I have fond memories of the Girl Guides.   No!   I was never a member – in case you’re wondering.   However, in my years in the CRC in Howrah, Tasmania, we regularly had the Girl Guides and the Brownies participating in worship service as they held their ‘Church Parades’.   Several other local churches were similarly involved but there was a time when the presence of the Guides in our church was an annual event.

What brought back recollections of those special Sundays was a recent news item in the local paper that the Girl Guides have dropped both God and the Queen from their oath of allegiance.

The old Guide Promise read: I promise to do my best, to do my duty to God and to serve the Queen and my country, to help other people and to keep the Guide Law.

The new vow now reads: I promise to do my best, to be true to myself and develop my beliefs; to serve my community and Australia and to live by the Guide Law.

I understand the dilemma that the leaders of the Guides have had to face.   Many in our society are asking about the relevance of the British monarchy to our Australian nation – becoming a republic can’t happen fast enough for them.   At the other end of the spectrum are those who are quick to remind us that the Queen is also the Queen of Australia – according to them a failure to recognise that borders on treason.   So how does one do justice to both those extremes in an ‘oath of allegiance’?

Similarly one can understand that in our multicultural society it is difficult (if not impossible) to expect everyone to promise that they will “do their duty to God”.   That immediately raises the question: which God, the God of Christians or the God of Muslims?   Understandably there was quite an outcry when news of this change was made public.   Many pointed to the Christian roots of the Guiding movement.   Others pointed to the historical ties of this nation to the Judaeo-Christian religion.

It’s not my intention to debate here the pros and cons of the changes to the Girl Guide vows – instead I want to ask some questions about the new phrase: I promise... to be true to myself...!

I found myself wondering where that expression came from so I did some research.   I discovered that the expression was used by William Shakespeare in “Hamlet”:

This above all: to thine own self be true,
And it must follow, as the night the day,
Thou canst not then be false to any man.

Apparently he said something similar in “The Merchant of Venice”.

Of course that phrase has been picked up by many people today and it is often given a New Age twist – as in Oprah’s comment on this slogan: “If you don’t stick to that you’ll never, ever reach your personal potential.”   This idea of being loyal to your own best interests is also heard often at self-help groups like Alcoholics Anonymous.

My problem is that in so many ways this runs contrary to the Christian faith.   Okay!   I know there is a sense in which Martin Luther took his stand on this slogan.   When asked to recant his Protestant teachings he said that it was neither right nor safe to go against one’s own conscience.   However he was talking about a conscience that has been shaped by the Word of God and controlled by the Spirit of God.

If we take the slogan out of that context then it takes us back much earlier than Shakespeare and right back to Genesis 3 where Satan’s ploy was to have man be his own God.   The sad thing is that this pledge will be spoken by many girls who know nothing of the gospel and who are strangers to the Christian faith.   Are they then not pledging that they will be true to their fallen and sinful self?   That’s precisely what got human beings into trouble in the first place.