wearing religious knot--when earned?

[jhawk]

We have a debate in out troop--when a cub scout earns a religious award, can he wear a knot on his Boy Scout shirt after crossover, or does he have to earn the Boy Scout religious award before wearing the knot on his Boy Scout shirt? One camp says the boy must earn the higher level award, one camp says any level religious award counts. Thoughts?
I am ambivalent. It makes sense to only wear it if you have earned it at that level of scouting, but adults can wear one for having earned a youth award, right? Not that there aren't different rules, though, for boys and adults. You wear an Eagle knot as an adult, and not an Eagle rank badge.... There is a World Conservation Award for cubs but you have to earn it again at the Boy Scout level to wear it later, and again at the Venturing level, and they get tougher to earn at each level. Presumably, the religious awards are all tougher at each level, too.
So do we keep telling boys that the only Cub Scout award they can wear as a Boy Scout is the Arrow of Light, or do we add and a religious knot to that?

[cballman]

jhawk I think that the religious award is not a scouting earned award so if and when a child or adult earns the award then he can wear it anytime. the only Cub Scout award worn on the uniform in higher levels is the Arrow of Light. the only Boy Scout award worn on the higher levels is the Eagle Badge. so I think that if a child earns a religious award when in cubs he can wear it even when an adult.

[scoutaholic]

The religious awards are not BSA awards, they are administered by the churches. That being the case, the AOL is still the only cub award that can be worn on the Boy Scout uniform.
The religious awards square knot can be worn any time after it is earned. Many religions do have several levels of religious awards, and the boy can earn any or all of them. There are devices that can be worn on the knot to indicate which level was earned (especially if 2 or more have been earned.) I believe some religions have awards available for cubs, webelos, boy scouts, varsity scouts, and venturers. If a boy were to earn them all he would be wearing the knot with 5 devices.
It is also possible to earn the religious awards for a church you are not a member of, so It would theoretically be possible to earn more than one cub-level religious award. If your pack/troop/team/crew/ship is chartered through a church, you can earn the religious award from that church even if your personally religious affiliation is with a different church. We have a pack locally that is co-sponsored by a catholic and a methodist church. Theoritically, a mormon boy who is a part of that pack could earn the mormon, catholic, and methodist religious awards.
As an adult, you can wear the knot and devices for youth religious awards (silver on purple), and another knot and devices for adult religious awards (purple on silver).

[jhawk]

Oh, that's right. I didn't even think about the religious awards as being recognized by the BSA, but not run by it. That does add a twist. We have been having the boys wear them at any point after they earned them (we have never done the little emblems with them) but some troop adults are saying it shouldn't be that way. Maybe we should do the emblem devices if people want more clarity as to when the awards were earned.
Now that I think of the emblems as external awards, though, how do you think it affects the medals themselves? Do you think it is appropriate on formal occasions to wear all 4 religious awards a boy has earned as a cub, webelo, and scout? What about on a venturing shirt? Wait--somewhere my brain thinks there is a limit on how many medals can be worn....

[PaulSWolf]

The boys should indeed wear the universal religious award knot (silver on purple) on their uniform from the time they earn their first religious award until they are no longer registered as a member of BSA (i.e. as a Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Venturer, or adult Scouter.)

As for the devices, they should also wear those. It's not an "option", its a "requirement".

See the information at:
http://usscouts.org/advance/cubscout/religious.html
http://usscouts.org/advance/boyscout/religious.html
http://usscouts.org/awards/religyouth.html and
http://usscouts.org/awards/devices.html

Here's some of the text from the last (devices) page:

In particular, a Scout that earns a sequence of religious emblems would wear ONE universal religious emblem knot and up to four devices, as described below.

* Wear the CUB SCOUT device for the first level emblem (God & Me, Maccabee, etc.) earned as a Tiger Cub or Cub Scout;
* Wear the WEBELOS SCOUT device for the second level emblem (God & Family, Parvuli Dei, Aleph, etc.) earned as a Cub Scout or Webelos Scout;
* Wear the BOY SCOUT device for the first level emblem (God & Church, Ad Altare Dei, Ner Tamid, etc.) earned as a Boy Scout;
* Wear the VENTURING device for the second level emblem (God & Life, Pope Pius XII, Etz Chaim, etc.) earned as an older Boy Scout, Varsity Scout, Sea Scout, or Venturer.

Note that Webelos Scout and Venturing devices are used to designate the second level emblems described above, EVEN IF the boy isn't a Webelos Scout and/or Venturer when the member earns the appropriate religious emblem.