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Recruitment Advice

Hi all! I was initiated into a sorority and dropped shortly after because there was a heavy alignment & association with a religion that wasn't mine. I felt really conflicted and dishonest to my own faith during formal meeting/ceremonies. I feel like the sorority should have disclosed this before initiation in case anyone had a problem with it. I would love to be a part of the npc greek community again at my new school and was thinking of writing NPC to ask if they made any exceptions in this specific case. Would I be insulting them by even asking this question? I know sororities are for life and if it wasn't a religious conflict I wouldn't feel this way. Anyways, thanks for any advice!

NPC unanimous agreements are such that any woman initiated into a NPC sorority may mot join another NPC sorority. That being said, you might contact the NPC and see what they say.

Thanks, I'll do that. Have they ever given someone permission in the past?

Heavens, no. It's a unanimous decree.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Throwaway234 (Post 2439280)

You will not get permission to join another NPC sorority, but you can certainly ask the NPC. It will not offend them.

You seriously had not an inkling of the religious leaning of the organization prior to initiation? No saying grace before dinner, if you had dinner together. No prayers prior to new member meetings?

I knew that some religion would be involved in almost any sorority because it's close to some people's hearts and creates a bond, but my chapter didn't really emphasize a specific one until we were initiated. It was after learning the rituals and attending meetings that I realized. I felt like the chapter and religion were deeply connected, so I felt conflicted and couldn't be true to them.

You say "chapter" so I'm wondering if it was specific to them or sorority wide. I know that some of our chapters in the deep South still do chapter church every now and then but it isn't a national thing.

At any rate,it is a unanimous agreement between all NPC groups that you can only ever be a member of one group.
No one has ever received permission to do otherwise since the UA was signed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titchou (Post 2439332)

That's a good point. There are some individual chapters that may have a group culture for a particular religion even when the national organization does not lean as heavily, if at all.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Thetalady

You seriously had not an inkling of the religious leaning of the organization prior to initiation? No saying grace before dinner, if you had dinner together. No prayers prior to new member meetings?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Throwaway234

Thetalady makes an excellent point. There are usually outward indications of religious leanings in the sorority history, blessing is sung before meals, etc. Though, I can't imagine that any sorority is going to disclose to their new members the precise contents of the ritual prior to the performance of the ritual. So, if one religion is highlighted during a portion of ritual, they would not have been able to tell you about it before hand.

OP, did you by any chance discuss your concerns with your sorority prior to dropping? I wonder if they might have offered an option for you to not have to recite any readings etc that make you feel uncomfortable. If you personally felt that your religious beliefs conflicted with the ritual or teaching or culture of your sorority, then I completely understand why you felt it would be best to withdraw. You must do what is right for yourself.

Though, I caution you from believing that that grass is greener on the other side. If you were to pledge again, how would you ever know what the new sorority has in *their* ritual before going through it? What if their ritual has even more "objectionable" content than the first? I almost wonder if the religion thing is an excuse....especially since you mention that you want to go through recruitment at a new school.

Look, we had a situation at a chapter I advise where one of the new members quit before initiation because she said that she is a deeply religious Christian and she felt that her participation in the sorority was in conflict with her values. Oddly, my sorority is one of the ones which seemingly is more "Christian" on outward appearances -- after all, our open motto is a Bible verse and our founders came from Christian families. Yet, we absolutely respected her feelings and she was released. She then promptly went and pledged another sorority which one might consider from outward appearances to have a "non-Christian" slant. We were kind of puzzled.

What we do know is that you cannot ever join another NPC sorority again once you have initiated into one. You might, however, like to look into seeing if there is a non-NPC sorority which specializes in your religion. I know there are Christian sororities, Jewish sororities, Muslim sororities, etc. This link might help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultur...and_sororities

I'm agnostic and joined a deeply Christian chapter, both in our ritual nationally and on a local level. While there were definitely times I felt uncomfortable in the chapter because it was assumed that every member was Christian or comfortable with Christian values (we once had our lone Jewish member pipe up during chapter to remind us that not everyone wanted to hear from a Christian speaker at a sisterhood event, and that speaker wasn't selected), I was never forced to participate in any religious activity I didn't want to do, ritual or otherwise. It was also very obvious to me from the beginning that this chapter was religious and that that was something I was going to have to learn to tolerate if I wanted to be a member.

Quote:

Originally Posted by navane (Post 2439354)

That's a good point. There are some individual chapters that may have a group culture for a particular religion even when the national organization does not lean as heavily, if at all.

Thetalady makes an excellent point. There are usually outward indications of religious leanings in the sorority history, blessing is sung before meals, etc. Though, I can't imagine that any sorority is going to disclose to their new members the precise contents of the ritual prior to the performance of the ritual. So, if one religion is highlighted during a portion of ritual, they would not have been able to tell you about it before hand.

OP, did you by any chance discuss your concerns with your sorority prior to dropping? I wonder if they might have offered an option for you to not have to recite any readings etc that make you feel uncomfortable. If you personally felt that your religious beliefs conflicted with the ritual or teaching or culture of your sorority, then I completely understand why you felt it would be best to withdraw. You must do what is right for yourself.

Though, I caution you from believing that that grass is greener on the other side. If you were to pledge again, how would you ever know what the new sorority has in *their* ritual before going through it? What if their ritual has even more "objectionable" content than the first? I almost wonder if the religion thing is an excuse....especially since you mention that you want to go through recruitment at a new school.

Look, we had a situation at a chapter I advise where one of the new members quit before initiation because she said that she is a deeply religious Christian and she felt that her participation in the sorority was in conflict with her values. Oddly, my sorority is one of the ones which seemingly is more "Christian" on outward appearances -- after all, our open motto is a Bible verse and our founders came from Christian families. Yet, we absolutely respected her feelings and she was released. She then promptly went and pledged another sorority which one might consider from outward appearances to have a "non-Christian" slant. We were kind of puzzled.

What we do know is that you cannot ever join another NPC sorority again once you have initiated into one. You might, however, like to look into seeing if there is a non-NPC sorority which specializes in your religion. I know there are Christian sororities, Jewish sororities, Muslim sororities, etc. This link might help: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultur...and_sororities

Our sorority didn't really spend much time together like that before initiation, I suppose that must be different at different/bigger schools. I spoke to a few members on exec. about it, but ultimately I felt it was best to disaffiliate. I understand how it could seem like I'm trying to come up with an excuse, but after transferring to a school closer to home and talking with some friends in sororities I really started to miss being involved. I was holding onto a glimmer of hope NPC made once in a blue moon exceptions because of the great parts of greek life. But now I understand they really do not haha. I appreciate all of the responses on here and will look into other non-NPC groups.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Titchou (Post 2439332)

I gathered that my chapter was much bigger on the religion than others.

About how big was the chapter? I'm confused because you say "things must be different at bigger schools" and if you were in a smaller chapter/group I would think you'd have gotten more exposure to the majority of the chapter before initiation.

I'm also assuming you aren't talking about one of the historically Jewish groups because a quick Google mentions that about both of them. This isn't trying to fire questions or call you out, I just don't get some parts of your post.

It's not those. I don't remember exactly, but there are less than 300 members. Our pledge class didn't really get to socialize with the other pledge classes before initiation, and our meetings consisted of just the new members. I wasn't sure if that was standard practice or just a smaller school thing. Initiation also was not long after receiving bid cards so maybe they just didn't have time to schedule get-togethers. I don't want this to sound like I'm blaming them either! Looking back I should have made more of an effort to reach out to the other girls too.

Maybe you could "reaffiliate" with your sorority at a new school as you said closer to your home. Things are different from chapter to chapter.

That was the only one relatively close to me because I would have considered that. ):
I'm still living in the same state just very different areas so I say relatively lightly.