A lot of us would have virtually no ritual were the New Testament sections removed.

We have had numbers of exchange students from around the world living with us for at least 12 years. Some of their countries are being overrun by immigrants (some legal, some not) who come there and then complain about Christian or Jewish symbols and holidays. One girl said that immigrants in her town were trying to have Christmas decorations, including lights, made illegal at Christmas because "they make them feel uncomfortable". And there are a few citizens who buy into that and urge the others not to put up decorations because they make the immigrants feel bad!

This is no different. No one should come into a Christian organization and then complain about their ritual.

Exactly! This would include us.

It's not like any of us advertise our ritual during recruitment, and the first time a new member sees and hears it is on her initiation day. Do you expect her to leave in the middle of initiation?

There are even problematic public symbols. Look at Pi Phi's angel. That's a Judeo-Christian concept. How do our Buddhist or atheist members feel about that?

Angels have come to mean much more than Gabriel or Michael, so I don’t know if that’s a legit reference.

My sorority has 4 exemplars: Jesus Christ, St Valentine, King Asa and Hermès. Without getting into detail that doesn’t mean we “worship” any of them. Any New Testament verses we use focus on love and friendship and not on whether Jesus is the Messiah. The main thing we bagged, and this was DECADES ago, was “Blest Be The Tie That Binds” as our hymn. As SWTXBelle said, look at it metaphorically.

I’ve never been a big fan of all the mission statements, branding, etc etc - I always thought, to paraphrase the Wizard of Oz, if you can’t find it in your mottoes and creed and ritual, it was never there to begin with.

If a PNM is that adamant that they want to hear no references whatsoever to Christ ever, they probably need to either bring that up during recruitment or contact the national office and ask. But for them to go through rush and all of pledging and then have a fit about their initiation ceremony when it was never something they brought up previously, makes me question what/where their motive is.

Why would a PNM's motives be "off" if they didn't realize or expect that there would be religious undertones to ritual? NPC sororities don't brand themselves as Christian organizations. And while ASA is forthright about the exemplars of your organization, most sororities are not.

Ritual isn't generally discussed with non-members, so it's of course possible that a great non-Christian New Member may be taken aback by references to Christianity. I myself am not a Christian and I did feel weird (and sometimes uncomfortable) during ritual for a while, even though I knew it was not a religious ceremony and had been informed about the fact that there were Christian references by my chapter and my chapter did have non-Christian members.

If you are joining ANY org and are adamant about it being JC-free, I would look into it before getting involved. I have no idea if (example) the Junior League has a religious component. I certainly would want to know before I joined.

I know pledge programs are different than they used to be, but I would hope at sometime during pledgeship when the history is explained there would be something along the lines of “our sisters based our group on the parable of the mustard seed.” What I’m saying is I doubt very much that initiation is the first time pledges hear a reference to Christianity. It’s not like Scientology where you’re $20,000 in before you hit the Xenu stage.

I too am a non-Christian but as a pledge (i'm old school) was aware that there was some kind of connection to Christianity because I could see a cross on our crest. Yes, it was weird to me to be a member of a Christian based sorority, but they knew all through rush (again, old school) that I wasn't Christian as I wore a religious symbol front and center from day one of rush. "If you don't want someone of a different religion in your organization, I'm going to make it super easy for you to not extend me invitations to your parties" was my attitude at the time. I see no reason for ritual to be changed, it is what ties all of our sisters together.

DaffyKD

We've had people say on Greekchat that at invitational rounds at UF, the Christian girls wear crosses to the Jewish sororities so they'll know to cut them.

When my sister was a chapter advisor, they had to stop Initiation due to a new member who objected to a religious element and was not sure she wanted to continue...right in the middle of the ceremony, they stopped and called their regional director for guidance. The regional director said she either needed to decide she was OK with participating, or not. With the way recruitment is set up, you really don't have much choice in selecting a group whose religious elements may or may not align with your beliefs, nor do you know for sure how religious any group's SECRET initiation ceremony is ahead of time. Before she told me this, I had so idea there was a strong connection to Christianity with any group's ritual, and it's struck me as quite problematic ever since. Allegory is one thing, but if a group's ritual is based on an expectation of a certain religious belief, initiation isn't the best time to announce that!

I can think of a few jerks who would have done that on purpose just to screw with the sorority. They're the same people who demand other things during membership, like they don't want to ever have to attend chapter because they need to study or they don't want to attend rush workshop because their boyfriend wants them to stay home until the last second of summer and he might be "The One".

(actually based on real stories)

Getting back to Jewish sororities. (I'm a conservative Jew) The degree to which various parts of Psalms, Proverbs, Song of Songs and Ecclesiastes are associated with either specifically Judaism, more with Christianity (even though it is in the Jewish Bible) or almost viewed as Secular varies.

Specifically:
Ecclesiastes 3:1-8 which is most of the lyrics of Turn, Turn, Turn isn't really viewed as Religious by most people,
Psalm 23: (The lord is my Shepherd) seems to be most often used by Christians and
Psalm 137:5-6:If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning. If I do not remember thee, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth; if I prefer not Jerusalem above my chief joy. I would associate that with a Jewish Sorority...

Disappearing posts.

Interesting.

And we get back to basics: when pledge programs were longer than a week and a half, these things were discussed. Pledges knew WHY the Founders suggested the use of relevant scripture, mottoes, songs, etc. Now, we're happy when they learn the Greek Alphabet.

Do new members even learn the Greek alphabet now?

A week? I was initiated in the fall and my period was 6 weeks, and that was the cap at my school. We did learn founders, history, symbols, etc. and as my NME said "this will all connect during initiation" and she was right when it was time for the ceremony. And she did mention Christian symbols were used and she simply stated that my org (and others) were made in a different time, and it's fine if it wasn't your personal beliefs. I can't imagine having to rewrite 100+ year old ritual.