Apparently, the Guiding Movement is to upgrade its pledge that all members must make when they join. Currently they vow to:
"to love my God, to serve my Queen and my country"
That obviously only applies to people of faith and those with a female monarch…and indeed compromises the integrity of those girls without fixed national domicile. So, after consultation the century-old organisation is planning a bit of a rewording, dropping references to both spiritual and earthly autocrats as well as geography it seems. The pledge will now contain the line:
"be true to myself and develop my beliefs"
Now, being true to oneself is fine and developing one’s beliefs is okay (ish), but the latter still smacks of religion, unicorns and fairy dust, couldn’t they have made version 2.0 say something like:
"be true to myself and develop my understanding of the universe through a rational, evidence-based approach to reality"
That would be much more fitting for our age and avoid that crushingly egotistical phrase “develop my beliefs”.
BBC News – God vow dropped from Girlguiding UK promise.