees recently changed. National is invited to be transparent about its secret committees!

All this notwithstanding, my insider contacts convey that national is mainly staff driven. Most committees are toothless or passive. Not strongly factoring in committees may be the right interpretation.

Summary

(UPDATE: This article was written before Roger Krone was appointed CEO. As BSA’s first CEO with leadership chops since 1979, Roger broke the mold. That happened because we finally bucked BSA’s defective commissioned-professional system by expanding the CEO candidate pool beyond former District Executives.)

Thanks to a defective career-advancement system and a promote-from-within culture, BSA’s CEO role is a reward for over-promoted, career-lifer, caretaker-style middle-managers.

This starves BSA of leadership talent where it is most needed. Causing a leadership vacuum, the system enables BSA’s rudder to be controlled by the hand of inertia and the hand of throw-back reactionaries.

This is why we have a specious, toxic, racist, and sexist coed ban, endemic brownface cosplay in the Order of the Arrow, careerist bureaucrats openly hostile to feedback, a bloated and contradictory corpus of public-facing documents, and several other forms of cultural rot.

Leadership is about positive change. For BSA to thrive in the next century, our next CEO must be a demonstrated leader who can guide this change. We needs someone with aptitudes that BSA’s career system does not value.

Important notes: First, this commentary is not about Roger Mosby, the current CEO. He was brought in as a specialist to help BSA navigate its bankruptcy. While his appointment departs from past practices, it was for an unusual circumstance. Without correction, the organization will resume rewarding long-tenured bureaucrats with the CEO title.

Second, the National Executive Board has a role in this. It is the corporate board of directors that sets the top-level direction and appoints the CEO. Even respecting the NEB’s role, the CEO remains hugely influential.

BSA’s defective career-advancement system

BSA’s career-advancement system is an enemy to leaders.

Informed by employees at many levels and by a few decades of personal experiences, BSA’s career-advancement system excessively values loyalty, compliance, and fealty to its bureaucracy. In other words, caretaker-style, middle-manager bureaucrats.

Hate change? Want a stable place for your career to die? Just want to avoid tipping apple carts? Then you’re who BSA’s career system is optimized for.

If you have different aptitudes and have made a career in BSA, my hat goes off to you! I know you’re out there, and I want you to succeed. But far too many of your colleagues have made a career by perfecting resistance to change. That is unacceptable, and they stymie your ability to help BSA succeed at its mission.

CEO is a reward to careerist caretakers

By under-valuing aptitudes aligned with leadership, BSA’s career-advancement system drives away leaders before they can rise to the top. Combined with a nearly ironclad promote-from-within culture, the CEO role is a mere reward to long-tenured bureaucrats who lack vision, who fear change, and who are not leaders.

This creates a leadership vacuum at the top. Cultural rot accumulates unchecked, leading to the current crisis: Our national office’s culture is so badly rotted, the national office itself is Scouting’s main existential threat.

How to fix

To excise rot, we need change. A crucial change: BSA’s next CEO must have demonstrated leadership aptitudes and a record of success at corporate cultural change. It is unlikely to find the right person from within.

This is especially important now. Reeling from historic membership and financial losses and facing a possible second bankruptcy, BSA is at its most fragile point ever. On top of this, throwback reactionaries have for decades used BSA as a pawn in their culture wars, causing immense reputational damage by forcing ridiculous membership controversies. As long as we keep allowing leadership vacuums with ineffective CEOs, throwback reactionaries will continue damaging the BSA to score their culture-war points.

The next CEO will have unprecedented influence on BSA’s next decades. Not only must this person navigate the organization out of its current crisis, the CEO will set the culture through how the national office is re-staffed. This role is so crucial, installing yet another over-promoted, careerist-bureaucrat middle manager into the CEO role may be tantamount to canceling the BSA.

Decades of bumbling CEOs

A halo product defines the maximum competence of a system:

• A Tex Mex restaurant is no better than its cheese enchiladas.
• General Motors’s Chevrolet division is no better than its Corvette.
• A high school’s academics are no better than its valedictorian.

Smart institutions showcase their best with their halo products.

A corporation’s career-advancement system is no better than what it surfaces to its top role. BSA’s history of bumbling CEOs reveal a crap career-advancement system.

To repeat: The current CEO is not a subject of this commentary. He was brought in from the outside as a specialist to navigate the bankruptcy. But every other CEO except the first two–every CEO between 1948 and 2019–was surfaced internally. They are generally visionless, career-lifer bureaucrats who accomplished little.

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number of BSA-surfaced CEOs who presided over membership growth in the past several decades

Below are a few decades’ worth of BSA CEOs. Thanks to their absent leadership, beneficial accomplishments were coincidental or impinged by tragic errors:

• Michael Surbaugh (2015-2019, 10% membership decline, $1,118,903 salary): A career lifer, whose CEO position came after 32 years in other BSA roles. Kicking off with a namby-pamby vision, Michael presided over an invitation for girls in all programs. This could have been a clean achievement, but he screwed it up: He secretly handed the reins to throwback reactionaries, who slapped girls and families with a specious, sexist, racist, and toxic coed ban. Given that Michael gave a platform to misogyny, none of this should be surprising.
• Wayne Brock (2012-2015, 16% membership decline, $1,061,595 salary): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 40 years in other BSA roles. In his mealy-mouthed kickoff interview, Wayne praised his predecessor’s folly (The Summit; more later), chose to recognize his predecessor’s “managerial courage” instead of leadership, and elevated a naïve and boneheaded theory of a national volunteer leader. His main achievement is riding saddle during record-setting membership declines. BSA’s announcement of his retirement says that nothing notable happened in his term. And that’s a lie: the end of the bigoted homosexual ban happened under his tenure. But that wasn’t because of Wayne’s leadership. He was merely the suit when this was forced on him by national volunteer leadership. Even then, BSA still managed to bungle it under Wayne’s leadership management with an incomplete repeal that allowed vestiges of bigotry to persist two more years.
• Robert Mazzuca (2007-2012, 7% membership decline, $1,211,572 salary): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 28 years in other BSA roles. In an interview when he started as CEO, Robert shared no compelling vision other than a meaningless ambition to “drive to understand that world to the point where we could actually participate in the dialogue that happens [in the digital world]”. Huh? His farewell letter suggests little significant happened in his tenure other than The Summit Bechtel Reserve, a $439,000,000 camp that is far too expensive and that is in an area that does not have natural outdoor attractions worthy of its remoteness. The Summit saddled BSA with $275,000,000 of debt, of which $185,799,375 was still owed at the end of 2021. This camp’s colossal obligations may be a major factor in a possible second bankruptcy. Oh, also STEM Scouts. A silly distraction that BSA was never equipped to make work and is rumored to soon kill, STEM Scouts served no apparent purpose except to inflate membership numbers.
• Roy Williams (2000-2007, 15% membership decline, $1,600,000 salary): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 28 years in other BSA roles. In an interview when he started as CEO, Roy Williams made clear he lacks ambition, having a vision undistinguished from caretaker who smiles and waves during severe membership declines. The most notable thing during his career may have been exorbitant compensation.
• Jere Ratcliffe (1993-2000, 2% membership decline): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 34 years in other BSA roles. His most notable accomplishment was being arrested for attempting to bring a loaded handgun on to a plane.
• Ben Love (1985-1993, 9% membership decline): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 30 years in other BSA roles. His most notable accomplishment was being an un-Love-ing asshole: “A homosexual is not the role model I would want as the leader of my son’s troop – and neither is an atheist.”
• James Tarr (1979-1984): Another career lifer, whose CEO position came after 38 years in other BSA roles. The most notable accomplishment during his tenure is the author of this website joined Cub Scouts. (In other words, nothing notable happened.) I take that back. BSA’s headquarters moved from New Jersey to Irving, Texas under James’s tenure. A contractor who helped deeply during this move, providing valuable expertise over concerns that touched all parts of the national office, expressed shock at how BSA is so incompetently managed. In a response to a Texas Monthly reporter about challenges facing the organization, like his successors, James shared no coherent vision.

Curiously, the two CEOs before James may have demonstrated leadership:

• Alden Barber (1967-1976): “Young men are interested in young women.” While he put that inelegantly, Alden spearheaded inclusion of girls by pulling them in Explorers in 1968. This was a part of a “Boypower 76” plan that was otherwise beset with crucial errors, including a shift away from outdoors. Facing consequences of these errors, Alden did the right thing: He resigned at 57.
• Harvey L. Price (1976-1979): Harvey restored the outdoor focus of the Scouting program, some of which was lost under “Boypower 76”. He pulled William Harcourt out of retirement to rewrite the Boy Scout Handbook, restoring its focus on the outdoors.

No recent CEO was effective in his role. None showed a vision. None demonstrated leadership. None can claim credit for good changes. None presided over growth.

BSA’s career-advancement system has failed us for decades. All it surfaces are administrators who just smile and wave while riding saddle. Insanity is expecting a different result this time. Until the national office’s culture is fixed and BSA’s switches to a useful career-advancement system, it is crucial to go outside of BSA for our CEOs.

A note of grace

These CEOs were probably decent human beings. I have received firsthand reports of delightful relationships with some of them.

These CEOs had personal strengths. The problems is none of them brought a package of strengths aligned with leadership. While they all bear personal responsibility for accepting an executive role they were unsuited for, I’m willing to give them a scoop of grace: They spent their entire careers in a defective system that devalues leadership skills.

Next steps

BSA does not need yet another career lifer at the helm. Again, that would be tantamount to canceling the BSA. It is crucial for BSA to find its next CEO from the outside.

BSA’s career-advancement system needs to be blown up and reinvented. We need a new system, something that can do more than surface caretaker bureaucrats.

Terminology note

BSA uses Chief Scout Executive (CSE) for its CEO position. CSE is reserved for “commissioned” staff.

Commissioning in BSA is a secular equivalent of the ordination of ministers in churches. On one hand, it assures essential competence and commitment. On the other hand, it encourages aptitudes misaligned with leadership.

Coming from outside, the current CEO Roger Mosby started with only the CEO title. BSA’s National Executive Board, its national board of directors, declared Roger commissioned in 2021, enabling him to also also gain the CSE title.

Summary

BSA has endemic brownface cosplay. It’s most prominent in Order of the Arrow (OA), an honor society for Scouts.

This practice is unacceptable and invites questions on BSA’s commitment to good character. It needs to end quickly.

Any path forward for OA that includes Native American-themed activities, performances, or art must meet strict criteria to assure appropriateness. It must avoid even the appearance of cultural appropriation.

Background

OA generally includes qualifying Scouts aged 12-20. It has a great purpose, and it might increase engagement in Scouting.

OA has a dark side. A good deal of its Native American-themed programming is brownface cosplay.

Cosplay is costumed role-playing (more info). OA’s cosplay is brownface because it is a stereotype of Native American cultures.

Where it happens

When I was a youth, OA’s core ceremonies were phony riffs on Native American culture. They employ the noble savage stereotype while appropriating indigenous language and themes, especially of the Lenape people.

Even much of Native American dance events and competitions were clownish, white-boy amalgams of Native American-ish ideas and stereotypes with only a thin veneer of legitimacy.

Even back then, prominent voices were asking why BSA allowed OA to do this. I don’t recall “cultural appropriation” being used, but the concern was similar.

BSA’s bumbling national office has a leadership vacuum. It’s filled by throwback reactionaries who “white”-wash cultural appropriation concerns, allowing the brownface-cosplay problem to persist.

Here’s a 2021 example:

An April 2023 OA call-out ceremony featured a war bonnet, possibly the most prominent symbol of cultural appropriation:

Why the cosplay is bad

Society has taken an unambiguous stance opposing cultural appropriation of oppressed minorities. That is, regrettably, the entirety of OA’s core ceremonies.

If BSA is to be taken seriously as an exemplar of character, it needs to exceed societal standards. At a minimum, BSA must not permit any brownface cosplay.

Today’s youth are increasingly uncomfortable with this practice. Just in my own troop, multiple youth have shared discomfort with OA’s brownface cosplay.

Next steps

OA has made a little progress. For example, it banned brownface cosplay at Arrow of Light ceremonies in 2018.

Much more is needed. OA must assure that every last Native American-themed activity or component is in the context of a respectful collaboration: Native American-themed performance art must only be authorized when it complies with an agreement that is a product of an active, local relationship with a tribe. Allowed performances may only reflect that tribe’s traditions. Native American-themed static works are only authorized when they are accurate historical representations of tribes or their practices and backed by rigorous evidence. Static works are limited to personal use or exhibits. They may not be used for any other purpose, including but not limited to symbols used by the OA or any lodge or chapter, without explicit authorization from every tribe the work represents.

That a performance-art agreement is time-limited and within the context of an “active relationship” with a tribe are crucial. One-and-done agreements discourage relationship. They also risk generational disagreements should later tribal leaders bring new viewpoints. Therefore, any agreement must have an expiration, and I recommend it be no more than three years.

The stipulation to have an agreement with a tribe avoids the “I know a Native American and he said it’s OK” dilemma. This lacks validity because no single person can speak for a tribe. (Whether a member of a tribe performs according to that tribe’s practices is an internal matter for that tribe.)

Also, use of Native American-themed proper nouns need review. This largely includes lodge and chapter names. Generally, they, too, should be subject to an agreement with a tribe. This is a difficult matter, so I recommend the policy be prospective with a two-year grace period. This means all new names may have no resemblance to any indigenous-related concept except outside of an agreement struck with a tribe, and that current outside-of-an-agreement indigenous-like names would need to be corrected within a two-year period.

Because names are more durable, longer agreements relating to names may be OK. Also, national-scope agreements might be acceptable, unlike performance-art agreements, which must strictly be local.

This may change OA

Here’s where we need to be prepared: We hope this will produce beneficial relationships with tribes. However, tribes might be generally be uninterested in these agreements. If so, Native American-themed activities could become rare enough that the OA would need to drop its emphasis on indigenous-themed activities.

While this may be difficult for some, this is an acceptable potential outcome. Tribes own their own culture and traditions. It is their prerogative whether others may employ the culture and tradition.

In the end, Native American theming is unnecessary for OA to thrive as an honor society for Scouts.

Closing thought

Let’s end with a closing thought: If the Order of the Arrow’s main thematics were an appropriation of Christian communion services, would society tolerate that? Of course not. The same honor must apply to the traditions of Native Americans.

If you have any doubt on my brownface cosplay allegation, please read Indian Country Today‘s Boy Scouts ‘have been one of the worst culprits’ of cultural appropriation by Vincent Schilling.

A note on arrows

Archery started 60,000 or more years ago in Africa and is not exclusive to any one society. It is generally not appropriation to use bows, arrows, or arrowheads in our words, themes, or activities. This provides a path for the Order of the Arrow to continue the use of arrows, arrowheads, and similar themes.

Summary

The National Eagle Scout Association (NESA) is for those who earned the most recognized marker of resilient leaders and good character. NESA should model the best of BSA’s best.

Instead, NESA is a moribund clown show. It hustles Eagle recipients with scam-adjacent tactics. Despite raising a ton of money, it does little.

Creating an appearance of impropriety, NESA’s practices are offensive to the reputation and viability of BSA.

It’s time to hit the reset button and clean-slate the NESA. It must stop all scam-adjacent behaviors. It should be folded into the BSA Alumni Association, its brand attached to a “birds of a feather” special-interest group.

Income

Per BSA’s 2021 IRS Form 990, NESA had $2,111,350 of income: $2,092,716 of program-service revenue and $18,634 of miscellaneous revenue.

The income appears to be from:

• pricey memberships, ranging from $100 to $500
• a scammy yearbook that appears to be sold in packages ranging from $120 to several hundreds of dollars

Does NESA do any good?

NESA’s news page is where you should find a record of what it’s doing. It reveals that NESA is moribund.

About half its news is regurgitation of materials previously published by BSA’s marketing arm (example). Much of the rest is promotional or generic, lacking much distinct value for Eagle Scouts.

Some articles describe where NESA sent a representative to a national-scope event. For example, in 2022, NESA ran a booth at NOAC where you could win a patch or take a photo. Shocking accomplishment.

One article is notable: 2022 NESA Highlights reveals that NESA used its generous income to:

• Stop publishing a print magazine.
• Set up a new website that uses free software.
• Send an email newsletter that regurgitates what’s already on its news page–the same stuff that affirms NESA is moribund.

Hold on, NESA might do a little more than nothing. It may fund part of a national-office employee to assist its 33 volunteer leaders and to administer scholarships (mail checks, record applications, etc.). Being generous, that’s probably half of a $100K employee, or $50K.

An additional $200K to $400K might be put into functions that are more generically related to BSA Alumni.

The remaining $1.6 million to $1.8 million appears to be dumped into the national office’s annual revenue stream.

This isn’t bad per se. A point of alumni associations is fundraising. Therefore, funding other BSA activities is nominally appropriate.

NESA needs to be transparent about what it funds. That is only vaguely suggested by glurge-ey text on NESA’s home page: “further the mission, values, and time-honored traditions of Scouting”. Um, OK?

Wait, what about the roughly half-million dollars of scholarships? Sorry, doesn’t count: that is funded separately, by endowments (more below).

Scammy who’s who book

This is where NESA smells terrible. NESA engages in scam-adjacent behavior, sullying its reputation and tarnishing the Eagle Scout rank. This invites questions on whether the national organization even cares about BSA’s mission.

If you’re a recent Eagle Scout, NESA uses a contractor to trick you into buying an expensive “who’s who”-style, pay-to-play book. This book is falsely marketed as a yearbook. This hustle is run under a pretense of updating Eagle alumni’s information. (2024-04-04 update: NESA may have shifted terminology to “Eagle Scout Directory”. That addresses approximately zero of the problems. 🤡)

NESA’s contractor aggressively sells this book. The image at the top of this article shows some (not all!) of the postcards a recent Eagle recipient got. Just like garden-variety scams, they all start with lies about urgency.

In Facebook volunteer groups, parents share that if one is to communicate with this company, you’ll get aggressive pitches and have a hard time getting off their spam list. You know, just like garden-variety scams.

These yearbooks are notable for what they aren’t:

They aren’t yearbooks. NESA’s book is just a list of Eagle Scout-rank recipients that happens to be year-filtered and prettied up. That is different than a yearbook, which is is “a school publication that is compiled usually by a graduating class and that serves as a record of the year’s activities” (source). Importantly, a yearbook describes a shared experience, which contrasts with NESA’s “yearbook”: Take any two Eagles from the “yearbook”, and it’s almost certain they will never have heard of each other. Like garden-variety scams, NESA sells this book under false pretenses.

They aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. They are vanity publishing. As a who’s who-style pay-to-play product, it’s a pricey way to get your name in a book. You know, like a garden-variety scam.

They aren’t well received. Social-media discussions of the NESA book are overwhelmingly negative. You know what else people have negative opinions of? Garden-variety scams.

NESA knows the book is regarded poorly. Instead of doing the right thing and stopping it, NESA makes a half-hearted attempt to whitewash it: In NESA’s FAQ, the first question in the yearbook section is on whether the yearbook is a scam!

Even worse, the answer to “is it a scam” sidesteps the truth. It makes a laughable claim that it helps NESA improve information on alumni. If alumni were successfully contacted to sell a book, doesn’t that mean NESA already had the person’s correct information? Even if I am missing something, there is nothing about outsourced data-collection that could justify scam-adjacent behavior.

This behavior isn’t new. An older version of the NESA site suggests NESA started this with 2012 class of Eagle recipients.

An obsolete, 20th century artifact, yearbooks are in a death spiral. It’s unlikely many youth want this book. This smells like a cynical hustle of parents and grandparents, who hail from generations that used to value yearbooks. BSA capitalizes on hard-earned trust to dupe families into buying who’s who-style, pay-to-play garbage.

But hey, maybe NESA is making a lot of money from this? You know, like garden-variety scams?

Nope. All this scam-like behavior, yet we miss the whole point of a scam. It brings in little!

BSA’s net proceeds from the who’s who book is likely the $18,634 figure in its 2021 IRS Form 990. It’s hard to see any other line of business for NESA that would generate this “other” revenue. (While the author is open to correction, it is unlikely that an updated figure will change the big picture.)

All this reputational damage, tarnishing the Eagle Scout rank, hustling families, creating an appearance of impropriety, just to boost the national organization’s income by 0.007%? This is yet another example of the national organization’s pervasive cultural rot.

Why lead in with “scam-adjacent”? Suppose we indicated NESA’s behavior on a gauge. At a minimum, the needle is resting shamefully close to “scam”. “Scam-adjacent” is positioning the needle charitably to accommodate diverse opinions, not to certify that NESA’s behavior is scam-free.

But the scholarships

Well, NESA hands out scholarships. That means it does good, right?

Aaron on Scouting‘s July 22, 2022 article, NESA bestows more than $500K in scholarships to Eagle Scouts, spills the beans: NESA’s scholarships are “funded by multiple endowments”. If NESA and its revenue disappeared, the scholarships would still be funded.

The scholarship endowments are revealed in the 2022 Treasurer’s Report, page 29. They add up to at least $14,086,000. A safe, 4% annual withdrawal is $563,000. These dollar amounts could easily be higher; the treasurer’s report only provides transparency for 74% of restricted-asset dollars, so it’s unclear what $55,787,000 of restricted funds are dedicated to.

While BSA’s story on the amount of NESA scholarships is inconsistent, they are still a good thing.

Here’s the inconsistency: Aaron on Scouting says NESA hands out “more than $500K” in scholarships to Eagle Scouts. However, Aaron on Scouting refers to a solicitation website that claims $700,000 of scholarships. BSA’s Form 990s tell a third story:

Fact checks are invited:

• BSA 2019 Form 990 (start at page 95)
• BSA 2020 Form 990 (see page 50)
• BSA 2021 Form 990 (see page 46)

Whether the scholarship amount is $700,000 or just under $300,000 or somewhere in between, it make a difference for Eagle Scouts. The scholarships are a good thing, but they are not a NESA thing.

NESA’s future

What should NESA’s next steps be?

The yearbook must stop. Now. This is an unacceptable practice. It reflects piss-poor judgment, and NESA knows it. NESA must direct its contracted agency to stop hustling Eagle alumni and end all sales. It must fulfil or refund all pending purchases. NESA must commit to never again engaging in scam-adjacent activities.

NESA’s independence must end. Sometimes we need to hit the red button to assure an organization’s relevant future. NESA is an example. NESA appears to have only one worthwhile, current activity: Acting as a birds-of-a-feather group within BSA Alumni. Beyond that, it does nothing that justifies 34 leaders or its current degree of independence. With a new vision, new leadership, a new name (it cannot include “association” or synonyms), and a mandate to openly act under BSA Alumni, a reimagined NESA might become relevant.

Realign NESA’s current leaders. I appreciate the willingness of NESA’s leaders to serve. Where we need to go with NESA needs minimal NESA-specific leadership. I want you to find a new way to continue service to BSA, especially if you’re prepared to help excise the national office’s cultural rot.

Be transparent. It’s great for us to encourage Eagles to give financial gifts back to Scouting. It is crucial, however, to be transparent as to what Eagles are funding. Use clear, direct language. Stop the doublespeak and glurge. And if you can adopt specific funds, do it!

Editorial

NESA’s current state is an important lesson-learned on the national organization’s pervasive cultural rot. Fueling inertia, the rot perpetuates shameful practices.

This colors my main take on NESA: As an Eagle Scout, I value all BSA alumni, Eagle or not!

My own path to Eagle was a series of meaningful experiences leading to a valuable distinction. I do not wish to diminish the award. But I desire no alumni-affiliation level gated by something I did as as kid. While I know several Eagle adults who serve nobly, I know far more non-Eagle alumni who are also great people.

I do not seek separation:

• I wish to network with all BSA alumni or volunteers, not just Eagles.
• All can provide aid to youth on the path to Eagle, not just Eagles.
• All can assure Scouting for the next decades, not just Eagles.
• All can continue to give back to communities through service, not just Eagles.

Therefore, I am uninterested in continuing NESA’s pseudo-independence.

If at a BSA alumni event there was a brief sub-gathering of Eagles, that’s fine. I’ll drop in. I have zero desire for anything more. I did not earn Eagle to separate myself from others.

We need to accept that a rebooted NESA will be different. A birds-of-a-feather group for Eagles under BSA Alumni, combined with reasonable revenue building, would be a great turnaround, a healthy outcome.