Our Duty to God

The Scout Oath starts with one sentence before anything else.

“On my honor, I will do my best to do my duty to God and my country…”

Duty to God. First. Before country, before others, before yourself. That’s not an accident.

The first part of the Scout Oath is Duty to God, and the last character value in the Scout Law is “a Scout is Reverent.” Duty to God is one of the basic tenets of the Scouting program from beginning to end.

Lord Baden-Powell, who founded Scouting, didn’t build a camping program. He built a character program with faith at its center. He believed you couldn’t fully develop a young person without connecting them to something bigger than themselves.

As Latter-day Saints, we already know this. We’ve been teaching it in Primary, in Family Home Evening, and in Seminary for years.

What Scouting does is give that belief legs.

A young man or woman who promises to do their Duty to God – and then goes out and earns a merit badge, leads a patrol, serves their community, sits around a campfire and talks about what they believe – that’s not just Scouting. That’s discipleship in hiking boots.

The first Scouting handbook stated, “No boy can grow into the best kind of citizenship without recognizing his obligation to God.”

We believe that too. We always have. That’s why we’re still here.