Why the Mormon Church and the Boys Scouts Were Destined for Divorce

Guest: Benjamin Park, PhD, Assistant Professor of American History at Sam Houston State University, and Author of “American Nationalisms: Imagining Union in the Age of Revolutions, 1783-1833” For more than 100 years, the Boy Scouts of America and The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints have been joined at the hip. One in every five Boys Scouts in the US is a Mormon. Scouting is the official youth program the LDS Church offers boys. But that relationship will end at the end of next year. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints plans to design its own youth program for all “girls and boys, young women and young men” to launch in 2020. The move will have a major impact on the Boy Scouts of America and on the youth experience within the LDS Church. Historian Benjamin Park says this divorce has been destined for some time.