A scout troop that has met at Mt. Bethel Church for more than half a century is looking for a new venue after being told it can no longer stay there.
Scout Troop 1011 must leave the premises of the church on Lower Roswell Road by the end of August, according to a message sent out last week to troop families by Scoutmaster Jonathan Linder.
Linder said that the church’s governing board informed troop leadership that the “stated reasons are church doctrine being incompatible with Scouting America and insurance cost concerns.
“While we are disappointed in this decision, we respect their right to make this determination,” Linder said in the message, a copy of which was obtained by East Cobb News.
Linder said that Troop 1011 “is already identifying a new home and has opened discussions with various community partners.”
East Cobb News has left a message with Troop 1011 seeking more information. Linder said in his message that there was to have been a parent Q and A at a troop meeting on Monday to go over the venue change.
He said that until the departure from Mt. Bethel, “all Troop activities will continue as planned.”
Troop 1011, which was chartered in 1972 at what was formerly Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church, has roughly 120 youth and adult members and in its history has had nearly 400 boys attain the rank of Eagle Scout, according to Linder.
East Cobb News also contacted Mt. Bethel Church officials for information, and was told by marketing director Andrea Back in an e-mail response that “the church’s primary issue is not with the local troop or its leaders but with Scouting America, who has had dramatic changes in the past several years. The local troop is under the authority of their parent organization, Scouting America.”
Back said that Mt. Bethel had a facilities use agreement with Troop 1011 that ended on April 1, and that “the church entered into a period of discernment with Scout Troop 1011 Leadership. The Church’s Governing Board decided that the church would extend the agreement through August 31, 2026.”
She didn’t elaborate on the “dramatic changes” that led to the Mt. Bethel decision. East Cobb News has followed up with Mt. Bethel seeking more specific information.
In 2019, the former Boy Scouts of America renamed and rebranded itself Scouting America, and began allowing girls to join as members. Controversies preceded that a few years earlier, when it allowed openly gay scouts. That prompted a move by Johnson Ferry Baptist Church in East Cobb to cut ties with the Boy Scouts in 2013.
More recently, the Pentagon has threatened to end its partnership with Scouting America for being too “woke.”
A federal executive order was issued at the start of the second Trump Administration to end “illegal DEI” programs and replace them with “merit-based” opportunities.
U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth wanted Scouting America to revert to a boys-only organization and change its name back to the Boy Scouts, but those demands were dropped.
In February, Scouting America agreed to change some policies that address diversity concerns and added a merit badge focused on military service.
But the scouts said that transgender youth would continue to be welcomed, contradicting a claim by Hegseth that they would be banned.
Scouting America said that the “affirmation deepens a 116-year partnership that greatly benefits our Armed Forces and our communities.”
The Troop 1011 departure is the latest major change at Mt. Bethel in recent years.
The congregation left the UMC in a $13.1 million court settlement in 2022 following a protracted conflict over the denomination’s reassignment of Mt. Bethel’s senior pastor, and disputes over theology.
The church sold off nearby properties and ended its status as Troop 1011’s charter organizer and the Rotary Club of East Cobb has filled that role since then.
Mt. Bethel remains independent as a church body, but has been a founding member of a Methodist denomination that is more conservative theologically. Some former Mt. Bethel members and its former senior pastor broke away, forming Grace Resurrection Methodist Church, which is also independent.
Mt. Bethel Christian Academy was started by Mt. Bethel in the late 1990s. But it has gone independent of the church, and will be relocating to the school’s upper campus on Post Oak Tritt Road, after the parties couldn’t agree to lease renewal terms on the Lower Roswell Road campus.
“The Rotary Club of East Cobb is committed to supporting Troop 1011 and is working with Troop leadership to find a new meeting place,” Wade Patrick, the Rotary Club’s liaison with the troop, told East Cobb News.
“It’s sad to see Troop 1011 vacate its longtime scout hut where several generations of East Cobb youth became our community leaders. I think our community will come through and a solution will present itself.”
In his message to Troop 1011 families, Linder said that “we are confident that this new chapter will bring fresh opportunities to serve the East Cobb community and build young men of character for generations to come.”
Related:
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- Johnson FerryBaptist Church seeks new worship center permit
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