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Faith. It is an interesting concept.
1. confidence or trust in a person or thing: faith in another's ability.
2. belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3. belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4. belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.: to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5. a system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6. the obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.: Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7. the observance of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8. Christian Theology. the trust in God and in His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.
So, where does your faith lie? In your brothers? In your chapter? In your alumni? In LXA's teaching? In HQ? In all of them?
Imagine this. Your chapter has had a bad year recruiting last year. You drop down to about 12 or 13 members. Luckily you have had a better semester and have retained 10 promising associates that have not been initiated. One day you get a call from HQ:
"Brandon, we are sorry to inform you that we will be closing your chapter due to our new initiative of closing smaller chapters of under 20 men. Although your chapter will be closed, we will be better able to serve other larger chapters. You will be mailed the appropriate paperwork for becoming alumni of LXA. Thank you for having faith in us."
How is your faith now?
There is a problem with misplaced faith.
I was raised Catholic. I went to 13 years of Catholic school. My parents, relatives, friends are all Catholic.
Over the last 5-6 years here in Massachusetts, and other places across this country, it has been found that dozens, if not hundreds of priests sexually molested children. One priest who was convicted of molesting dozens of children lives just a 1/2 mile from me.
Since those scandals erupted, I have refused to give a dime to the Catholic Church if I suspected that it would be used to defend or help with any insurance policy to defend any priests accused of molestation. Instead I have given my donations (very small) to charities.
Am I still a Catholic? Absolutely. I still consider myself a Catholic everyday. But where is my faith? To whom do I have faith in?
I've learned that my faith isn't in the PEOPLE that run the Church, it is in the TEACHINGS of the Church.
Do I have faith in LXA? Absolutely. I have faith that it brings people together for a good common purpose. I have faith that it has good teachings, to abide by your word, work hard, do right.
Do I have faith in the people who run LXA? To a point I do. But our history is too tainted to have faith in an organization that needs to make a profit. Our own founder Warren Cole was kicked out of the fraternity he founded because of issues with money. A few years ago we were lucky to make it past one of the worse run periods of our fraternities history. We're lucky to even HAVE a fraternity from a few years ago.
Do I have faith in LXA? Yes. Do I have faith that they will do what is best for every member, or individual chapter instead of what is best purely for HQ? Nope.
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