Why the Mormon Church and the Boys Scouts Were Destined for Divorce

Why the Mormon Church and the Boys Scouts Were Destined for Divorce

Top of Mind with Julie Rose

Mormons and Boy Scouts Part Ways, Rebuilding Iraq's Justice System, Dry Drowning

Episode: Mormons and Boy Scouts Part Ways, Rebuilding Iraq's Justice System, Dry Drowning

  • May 16, 2018 11:00 pm
  • 20:18 mins

Guest: Benjamin Park, PhD, Assistant Professor of American History at Sam Houston State University, and Author of “American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, 1783-1833” For more than 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been joined at the hip. One in every five Boys Scouts in the US is a Mormon. Scouting is the official youth program the LDS Church offers boys. But that relationship will end at the end of next year. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plans to design its own youth program for all “girls and boys, young women and young men” to launch in 2020. The move will have a major impact on the Boy Scouts of America and on the youth experience within the LDS Church. Historian Benjamin Park says this divorce has been destined for some time.