Christianity req'd for membership?
 

In looking at another thread (http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ad.php?t=98006), I saw a link to the new Lampados program on the Omega Psi Phi website.

One of the things that it mentioned was "Required Sunday Church attendance". It made me wonder two things, first, whether Jews (or other non-Christians) could be brothers of Omega Psi Phi, and second, how a chapter would handle a sabbatarian Christian like the Seventh Day Adventists who observe Saturday rather than Sunday as the Sabbath?

Randy

Randy-

Officially, the Fraternity is not sectarian but unabashedly it's heritage and ethos is Christian, esp. of the Black Protestant "evangelical" sort; and, frankly, if it was left to some in the leadership, they would not be open to non-Christians as members. There are men of different (non-Christian) faiths, esp. Muslims but the culture and ethos is decidedly Christian. There can be tensions, and I have seen this first hand. If someone is not comfortable with this they should not seek to become a Que. It's not for everyone!

Per Sabbatarian Christians, that's something that has has to be worked out on an individual level. I do know there are Seventh Day Adventist Brothers who have navigated this on their journey to becoming an Omega Man.

-Wolfman

Bruh, that's an excellent answer....

In contrast, when we had our one hundred clergyman.... celebration at our Centennial, we had one guy who was a Santero, at least one Quaker, Catholics, Protestants, Muslim, and maybe a Jew.

Senusret I-

This highlights the fact that, beyond the superficial BGLO stereotypes (which do have a grain of truth in them), in my opinion, there is a sense that there are somewhat distinct fraternal cultures of each organization, just as there are corporate cultures of business entities which one can only experience "on the ground."

In this regards, it's been my contention that as an organization Omega Psi Phi has a "conservative" (i.e., traditional) fraternal culture, even to the point of being Byzantine in some aspects. This reality was related to me 30 years ago when I was pledging in an off-the-record comment made by an Omega Brother at a party thrown by my line as a part of the Lampados Club.

And as an outsider, I've considered other BGLOs more "progressive" as evidenced by what you've stated about the representation of the ministers at the ecumenical service at the A Phi A Centennial. You wouldn't have the same breadth of representation at an Omega Psi Phi Ecumenical Service, I'd venture to say.

-Wolfman

I agree with you.

Wolfman,

You've definitely answered my question. A decidedly Christian culture and ethos, but nothing in the by-laws that limits to Christians.

I *very* much understand if you don't think it appropriate to answer my followup questions.

1) Is Jesus Christ mentioned in the ritual?
2) Are there any quotes from New Testament scripture in the ritual?

Randy-

Yes, I did answer your question without any remainder. Let me pose a couple of questions to you: Are you Greek? And why is this information important to you?

If you are Greek and you are member of a secret fraternity and respect and value the sacred oaths you've taken, you would not even consider asking me to discuss the Ritual of my Fraternity, and in a public forum at that.

Yes, I am Greek. I'm trying to research issues regarding the elimination of christian-only requirements in Greek Letter Organizations. As far as I knew, they had all been eliminated by 1970, but my previous research had been in the NIC. And while some of the NPHC fraternities were themselves originally limited to only African-Americans, I haven't seen anything indicating a specific religious requirement at any time in any of the NPHC fraternities or sororities.

As opposed to the racial requirements which would be unlikely to have a component in the ritual, a religious requirement can easily represent and correspond to a component of the ritual. Having no mention of religious requirement in the by-laws is one thing, but if the oath in the brotherhood ritual is done in the name of Jesus Christ or if John 3:16 has a significant place in the ritual, that would go a long way to making the group de facto Christian. Matthew 22:21 (Render unto Caesar...) or Romans 12:21 (Overcome Evil with Good), OTOH, while still New Testament verses that might have ritual meaning to a fraternity, probably would not cause the same de facto religious requirement.

I thought that
"I *very* much understand if you don't think it appropriate to answer my followup questions."
represented a sufficient caveat prior to a question that while I would be willing to answer myself. Apparently not.

Note, In regards to a Christian heritage and ethos, the fact that the Omega Psi Phi International website sells a pin which has the letters on a Ichthys (also known as a "Jesus Fish"), definitely aligns with that. (http://ecommerce.oppf.org/cgi-bin/ca...202&type=store)

I have always found your more-than-casual interest in other organizations rather odd, but these questions cross the line. Asking questions about ritual, even challenging members on the inner workings of their organizations, when you should know better, is disrespectful. I thought your trying to change a different org's Wikipedia page was wrong, but this one...sigh.

http://www.greekchat.com/gcforums/sh...ight=wikipedia

I agree that I have asked a number of questions looking for answers about a number of different organizations. I appreciate that some are more controversial than others. (No one objected to the "what are your officers called" thread. :) )

In regards to rituals, I would hope at least for the first question, that this would be a question that would be answered if asked by someone interested in the organization. The second, perhaps not, and I therefore apologize. I understood that it was a question that the *asking* might cause discomfort, that's why I put the caveat before it.

As for my personal feelings on rituals. First of all, I do continue to scan the web trying to keep things from the ritual of my Fraternity off the internet. I've also in at least one case alerted the Headquarters of a *different* National Fraternity when I found their ritual on the web. And I find what's on ********* to be *truly* *truly* sad. However,IMO, there are *general* questions about rituals which perhaps can be discussed without implying lack of respect. For example: "If your GLO uses candles in the ritual, how do you deal with school rules/firecodes which forbid the use of candles in buildings.

As for Wikipedia, the articles are *not* owned by anyone. *Referenced* changes are equally appropriate for the Wikipedia pages of your own GLO, someone else's GLO or Oslo, Norway. At the time that the change was made on Wikipedia, there was no referenced support for the change, the web page change for gammasigmasigma.org came later. Further discussion of that probably belongs back in the original thread.

Do you really need to identify that website by name?

Co-sign. The smart people kept their mouths shut.

SMH

:rolleyes:

And edited to remove it.