Denver to merge with W. Slope
Thousands will leave as Mormons cut ties over moral issues
The Boy Scouts of America’s Denver Area Council announced Wednesday it has merged with its Western Slope counterparts as the Scouts prepare to lose thousands of members when the Mormon Church severs ties at the end of the year.
The merger comes as shifting cultural norms have altered the Boy Scouts of America’s landscape as the organization opened its ranks to gay and female youths. The changes were a departure from the Mormon Church’s more conservative stances on social issues, causing a split between the
Scouts and the church who had been partners for more than a century.
“The success of the Boy Scouts was largely about Mormon involvement in the program early on,” said Katy Mohrman, a University of Colorado Denver professor focusing on Mormon studies. “For the Scouts, I think it’s part of a more major shift of ‘What’s really our mission about and why are we here?’ ”
The change will have a significant effect on the Scouts’ Colorado membership — particularly on the Western Slope. Of the 2,000 Scouts in the Western Slope service area, half are Mormon Church members, said Robert Nakagawa, deputy scout executive for the Denver council. On Jan. 1, the church will no longer be a chartered partner of the Scouts.
Nakagawa said the pending changes with the church were probably a small factor that needed to be considered, but it was not the sole reason for the merger.
“More importantly, the way the board looked at it, they felt even if the church stayed on, merging with the Denver area would be better for growth and better for providing services for the young men and women,” he said.
The Denver area council serves more than 32,000 youths, according to the Boy Scouts. About 5,000 are Mormon.
The organization says the merger will allow participants on the Western Slope access to additional programs and financial support. Operations for both councils will be conducted at the Denver-area headquarters in Lakewood.
The western council approached Denver in November to discuss a merger, Nakagawa said. He said it made sense, given “the changes with Boy Scouts and forecasting what the future might look like.”
Nationally, the Mormon Church is the largest participant in scouting in the United States. The church makes up nearly 20 percent of all Boy Scout members and has long been a fixture in the lives of Mormon boys. While the church did not explicitly cite recent changes in the Scout program — allowing LGBTQ youths and leaders, and later girls, into its ranks — division between the two groups was evident.
“The Boy Scouts is not serving the needs of the church as it once did,” said Matthew Bowman, associate professor of history at Henderson State University, who has written extensively about the Mormon faith. “This break has been coming for a while.”
While the Boy Scouts have struggled with diminishing membership nationally, the Denver area has seen steady growth in recent years, Nakagawa said. That includes more than 1,000 girls who have joined the Scouts since 2017, when the organization changed its long-standing gender policy.
Still, the Denver-based Scouts also will be impacted by the Mormon Church’s defection, Nakagawa said. The Scouts are hoping to retain 10 to 20 percent of their 5,000 Mormon members, he said.
“It’s going to have an impact,” he said. “We’ll have less kids in the program at that point, but we’re still recruiting. With young women coming on board, we’ll be able to weather the storm.”
The church’s separation comes at a time of turmoil for the Boy Scouts on a national scale.
In December, leaders said they were considering filing for bankruptcy as sexual abuse settlements strained their finances. Hundreds of people have come forward in recent months alleging they were abused while participating in the program as a child.
“The Boy Scouts is not serving the needs of the church as it once did. This break has been coming for a while.” Matthew Bowman, associate professor of history at Henderson State University