“While we understand the legal concerns that led to this new BSA direction, it is simply a place the LCMS is not willing to go,” Harrison and Day said. “At our summer 2013 meeting with the BSA, we were assured that changes concerning adult leadership would not be on the table, but that was not the case.

The second largest Lutheran denomination in America has severed its official relationship with the Boy Scouts of America based on concerns over the BSA’s decision this summer to allow openly homosexual Scout leaders.

The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod (LCMS), a theologically conservative denomination with 2.1 million members, said in a news release it “no longer seems tenable” to abide by a 2013 Memorandum of Understanding with the BSA, in which the two organizations pledged to “work cooperatively” to “establish and nurture Scout units as an expression of the nurture and outreach ministry of The Lutheran Church — Missouri Synod.” The release was issued by LCMS President Matthew Harrison and Bart Day, executive director of the LCMS Office of National Mission.

The Memorandum of Understanding was dissolved Dec. 1.

“While we understand the legal concerns that led to this new BSA direction, it is simply a place the LCMS is not willing to go,” Harrison and Day said. “At our summer 2013 meeting with the BSA, we were assured that changes concerning adult leadership would not be on the table, but that was not the case. We are now being told that the LGBT agenda, even with the most recent change, won’t affect the content of Scouting or the BSA experience, but we do not believe that will be the case.”

The release noted the LCMS “has never ‘endorsed’ Scouting” but has allowed individual congregations to decide whether to sponsor Scout troops.

Harrison and Day said the BSA has offered its legal opinion that individual troops chartered by religious organizations may continue to exclude homosexuals from adult leadership based on the organizations’ values. But the BSA “fails to provide ample legal citations to verify support for such a conclusion,” the LCMS leaders said, and “the legal analysis is not particularly helpful” — including the Scouts’ assertion that adult leaders at church-sponsored troops would be viewed legally as ministers.

Due to the possibility of antidiscrimination lawsuits, LCMS congregations that continue sponsoring Scout troops “should seek legal counsel and guidance on how best to safeguard themselves legally,” according to the release.

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