The trip that never happened

When I was in my early teens I was a member of the Boy Scouts of America – troop #132, First Methodist Church, Princeton, Indiana. At one point our Scoutmaster was a man I’ll call Mr. Edwards (not his real name) One Monday evening at troop meeting, Mr. Edwards announced a contest, “The scout who makes the most advancement between now and next summer will win a trip with me and my family to the Catskill mountains!”

Wow, what an incentive for a bunch of young boys.

I was sure I could win and I began working immediately. In the course of the next ten months I advanced several levels in the Scouting ranks, and seldom was I working on less than three or four merit badges at the same time. It became a friendly but serious competition among fellow scouts.

We maintained a scoreboard in the troop meeting room that allowed us to track our tangible accomplishments but there were intangible elements to the contest as well, things like leadership, participation in troop events and discipline. Mr. Edwards would judge these.

At a meeting in late spring, one of my fellow scouts boldly ask Mr. Edwards when we would know the winner of the contest. Mr. Edwards paused and then without looking up from the papers on the table he said, “I’m afraid there isn’t going to be any trip to the Catskills.” …He then continued on with the troop business with no further explanation.

WHAT??!! NO TRIP TO THE CATSKILLS?? How can there be NO TRIP TO THE CATSKILLS. We had worked our young butts off for almost a year only to hear, THERE WILL BE NO TRIP TO THE CATSKILLS!

As you can imagine we were pretty upset and several parents were upset as well. There were a few phone calls made, a few behind the scenes meetings held and within a couple weeks we had a new Scoutmaster. Mr. Edwards had moved on. A couple disillusioned scouts left the troop as well. As for me, I stayed and enjoyed several more years of Scouting, but this was the Genesis of my total belief in the adage, “Get it in writing.”

It wasn’t until some time later that we (scouts) found out that Mr. Edwards had separated from his wife and was involved in a divorce, and that was the reason there would be no trip to the Catskills. Had Mr. Edwards explained the situation earlier rather than later, perhaps things would have gone much smoother.
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Am I wrong in suggesting that the dilemma the church finds itself in today is similar to that of my Scout troop? For two thousand year the church has been promising forgiveness, salvation, and life ever after. Now, common knowledge of the cosmos, life and reality has exposed those promises as mythology and folklore… and the hierarchy of the church is certainly aware of the disparity between academic and popular religion.

What would happen if the church were to announce that “there really isn’t a sky-god and therefore there really is no savior and by the way…heaven is only make believe.” Who among the clergy you know has the ‘guts’ to speak so honestly from the pulpit?

Author Brian Wilson recently wrote, “However uncomfortable, it is time for the clergy to modernize worship and educate their congregations.” …

I agree with him, but I don’t expect to see it happen anytime soon!

But then I could be wrong…………… barry e