Are Jewish sororities going to be pressured/forced by NPC to change their rituals?
 

We're already seeing that NPC groups with Christian symbolism, Bible references, etc. have started rewriting their rituals. My own group has dropped one of the most meaningful parts of the ritual. Just - poof - gone. It leaves a glaring hole in the ceremony.

Are the Jewish groups going to be expected to do the same thing? Pressured by NPC member groups to purge their rituals of religious overtones and symbolism?

I certainly hope they are not. I suspect they won't be.

So why the double standard?

I too would like to know this.

How is NPC pressuring/forcing each group to rewrite their ritual? Wouldn't each group choose on their own to do so/not do so? When did changing an NPC Ritual become THE THING to do? And how is it a double standard if NPC isn't mandating/pressuring?

A double standard would be if the Christian sororities are pressured to change their rituals but the Jewish ones aren't.

Hi, could you fill me in on which ones are specifically the "Christian" sororities, other than Theta Phi Alpha, which was historically founded as a Greek organization for Catholic women, but has been open to members of all faiths for decades? Thanks!

Many people feel them to be everyone except Phi Sigma Sigma, Delta Phi Epsilon, Alpha Epsilon Phi, and Sigma Delta Tau.

Honestly, I think AEPhi and SDT would leave NPC before doing that - and suffer not at all.

Ah, "many people." Yes, I see. I see quite clearly.

Obviously, you don't.

I am curious, and completely understand if you cannot answer, but were the changes made to accommodate an virtual/zoom type ceremony? I can imagine some changes might be made, as an online ritual probably really can't be truly secure. I hope that this might be the case for Tri Delta and in-person rituals retain your beloved ceremonies.

Are we coming to GreekChat to discuss rituals now? Wow.

I don't believe we are, indeed, discussing ritual. We are discussing changes to ritual without allowing membership to vote on such changes, and whether or not that's the right thing to do.

There were accommodations made for the virtual situation and I completely understand that. No, there was clearly a significant part of the ritual that had been completely deleted and there was no physical reason for it to be done. Plenty of confidential content was still shared.

I hate to be naive, and I am not as involved as others but --

Ritual is sacred. It is meant to be a privelege only to those members. How does NPC even know what religious elements exist in initiation, new member ceremonies, meeting ritual, etc? How can they require something they theoretically are not privvy to?

This discussion goes back to the now closed thread about Delta Gamma's changes. Specifically I'm referring to their stated stance on Facebook about the problems of the whiteness of their founding and how that needs to be changed: "Because of that, the rituals, practices and traditions of sororities were built upon white ideals and perspectives."

Those "white ideals and perspectives" are the Christian and biblical content in the rituals of probably most/all of the NPC groups that were not explicitly formed as Jewish or secular groups.

This is the thread: http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...d.php?t=247110

I would imagine most groups could adapt rituals to be more inclusive without detracting from the key points. I know that my own organization has overhauled its ritual more than once over the years and when they do, old books are sent back to HQ, where I assume they are destroyed, so the historical record isn't exactly accessible.

That said, if someone is asked to place their hand on a Bible, why not substitute something which is personally meaningful to them? Everyone knows that most of our organizations have a Christian heritage. Our non-Christian members get reminded of that not infrequently. And since there are Christian GLOs which assert their religion as being a bigger part of their identity, why not simply cede that ground and become overall more inclusive?

And of course organizations which are smart are going to do these things on their own or the chapters will modify things on their own.

Kevin, some our organizations have rituals that would pretty much be gutted without the Christian content. We love that and if someone doesn't, we're not sure why they joined.

It should be up to each organization to decide for itself. I'm all for moving beyond the 19th century and more inclusivity. I treasure my fraternal existence and have great relationships with men of different races, nationalities, and orientations as a result. Do I cringe when I look back and remember a Muslim brother being required to interact with a Bible in front of all of his brothers? Why not make reasonable accommodations so that rituals are more meaningful and inclusive for all?

I don't know your individual rituals, and don't expect you'd share, but not addressing these things smacks a bit of Christian/white supremacy, and considering the troubled history of many of our groups in that regard, I'd hope we'd all be moving decisively to address it so that we can continue to be meaningful into the 21st century.

I have been astonished at how quickly and how open my organization has been to being open to members of the trans community who identify as male and how positive my own chapter's approach to that issue was.

I see some of these aspects of ritual as something akin to these Confederate statues coming down--a constant reminder that our organizations roots are thoroughly white and Christian and that while we may welcome many diverse members, we somehow feel a need to continually remind them of that. Is that a good choice to be made in today's climate? Is that the hill we're going to die on?

Yep. You betcha. I am firmly on that hill, no matter the consequences. Changing my organization's ritual would cause me to resign. Ritual is precious to me. We were founded when women were barely allowed to attend college. I refuse to be ashamed that they were all white. It has nothing whatsoever to do with racism.

Many of our groups incorporate Greek gods and goddesses - but how many of our members are practicing members of an ancient Greek religion? We understand their use metaphorically. Short of a ritual that requires a member to be a Christian, I'd argue that those who aren't might be able to regard inclusion of Christian symbolism, etc. in the same vein. YMMV, and I don't know others ritual, obviously, but just the mere inclusion of Christian symbols and readings shouldn't mean that the whole of it requires our members of any creed to have to BE Christian to understand their meaning within the ritual.

I don't think there's anything particularly white about our rituals but yes, many are highly Christian. I have actually seen the rituals of many GLOs because some friends are ritual collectors. Our ritual is not demeaning in any way; it's very...cherishing. I never saw a sorority ritual that wasn't.

But as I've said here before, I wouldn't have pledged AEPhi and demanded soon afterwards that they remove all the Stars of David or sections from their ritual that made me feel uncomfortable. Same with a lot of honor societies I'm in. I remember how distinctly uncomfortable I was 5 minutes into the ceremony. However, I worked hard to get those letters and far be it from me to trash what some people wrote many years ago.

Change is not always necessary or best.

Muslim sororities too
 

Do you suppose the women of Gamma Gamma Chi, the sorority of Muslim women, are anxious about changing their rituals to be more inclusive and attract a more diverse membership?

It's a question of whether you want your organization to be inclusive or not. Gamma Gamma Chi can do what it wants, Gamma Phi Beta can do what it wants. What I'm saying is that choosing to do something and choosing to do nothing is a choice--and having better than average knowledge of my organization's history, we suffered a lot as an organization when we refused to allow chapters to initiate non-whites, and while this is definitely a far cry from that, I wonder whether at some point it won't seem such a far cry?

I'm not saying that I pledged and then demanded changes. I've been around awhile and I see the world moving in a certain direction and wonder whether the discussion is worth having, and I, whose opinion matters to no one in my organization, thinks it is a discussion worth having.

I agree with you, Cheerio.

TriDeltaSallie, I understand that you are disappointed that a pivotal part of your ritual didn't happen during the virtual initiation. However, this seems to be an individual decision on Tri Delta's part. If this wasn't removed due to either time limitations or privacy concerns, I would venture to guess that perhaps a portion Tri Delta members had petitioned the Exec Board to change a part of ritual? I have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if that was the case (or maybe they did remove a part due to time limitations or privacy concerns).

NPC did not put out anything even alluding to sororities changing their rituals. And they would have no right to do so now or in the future. No offense, but I feel like this thread is on the verge of fear mongering. Where is there a shred of proof that NPC had anything to do with this? Any change in ritual would be an organization's individual decision.

Not naive, I completely agree with you. We all know our own initiation ceremonies, which are obviously all different. While it is clear that some organizations have religious elements within their rituals, a non-member wouldn't actually know what or how many religious elements a ritual they are not privy to would contain.

This seems to be Delta Gamma's position, not NPC's. The quote you are pulling from is a comment that DG HQ made on Facebook. Therefore, what they do along these lines is an individual decision for their organization.

I'm not sure how to break this to you, but the US is an overwhelmingly Christian country and not all Christians are white. Plenty of POC identify as Christian.

In fact, as I'm looking at Pew research data from 2018, 79% of Black Americans identify as Christian, 77% of Latinx Americans identify as Christian, and 70% of white Americans identify as Christian. (Link)

I'm honestly not sure why most posters in this thread are equating increasing membership diversity with loss of "white" Christian ideals. :confused:

Agreed.

This may be where fraternities and sororities differ the most. College and university education were always open to men who could meet the requirements. Women had to develop their own schools, and gradually be accepted into men's schools.

Agreed.

Agreed.


Agreed.

As I said above, my feeling is that women in general bring a slightly different past to the table than men. Our feelings are valid, and we do not like to be looked at condescendingly, especially when speaking of something so dear to our hearts.

To robinseggblue: Not white, just Christian. Three of my daughters are non-white, Christian, and Greek and they are very angry that people might come into their sororities and then "demand" that the ritual be changed.

I know. I'm baffled that TriDeltaSallie equated Christian ideals with "white ideals and perspectives," which I guess she got from the DG FB comment.

Personally, I was replying to Kevin's comments....

"I don't know your individual rituals, and don't expect you'd share, but not addressing these things smacks a bit of Christian/white supremacy, and considering the troubled history of many of our groups in that regard..."

"--a constant reminder that our organizations roots are thoroughly white and Christian "

Robinseggblue, some people who are saying that NPCs should become more diverse aren't just talking about race. Almost all the blacks, Hispanics, and Asians I know are Christian.

What I am saying here is that we shouldn't be pressured to change the Christian parts of our rituals. These are precious and soothing parts of our rituals, almost like the responses my church has at the Eucharist. I know that I could never do ritual again if the New Testament sections were removed. I don't even know if I would want to remain a member if I knew that my sorority caved to pressure to change because of some vocal and vicious women.

As a non-Christian member of an NPC organization that has ritual based in Christian ideals, I personally think the ritual could be so much more meaningful and comforting were the New Testament references removed. I served as ritual chair in my college years, and every now and then my chapter would hold ritual "translations" where we thought about our ritual's deeper meaning outside of the Christian context. Each time we created something which we could all connect to and was more beautiful than the official ritual. I know it was deeply unsettling and uncomfortable for myself and other non-Christian members to adjust to the ritual after our initiation, and even now as an alumna I have trouble saying the words which directly mention Jesus or God.

I have nothing against Christians or the Christian faith, but it just felt very disingenuous to be saying these words which have roots in a faith which I do not identify with. I don't imagine that my organization would change its ritual, but I would love to see a version which affirmed the beliefs of all our members and did not ask anyone to proclaim devotion to figures they personally did not follow.

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)