Trail Life USA offers alternative to Boy Scouts in Alabama

Trail Life USA offers alternative to Boy Scouts in Alabama

Since Boy Scouts of America (BSA) decided to accept transgender youngsters, there appears to be a growing market for a different kind of scouting group.

BSA does not require troops chartered by houses of worship to accept children who do not identify with their birth gender. Nevertheless, the Trail Life USA website has had an influx of clicks on its online locator map for troops across the country since BSA’s announcement related to transgender members in late January. Trail Life bills itself as a Christian alternative to BSA.

“We’ve seen tremendous response,” said Trail Life CEO Mark Hancock in reference to the surge of membership inquiries. “Where many people would say that they’re leaving Boys Scouts, we have many others that are saying that the Boy Scouts left them.”

Trail Life currently has about 26,000 nationwide members, with 23 troops active in Alabama.

Since Trail Life began in January 2014, its staff has doubled to 12, its mostly evangelical church-based troops have increased from 500 to 700 and it has moved from a virtual office to the 127-acre campus of a former boys home in Belton, South Carolina. Participating boys, called “Navigators” and “Adventurers,” have outdoor adventures, earn badges and can seek the Horizon Award that Trail Life considers a parallel to the Eagle Scout rank.

Many of their troop numbers correspond to Bible verses. Troop 110 is particularly popular, after Colossians 1:10 — “So that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please Him in every way” — on which the organization’s “Walk Worthy” motto is based.

Meanwhile BSA, which has nearly 2.3 million youth members, said it has received letters of support since its recent transgender decision from a range of religious organizations — which charter the majority of Scouting units — including Reform Jews, United Methodists, Catholics and Mormons.

Different religious beliefs

BSA spokeswoman Effie Delimarkos said, “If a religious organization declines to accept a youth or adult application based on their religious beliefs, we ask that they please notify their local council so that a unit open to accepting the individual can be offered as an option.”

Leah Harlow, program coordinator for Trail Life USA Troop 0316 chartered by Ridgecrest Baptist Church, Ozark, said BSA will “continue to move away from Christian values … in large part because they are pushed to accept money from anybody and everybody and have become politically based.”

Prior to her role with Trail Life, Harlow was involved with BSA for 10 years while her son was in the program. That BSA troop, Troop 316, was chartered by a church when BSA made its first decision to allow homosexual men to mentor youth several years ago. The church then refused to continue to charter the troop.

“The boys were 12 years old,” Harlow said. “It wasn’t their fault (that BSA made those decisions). I didn’t want to take (the outdoor and community experience) away from them. So we jumped right on to the Trail Life USA program.”

According to Harlow, moving to Trail Life was a great decision for her son and daughter (who participates in American Heritage Girls — an alternative to Girl Scouts).

Morals and values

“As a Christian and as a Christian mother we want to instill those morals and values into our children and that’s one way we can do that — through a faith-based youth outdoor adventure program. … We have Bible studies. We don’t differentiate between denominations and we teach basic Christian principles. … In our troop we have Presbyterians, Baptists and Methodists.”

The Trail Life troop chartered at Ridgecrest Baptist is led by troopmaster Casey Peterson, who oversees the program and operations of the troop. Harlow works closely with him to ensure the success of the program.

Ted Spangenberg, president of the Association of Baptists for Scouting, said he hopes groups like Trail Life, as well as missions-oriented programs like the Southern Baptist Royal Ambassadors, will continue to thrive.

“These can be effective in helping churches and their families disciple the youth in their congregations,” he said.

For churches or religious groups still chartering BSA troops, former chairman of BSA’s Religious Relationships Committee, R. Chip Turner, said congregations are still responsible for membership guidelines.

“Faith groups chartering Boy Scout units need to realize that the latest change only impacts them as they choose for it to do so,” Turner said.

Trail Life’s Hancock said his organization generally does not focus on the Boy Scouts but he thought it needed to be vocal about the latest decision, which he called “harmful to boys.”

“We don’t want boys psychologically, spiritually and possibly physically scarred by the confusing message being presented by BSA,” he said in a statement posted on Trail Life’s website. “We don’t want boys or girls subjected to compromising situations on outings in an environment where reasonable precautions are no longer enforceable.”

Trail Life’s website includes a “purity” section in its values statement: “We are to reserve sexual activity for the sanctity of marriage, a lifelong commitment before God between a man and a woman.” It describes membership as “designed for biologically male children under the age of 18.”

Harlow said she’d encourage anyone “uncomfortable with BSA’s new policies to check out Trail Life USA.” (Neisha Roberts, RNS)