It is becoming widely known throughout the Masonic world
(courtesy of such diligent sources as Christopher Hodapp’s most excellent blog)
that recently the Grand Master of Florida issued a Ruling
and Decision that effectively expels followers of “Paganism, Wiccan (sic) and Odinism, and … Agnosticism and
Gnosticism” from Freemasonry, within his jurisdiction. In this blog post, I
analyze the logic of this Ruling and Decision, and render my own opinion on it.
Let’s get one thing right out in the open from the
beginning. Although I now reside in New York City, I am indeed a Freemason
under the jurisdiction of the Most Worshipful Grand Master of the Most
Worshipful Grand Lodge of Free and
Accepted Masons of Florida. I was raised a Master Mason in Winter Park Lodge #239, F&AM, in
Florida. Thus, here I am taking issue, and publicly, with the logic of a
position taken by my own Grand Master.
It is important to understand that I am not disputing the Grand Master’s authority. However, as a
Free and Accepted Mason, the ancient traditions of the Craft give me every
right to take issue with the logic of any man’s statements, including those of my
own Grand Master; any departure from this standard would make of Masonry a
religion, and an absolutist, authoritarian religion at that. If any person or
persons, especially under the Masonic jurisdiction of the Grand Lodge of
Florida, wishes to dispute that, on the authority of written Masonic
regulation, they are welcome to bring that to my attention using the Comment
space below. (Anonymous authorship of detracting comments, of course, will be
interpreted as evidence of cowardice.)
Revisions as of December 10, 2012
Overall, I have been deeply gratified by the show of support for my ideas, both throughout the U.S. and abroad. During the last three days, I have communicated with many brethren who have brought several concerns to my attention. Some of these concerns require me to revise the post, as I note below, although not all revisions are specially marked.
The Text of the Ruling and Decision
The following was issued over the signature of the Most
Worshipful Jorge L. Aladro, Grand Master of Freemasons in the Grand Lodge of
Florida, as Ruling and Decision No. 3,
dated November 28, 2012.
[Beginning of quote:]
The question has arisen if certain religious practices are
compatible with Freemasonry, primarily Paganism, Wiccan and Odinism, and
secondarily Agnosticism and Gnosticism.
Article XIII – LANDMARKS AND
CERTAIN LAWS OF FREEMASONRY
Section 2. The Most Worshipful Grand
Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of Florida hereby recognizes, as being
Landmarks of Freemasonry, the following:
a)
A belief in the existence of one ever living and
true God.
b)
A belief in the immortality of the human soul
and a resurrection thereof to a Future Life.
c)
The Volume of the Sacred Law, open upon the
altar, is an indispensable furnishing of every regular Lodge while at labor.
Regulation 1.02 Masonic Law is
a rule of fraternal conduct, and applies only to the moral and fraternal
rectitude of its members. It is based upon the law of Divine Revelation,
therefore, any
covenant, affirmation, declaration,
assumption, prescription, or requirement derogatory thereto, or in conflict therewith,
is void. Hence the precept, “a Mason is bound by his tenure to obey the moral law.”………….
Excerpt from THE CHARGES OF A FREEMASON
THE GENERAL HEADS, VIZ.: – I . OF GOD AND RELIGION.
I. CONCERNING GOD AND RELIGION
“A Mason is obliged, by his tenure, to
obey the moral law; and if he rightly understands the art, he will never be a
stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious libertine.”……….
Therefore, as Grand Master, it is my Ruling and Decision that
none of the above mentioned beliefs and/or practices are compatible with Freemasonry
since they do not believe or practice one or more of the prerequisites to be a
candidate for Masonry listed above. Further, any member of the Craft that
professes to be a member of one of the groups mentioned above shall tender his
resignation or suffer himself to a Trial Commission whose final outcome will be
expulsion since there is no provision to allow anything contrary to the Ancient
Landmarks. Furthermore, Freemasonry prohibits the change of any of the Ancient
Landmarks, and its members admit that it is not in power of any man, or body of
men, to make innovations in the body of Masonry.
[End of quote.]
The Logic of the Ruling and Decision
Both the unstated assumption that underlies the Ruling and
Decision, and the interpretations it seems to make of the Landmarks of the
Craft, present logical problems.
The Underlying Assumption of the Ruling and Decision
Underlying the entire Ruling and Decision is the unstated
assumption that the Grand Master can presume to rule on whether membership
within a given religious group is acceptable for the Freemasons in his
jurisdiction. This is a perilous and highly mistaken assumption. One of Freemasonry’s most distinctive
landmarks is its religious tolerance. Without this, it can be argued, only
the outward form of Freemasonry exists, not its true spirit or morality.
The month after I was raised a Master Mason, I and my fellow
newly made Masons met with a group of three Past Masters, who bestowed upon us
“the Master Mason briefing”: instruction in Masonic values and custom. To
expand on this oral instruction, the PMs gave us a series of booklets, approved
by the Grand Lodge for Masonic instruction. Here I quote from one of these—in particular,
the one given to men before they are
even initiated:
The Landmarks
…
They signify that in Masonry which is essential to its identity.
To do away with them is to do away with Masonry. …
… [E]ven a Grand Lodge of the Fraternity itself as a whole
cannot change these Landmarks! If a Grand Lodge were to change them, it would
destroy itself because there would no longer be any Masonry left and there
cannot be a Grand Lodge of Masonry if there be no Masonry.
…
… [N]o political discussion can be brought into our assemblies.
Were this abolished, our organization would be taken captive by some political
or social party and would perish at the first radical turnover of political
power; and while it lasted it would be the servant of some power outside itself
without the ability to regulate and control its own existence.
To the same effect is the ancient law forbidding that a candidate or
Brother shall be questioned as to his particular mode of religious faith
and also that no sectarian matters shall intrude within a Lodge. Just as it
would mean the ultimate destruction of Freemasonry if it were to make itself
over into the hands of a political party, so would it mean its death sooner or
later to surrender itself to one particular religious Faith or belief.
[Source: pp. 4-6 (emphasis added) of Booklet No. 1: The Lodge System of Masonic Education, “Prepared by
the Grand Lodge of Florida through the Committee on Masonic Education for the
use of the Subordinate Lodges and their members per Regulation 37.18”; revised
1994, reprint 1994.]
One of the most important of all our Landmarks is that which
forbids us to participate, as Masons, in any form of religious or political
sectarianism. We cannot question a candidate as to his peculiar [that is,
particular] beliefs in religion or politics; we cannot discuss such matters in
any of our assemblies, and we cannot take any kind of public action with regard
to them in the name of the Craft. [Same source, p. 10.]
The Grand Lodge of Florida thus recognizes—or at least it
once did—that one of the ancient laws and landmarks of Freemasonry forbids a
Brother to be “questioned as to his particular mode of religious faith.” Thus,
putting a Brother’s Masonic membership in jeopardy if he is a member of a
Wiccan, Odinist, other Pagan, or Gnostic group—each one a “particular mode of
religious faith”—is not only forbidden by the ancient Landmarks, but, as the
instruction I received put it, such a practice would “mean the ultimate
destruction of Freemasonry.” (For Agnostics, see section below.)
I agree completely. Freemasonry was established in the
American British colonies by a collection of Deists, Anglicans, non-conforming
Christians (including Catholics, Methodists, Congregationalists, and Baptists),
Jews, and others, who put religious tolerance very high in the roster of
Masonic values. To lose that vision is to lose Freemasonry itself. Worse yet,
it diminishes Freemasonry’s vision of religious tolerance at precisely that
moment in human history when the world needs it the most.
The Meaning of the Quoted Landmarks
The Ruling and Decision explicitly gives as a rationale some
excerpts from the Masonic Law of Florida. Looking at these excerpts in detail raises
serious questions about the logic of the Ruling and Decision (hereafter
R&D).
One problem is that the landmarks quoted in the R&D are
a mixture of three very different types of landmarks. Item (a)—as noted
above, the belief in God—is a requirement of a candidate for Freemasonry, and in Florida is the only actual religious requirement of a candidate (see below). Item (b), the belief in the immortal soul and resurrection, is not actually a requirements of a candidate for
Freemasonry in Florida (see below). Item (c), regarding the Volume of the Sacred Law (VLS) open
upon the altar, is a requirement for the behavior of a Masonic Particular Lodge. We certainly do not require that
candidates have an altar in their homes with a copy of the VLS open upon it!
Of course I fully accept these as Landmarks of the Craft.
However, their application in the R&D is very problematic.
A. Belief in the Supreme Being
The quoted Landmark requires that the candidate hold “a
belief in the existence of one ever living and true God. This is not negotiable, nor should it be. Indeed, this is the only religious requirement for a candidate to be eligible for initiation, as stated in Regulation 31.16 (Digest of Masonic Law in Florida, page 257; see below).
Although the R&D
does not specify where this is a problem with regard to the belief systems
noted, I think I can see what the rationale was here. You see, most of these
belief systems (except Agnosticism) have forms that believe in more than one Supreme Being:
- Some Wiccans believe in
one Goddess, others in a Goddess and a God or multiple Goddesses and Gods.
(Some dislike the term “goddess” for a female god; as a female Wiccan friend of mine once put it, “the
word ‘goddess’ brings out the terroristess in me.” Pace ad omnes.)
- Odinists tend to accept
the Gods of the ancient Norse mythos, which are several.
- The term “Pagan” is quite
general, including followers of revived Egyptian, Greek, and Roman faiths,
as well as the lesser-known faiths of the Celts. All of these groups
believe in multiple gods, as do some groups with thoroughly modern roots,
such as those based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos.
- Gnosticism is an umbrella
term for a very wide range of beliefs. Most modern Gnostic groups are essentially
esoteric forms of Christianity that represent only one supreme God. Others
lean more towards a belief in more than one god.
The point at issue is, what is the spirit of the Landmark?
Do we require that candidates believe in one and only one God? If so, that would exclude the world’s half-billion
male Hindus from becoming Freemasons, and the hundreds of regular Masonic
lodges within the Grand Lodge of
Ancient Free and Accepted Masons of India might take some exception to
that. Hindu Freemasons have been initiated into regular Masonic lodges in India
since 1857.
For that matter, adherents of the Shinto religion in Japan believe in very many gods; well do I remember seeing their many temples when I lived in south-central Japan some years ago. Banning adherents of Shinto from Freemasonry might raise concerns with the Most Worshipful Grand Lodge of Japan.
Indeed, the
world of regular Freemasonry made peace with the issue of initiating Brethren
who believe in more than one God generations ago.
B. Belief in the Immortal Soul and Resurrection
(Note: This section heavily revised throughout.)
The Landmark quoted above in the R&D seems to imply that a
candidate must hold “a belief in the immortality of the human soul and a
resurrection thereof to a Future Life.” However, it is not explicitly stated in the Landmark that this is a belief required of the candidate. I find two things of interest in this regard:
First, the actual regulations of the Florida Grand Lodge state the following (Regulation 31.16, Digest,
p. 257) :
31.16
Belief in God is the only religious prerequisite of a candidate for
initiation into Masonry, but a Mason is bound by his tenure to obey the moral
law.
This regulation is clear and unambiguous. The only
religious prerequisite—and I stress that the legal meaning of “only” is
universally acknowledged in the civil law to be utterly exclusive in nature—is
belief in God (the earlier of the two phrases of Regulation 31.16). This could refer to belief in a
single Deity, multiple Deities, or Deity as conceived in either Theist or Deist
terms.
Second, it is important to note that the Florida Petition for the degrees of Freemasonry state only that the candidate must believe in a Supreme Being. No mention is made of a belief in immortality or a resurrection to a Future Life.
The conclusion is inescapable: nothing prohibits from Freemasonry men who do not believe in the immortality of the soul or a future resurrection. There are a lot of people who believe in God, but also believe that "when you die, that's it." It's plain and simple, as far as the Florida Masonic Regulations are concerned: Such men can be Freemasons, as far as the religious qualifications are concerned.
C. The Volume of the Sacred Law
As I pointed out above, the Landmark involving the VLS is a
requirement of lodge behavior and
ceremonial, not individual conduct.
One wonders if the real problem here is that the groups
under consideration here may use in their religious devotions a sacred book
that is not the Christian Bible. The Wiccans, for example, may use a version of
the Book of Shadows during their
ceremonial. (There are popular versions available from Ann
Moura and Silver
Ravenwolf, among others.) Although there is no Odinist equivalent of the
Bible, in many such groups there is special attention given to the Elder and
Younger Eddas.
Pagan groups from Egyptian, Greek, Roman, and Celtic traditions vary widely in
what they conside sacred texts—but, for the most part, they have something. Many Gnostic groups revere the
Christian Bible, as well as other ancient gnostic wisdom texts, such as those
found in The
Nag Hammadi Scriptures or The
Gnostic Scriptures. (Agnostics, of course, do not meet in an organized
group for religious worship, nor do they have sacred texts.)
So they may not use the Christian Bible. So what? All of
that is a matter of private religion, concerning which Freemasonry may not
inquire. I have been present at Masonic initiation in a time-venerated regular
Masonic lodge where the altar held, in addition to the open Christian Bible as
the VLS, open candidate copies of the Jewish Tanakh, the Muslim Koran, a
Buddhist sutra, and the Tao Te Ching—simultaneously.
(This is quite the active and growing lodge, I might add.)
The point is that the candidate should look to some
text that
he holds sacred, something outside
of himself, for spiritual guidance. Members of all of the noted groups do that
(excepting the agnostics).
D. Divine Revelation and the Moral Law
The R&D goes on to quote Regulation 1.02 of the Florida
Masonic Law, to the effect that the Mason is bound to obey the moral law as
“based upon the law of Divine Revelation.” Clearly this must mean Divine
Revelation as recognized by the candidate,
and most of the groups above (again, except agnostics) accept something as communicated by God or Gods
to humankind, directly or indirectly, thus constituting some sort of Divine
Revelation. I have indicated above the sorts of writings that are considered
sacred texts in these traditions; these texts typically have explicit or
implicit statements of ethics and morality. In several of these traditions,
there are active discussions of ethics and morality. (See, for example,
Chapters 18 and 19 in Scott Cunningham’s Living
Wicca.)
One point subtly alluded to in the R&D involves the term
“moral law.” Some Masonic jurisdictions follow the principle laid down by
Brother Albert Mackey in The Principles
of Masonic Law, that the phrase “moral law” simply means the Ten
Commandments. (See The Principles of
Masonic Law, Book Third, Chapter I, Section I, “Of the Moral Qualifications
of Candidates,” available here,
courtesy of Wikisource.) Although Gnostics typically revere the Christian Bible
and thus hold themselves accountable to the Ten Commandments, this would not
likely be the position of Wiccans, Odinists, or other Pagans.
However, this is an interpretive dead end. If we take the
position that all candidates must believe and follow the Ten Commandments, then
we must recognize that this explicitly excludes from Freemasonry anyone who is
not a Jew or a Christian. In the modern Jewish tradition, the First Commandment
is what is often treated as a prelude to the Ten Commandments by Christian
churches. It is the text of Exodus 20:2, and it states, in the King James
Version: “I am the LORD thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of
Egypt, out of the house of bondage.” The word translated “LORD” by the King
James translators is the Hebrew word known as the Tetragrammaton, the
four-letter name of God, never to be pronounced. (The word is sometimes
translated as the name “Yahweh” in more recent Bible translations.) Of course,
people who follow Wicca, Odinism, or other Pagan groups—any non-Jewish and
non-Christian religion, really—do not worship Yahweh, and so cannot keep the
Ten Commandments in their fulness.
But this is not really a problem for regular Freemasonry,
either. Mackey’s writings about the moral law are entirely his own opinion, and
are not binding on Freemasonry or Freemasons. Regular Freemasonry has long had
no problem initiating Muslims and others who do not accept the Christian Bible
as their authoritative moral and religious guide. (Again, what matters is that
the candidates has some authoritative
moral and religious guide.)
In sum, there is no reason to exclude followers of Wicca,
Odinism, most other Pagan groups, or Gnosticism from Freemasonry, on the basis
of the clauses of Florida Masonic Law dealing with Divine Revelation and the
moral law.
On Agnosticism
[Note: This section heavily revised.]
Agnosticism needs to be treated separately, because it
covers so much ground.
The technical sense of being an “agnostic” means someone who does not take a position on whether God exists or not. Even in this technical sense, an “agnostic” may take a position anywhere along a wide
spectrum of opinion concerning the existence of God, ranging from “hey, who knows?”
all the way to the viewpoint that, even in principle, it is impossible to know
whether or not God exists. (For this latter position, see Leslie Stephens’ 1876 “An Agnostic’s Apology,”
available here.)
Being a Freemason requires an affirmative belief in a
Supreme Being—not a firm conviction, not a firm knowledge, not personal
revelation, but a belief. A man must
take this much of a stand to fulfill the religious requirements of being a
Freemason. Regardless of the label placed on a man’s belief system, if he
cannot offer that affirmative belief, then he cannot be a candidate for
Freemasonry.
None of this is controversial; it has been the practice of
American Freemasonry for over two centuries. However, there is one important catch with which I was not familiar when I first wrote this piece:
Lots of “agnostic” men believe in God.
It has been pointedly brought to my attention that, for a lot of men in the street (as opposed to folks in the social science lab), they call themselves “agnostic” for a number of reasons, even thought they actually believe in God. Some reasons:
- They don't think it's possible to prove logically that God exists, even though they believe God exists.
- They have a belief, but not a burning conviction or some kind of mental certainty.
- They feel that God is beyond any merely human attempt at description.
I could go on. This whole issue shows one reason why it is important for Masonry to stay away from judging potential candidates or brethren by religious labels in the first place: different people mean different things by these labels. Florida needs to return to the classic Masonic position: We inquire whether the candidate believes in God, and the religious questioning stops there.
Another odd thing is that the R&D even refers to Agnosticism
as a “religious practice.” There is no Agnostic Church. (What would they
worship, you ask? Hey, I don't know ….) There are no agnostic religious rituals or
sacred texts. Overall, it’s just odd to see Agnosticism lumped in with other
groups that are religious practices.
Here again, Agnostics should not be banned from Masonry just on the basis of that label. It's a matter of belief in God, not a religious label.
Summary
[Note: this section revised.]
The logic
presented by the R&D with regards to followers of Wicca, Odinism, Paganism
generally, Gnosticism, and even Agnosticism, is deeply flawed. To summarize these flaws:
- All of
followers of Wicca, Odinism, Paganism generally, and Gnosticism--and even many of those who describe themselves as Agnostics--believe in God. They
may believe in the existence of more
than one—not always the case, especially with Gnostics or God-believing Agnostics—but the belief in a
plurality of gods was not a problem for regular Freemasonry when it came
to initiating Hindus or Shintoists, and so it should not be a problem when it comes to
other faiths.
- According to Florida Regulation 31.16, "Belief in God is the only religious prerequisite
of a candidate for initiation into Masonry."
- “The Volume of the Sacred
Law, open upon the altar,” is a requirement for a Lodge, not an individual.
What’s the Real Problem?
In so many aspects of the social world, there is the surface
communication, and there is the deeper level of communication. The R&D is
no exception. So what is really at issue here? I have the sense, from reading
some of what others have written about this issue, and from my own experience
with Freemasonry and Freemasons, that there is a great deal of discomfort in
some quarters with the rise of belief systems in the United States that are
other than Protestant (and, to some extent, Catholic) Christianity.
And this is certainly the case with today’s America. The
National Council of Churches reported that “virtually
all mainline denominations” of Christianity—the Catholics, Baptists, Methodists,
Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians—declined in membership in 2010 (the
most recent year for which figures are available). With especially Asian immigration to America, non-Christian
religious groups are on the rise, and heaven knows that the subject of immigration
has a long history of bringing out the ugly in the American psyche. Although
quite tiny, groups in the Wiccan, Odinist, other Pagan, and Gnostic traditions
are also on the rise. All of this is discomfiting in the extreme to those who
wish to maintain the status quo.
What Is To Be Done?
Thing is, we can’t
maintain the status quo. The religious composition of America is going to
change; it’s only a matter of how, and when (both subjects of lively debate in
religious studies circles). What regular Freemasonry in America can do is
either to stay true to its heritage of religious tolerance, or allow itself to
be co-opted by those who wish to use it for their own religious ends.
I say that we stay true to our heritage. In that spirit, I
call on the Most Worshipful Grand Master of Freemasons in Florida to rescind
his own Ruling and Decision No. 3. I invite all
Florida Masons to join with me in calling for the same. (Those Florida Masons who wish to put this into the form of a Resolution should make themselves known through a message sent to rescindrnd3@yahoo.com .) It is no shame to admit
error; there is terrible shame in considering oneself above error.
What About Me?
So why am I getting so exercised about this? Frankly, that’s
no one’s business: My position should be judged on its merits, not on the
personal characteristics of its author. But because I don’t wish to be bothered
about this privately, and many times, I will open up here about my personal
stake in all of this.
I don’t have one.
I don’t have a horse in this race. I am a Christian who
believes in the existence of the ever-living and true God. I believe in the
immortality of the human soul, and in the literal, physical resurrection of the
soul into a Future Life. I hold the Christian Bible to be sacred scripture. I
firmly believe in following the Ten Commandments.
Specifically, I am a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints. Yes, you may know us as the Mormons,
and we do have our distinctive beliefs about divinity and scripture. In
Florida, for years I taught the Bible in Sunday School at the LDS congregations
in Winter
Park and Goldenrod
near Orlando. These days I attend the Manhattan
First Ward (LDS congregation), where I help people with family history, and
occasionally substitute-teach in church classes.
In brief, I am not directly touched by the R&D. So why
is the R&D such an issue for me?
Because I am a Freemason. The core values of Freemasonry,
including religious toleration, are very important to me. The R&D as it is
written is a threat to the long history of Masonic religious toleration. It is
thus a threat to the integrity of the Fraternity, and might even invite unpleasant
discussions involving withdrawal of recognition (the atomic bomb of Masonic
polity) from other Masonic jurisdictions.
You might think that unlikely. Guess again. Something very
much like this happened with the Grand Lodge of Utah back in 1984. For many
years, the GL of Utah forbade Latter-day Saints from becoming Freemasons, and
forbade LDS Masons from other jurisdictions to visit Utah lodges. Some other
Grand Lodges took issue with this, not because they were loaded with Mormons—no
Grand Lodge is—but because this exclusionary stance was a fundamental breach of
Masonic values. The GL of Utah blinked and changed its policies.
It’s only a matter of time until a Wiccan, Odinist, other Pagan,
or Gnostic Freemason—they certainly exist—from some other jurisdiction winds up
getting banned from visiting a Florida lodge. They’ll complain to their Grand Lodge, and soon enough we
all go to Masonic DEFCON 1.
I don’t want that to happen, either. Again, I appeal to MW
Grand Master Aladro to rescind Ruling and Decision No. 3. And I invite all
Florida Masons to join in that appeal.
- - -
I invite you to become a “follower” of this blog through the
box in the upper-right-hand corner of this page, to be informed of future
posts.
(Copyright 2012 Mark E. Koltko-Rivera. All Rights
Reserved.)
