What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Guides and God

    So, am I all up in arms about Girl Guides dropping their promise to love [their] God[s]?

    No, I don’t think so. I suspect God can take it.

    This is what the Girl Guides used to promise:

    I Promise that I will do my best;
    To love my God,
    To serve my Queen and my Country,
    To help other people
    And
    To keep the Guide Law.

    Now they are going to say this:

    I promise that I will do my best:
    To be true to myself and develop my beliefs,
    To serve the Queen and my community, 
    and
    To keep the Guide Law.

    This doesn’t seem to me to be particularly troubling. It looks as though Guiding wants to be modern and inclusive. I’m just a little surprised they’ve kept the Queen in there which surely must exclude republicans.

    I don’t expect that Guiding will change significantly by changing that promise except to allow some girls to take part who might once have thought that it was not for them because they were not religious.

    The “self” has a complex relationship with religion. And Christianity is something of a mixed bag when it comes to the self. On the one hand it is all about losing your self and being lost in God and service of others. On the other, we are told to work out our salvation in fear and trembling, which sounds a bit like a good starting place for a lot of modern therapy.

    “Unto thine own self be true” is an injunction that sometimes is wrongly attributed to the Bible. It isn’t, it is a misquote in any case and comes from Polonius speaking to Laertes in Hamlet: “This above all- to thine own self be true”.

    I think that God will survive the Guides’ change of wording and I hope that Guiding will flourish as a result of trying to keep up with the times.

    However, you can see an enormous shift in ethical thinking taking place between those two versions of the promise. The self is paramount in modern thinking. I think that’s an inevitable thing. I also think that it is a good thing. We’ve not thought nearly enough about the self in the past. Somewhere inside though, I find myself thinking that focusing on the self is not an absolute good. Some things within the self may not be good. Presumably the injunction to serve the community in the Guide promise is an attempt to mitigate that.

    If I’d been a Guide taking part in their big consultation about the promise, I’d probably have wanted something included about preventing harm. I think that’s a good direction to follow for ethical thinking and can cover the self and others.

    I like the new Rainbow promise though:

    I promise that I will do my best to think about my beliefs and to be kind and helpful.

    You can find the inside skinny on this from a Guide leader at Some Random Bint’s blog.

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One response to “Reaching the Unconnected”

  1. David Kenvyn Avatar
    David Kenvyn

    The way the story has been presented in the press is somewhat misleading. What Glasgow Libraries are offering is not a new service. ICT equipment and training has been available in libraries throughout the UK, since the Blair government made the funding available in 1997.

    One of my first tasks in East Dunbartonshire was to write the successful bid for government funds from what was then known as the People’s Network. PCs, because that was the cutting edge technology at the time, were installed in libraries across the UK. Buddies were recruited for training programmes. People were taught, and can still be taught to use the appropriate technology in classes run through the various library services.

    Unfortunately, once the initial tranche of funding was exhausted, libraries were required to have their own sustainability programmes, but no funding was ring-fenced for this purpose.

    It is hardly surprising that there are differences in digital uptake between Dowanhill and Possilpark, or between Shawlands and Cardonald. Glasgow Libraries are now trying to deal with that digital difference, without any funding from the Scottish or UK Governments to do so. It is my view that they should be applauded for this initiative, which is an extension of the work that has been done over the last 18 years.

    You are quite right to say that this is a social justice issue. It is also vital to the success of the economy of the country. Perhaps we need to think about the creation of a new tranche of funding so that libraries can offer the cutting edge resources in ICT that people across Scotland need.

    Reply

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