A second chance for scouting

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MARY REICHARD, HOST: Good morning! This is The World and Everything in It from listener-supported WORLD Radio. 

I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher. 

The Boy Scouts of America—now calling itself Scouting America—is at a crossroads, with an unexpected opportunity to change direction. 

Here is WORLD Opinions commentator Daniel Suhr.

DANIEL SUHR: The Boy Scouts of America is not what it used to be.

It’s not even called that anymore. 

The century-old organization now goes by Scouting America—after years of cultural battles, falling membership, and even bankruptcy.

As an Eagle Scout myself, I know firsthand what that program meant to generations of American boys. Our two sons are now in a scout troop where they still find fellowship, adventure, and strong adult role models.

Now scouting faces a new challenge: its relationship with the United States military.

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth recently warned the Pentagon might end its long partnership absent significant changes.

He says, rightly, that the program that once shaped generations of boys has drifted far from its roots.

HEGSETH: For more than a century, Boy Scouts of America prepared over 130 million American boys to make moral and ethical choices… Boy Scout training focused on responsible citizenship, character and leadership development, patriotism, personal fitness, self-reliance, faith, and a wide range of outdoor skills.

For decades, scouting also had a close relationship with the military. Eagle Scouts have long been a pipeline into America’s service academies like West Point, and many former scouts go on to serve in uniform.

But Hegseth says something has changed.

HEGSETH: After 2012 however, the Boy Scouts lost their way… diversity, equity and inclusion, DEI, crept in. The focus on God as the ruler of the universe was watered down to include openness to humanism and earth-centered pagan religions. Scouting became an organization that no longer supported and celebrated boys.

Those concerns triggered months of negotiations between the Pentagon and Scouting’s national leadership.

The result is a new agreement requiring several changes: The organization will discontinue the controversial Citizenship in Society merit badge—criticized by many parents as a DEI-style program for teens; Scouting will also introduce a new Military Service merit badge developed in partnership with the Pentagon; and membership categories will now be based on biological sex.

For the Pentagon, those changes are a condition of continuing the relationship.

HEGSETH: As President Reagan famously said: "Trust but verify." This agreement is new… and the department’s support for Scouting America is contingent on them making substantial progress toward reaching these and many other positive changes in the next six months.

Scouting really needs to take this opportunity seriously. Membership has fallen sharply. The organization once counted millions of participants. Today it has barely a million youth members.

It also endured one of the largest youth-organization bankruptcies in American history, establishing a multibillion-dollar trust to compensate abuse victims.

But the deeper issue are cultural. 

Twenty-five years ago, the Boy Scouts went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court to defend their right to set leadership standards.

And in Boy Scouts of America v. Dale, the Court agreed.

But in more recent years, the organization moved in a very different direction. 

First, it allowed homosexual leaders. Then it admitted girls who claimed to be boys. Eventually it opened membership to girls more broadly—and finally, dropped the name Boy Scouts altogether.

Those changes came with real consequences.

The Latter Day Saints withdrew their enormous scouting program. Many Catholic and evangelical sponsors followed. And families who still wanted a traditional boys’ program began looking elsewhere.

In recent years, new organizations like Trail Life USA, along with church-based programs like Awana and others, have stepped in to fill the gap—offering that outdoor adventure, character training, and explicitly Christian mentorship for boys.

But wouldn’t it be something to have the Boy Scouts back?

And boys need institutions like that. They need male role models. They need camaraderie. They need responsibility—and encouragement—as they navigate those difficult years of adolescence.

For generations, the Boy Scouts helped provide it. 

Now, the Pentagon’s agreement may push the organization back toward its roots. But one deal will not fix everything. 

If Scouting hopes to regain the trust—and the influence—it once had, it may need to return to the words generations of boys once recited at the start of every meeting: “On my honor, I will do my best.”

For WORLD, I’m Daniel Suhr.

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