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

[robinseggblue]

Originally Posted by 33girl

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.

[33girl]

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.

[honeychile]

Originally Posted by 33girl

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.

And we get back to basics: when pledge programs were longer than a week and a half, these things were discussed. Pledges knew WHY the Founders suggested the use of relevant scripture, mottoes, songs, etc. Now, we're happy when they learn the Greek Alphabet.

[carnation]

Do new members even learn the Greek alphabet now?

[DaffyKD]

Originally Posted by robinseggblue

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.

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

[carnation]

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.