Quote:
Originally posted by Taualumna
But is saying that our ritual may have religious conotations really bringing any secrets out? In any case, most organizations founded in the late 19th and early 20th century would probably have some religious aspects to it even if they claim not to.
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Personally I think it's kind of shady if ANY organization is saying "We don't have religious references in our ritual" when in reality they do, but that's just me. Fortunately I don't think I've seen that happen yet . . . the closest thing is when people refuse to comment on whether or not the ritual involves religion.
All I'm saying is that it's not exactly fair to say, "You can't join our GLO unless you agree with our ritual, but we aren't going to tell you what you're agreeing to until after you've joined." That doesn't make sense to anyone. And I'm not just talking about religion, although I think that seems to come under fire the most because not all of our members are religious while our other principles tend to be things that people usually strive for anyway (friendship, knowledge, truth, beauty, etc.). Let's say your organization's principles are brotherhood and knowledge -- you can reasonably assume that nobody in your fraternity is going to object to those principles because, generally, somebody who's joining a frat is going to be into the brotherhood thing and HOPEFULLY somebody who's in college is going to have at least a basic degree of respect for knowledge and education. However, if your organization was founded to promote brotherhood, knowledge and the love of chocolate chip cookies, you've got to realize that there are probably some people, though not many, who don't love chocolate chip cookies. And if you don't TELL your potential members that they have to love chocolate chip cookies to join your GLO until they've started pledging (or worse yet, in the middle of initiation) -- well, that's not exactly fair.
I think the problem is that too many GLOs are afraid to mention religious overtones in ritual because they're afraid they'll scare people off. I'm not sure about fraternities, but check out the NPC sorority websites. Some will mention their religious roots, but how many mention the religious content of their ritual? Or more accurately, how many mention the religious content of their ritual prominently? Do most of our chapters talk about that during rush? I'm sure there are many chapters out there who don't even discuss it during the pledge period, so that girls are surprised when all of sudden their ritual chair starts talking about Jesus's love for humanity in the middle of initiation.
Basically, I think that if the religion is an important part of your GLO's ritual, you need to make that apparent to rushees and pledges. It's almost as if some organizations are trying to trick non-religious (or non-Christian) members into joining by not mentioning the importance of religion or faith until they're already in the middle of initiation, or just before. We either need to make it clear that religion IS an important part of some of our organizations before these people join and that if they disagree with that, they'd best go somewhere else . . . or we need to cater to them and offer modified non-Christian/non-religious rituals. It's not fair to hit them with the "Surprise! JESUS LOVES YOU AND YOU MUST LOVE JESUS . . . or else!" thing after they've already made a commitment to your organization.