Freemasonry: Coming out of the Cloisters

Since then, in many parts of the world, it has been possible for people to “come out of the closet” into a climate of tolerance underpinned by anti-discrimination laws.

…between jurisdictional identities
there are tensions on the lines
of religion, gender and politics

Indeed, the concept of openness and visibility is one of the tectonic plates, repeatedly colliding with the bedrock of some freemasonries and has often shaken Grand Lodges.

For many in masonry, the parameters of being a “good mason” are confined within a lodge-room.

Openness and visibility do not extend beyond a limited public recognition of charitability. Beyond the lodge-room, a mason may be recognised as a good citizen without the community aware of the underlying masonic influence.

Commentators on freemasonries have pointed to an inclusive/exclusive tension with which the movement wrestles; and, as earlier Candide’s Columns have indicated, freemasonries may yet have to realise a harmonised identity and role within civil society.

That freemasonries may be considered “broad chapels” is surely inadequate; Between jurisdictional identities there are fundamental tensions on the lines of religion, gender and political ideology. It is on the first of these, religion, which Candide wishes to make an initial and exploratory focus.

…it was not possible to be both
a gentleman and an atheist

For jurisdictions requiring belief in a, non-defined, supreme being, there is a prohibition within lodge-rooms on discussing the relative merits, or otherwise, of the tenets of religious dogma.

This is to ensure, peace and harmony; a problem not arising in jurisdictions without the requirement for such beliefs.

Unfortunately, religious differences between Grand Lodges led to fraternal non-recognition. Worse, freemasonries identifying with religion have occasioned the suspicion and hostility of the world’s leading revealed religions!

To some early masonic constitutionalists, it was not possible to be both a gentleman and an atheist: not an appropriate time for atheists to come out of the closet of unbelief. No matter how vague or ill-defined, belief was more respectable than non-belief. Agnosticism, – not knowing – enjoyed limited acceptance.

Perhaps freemasonries took their rise when religion was giving way to religiosity; that is to say, it was becoming a matter of outward conformance rather than inner conviction.

Perhaps freemasonries today are increasingly similar.

Why is it in some jurisdictions there is a requirement for a belief in a supreme being?

What is being achieved?

Why should a person professing belief in ill-defined concepts be included yet the exclusion of an exemplary citizen without such belief?

How many Freemasons who profess belief in a supreme being would recognise one if they fell over a hundred of them?

For some it seems being religious is just a matter of saying so, and for freemasonries to provide the moral compass.

From among freemasons professing belief in “a supreme being”, Candide has earnestly sought to ascertain a subjective meaning of the term.

The usual answer is that the belief admits of something outside of self. Family, neighbourhood, community, and society are outside of self.

For some, a supreme being exists outside of spacetime. Could there be a concept of supreme being, not extending beyond spacetime which may be and sufficient for a freemasonry requiring belief in a supreme being?

In some freemasonries there is a requirement to believe in the immortality soul and the resurrection of the body. Fortunately, English Freemasonry has never officially required such sectarian, divisive, dogma of its members.

For some it is difficult to understand how there can be amity between freemasonries where some require belief in a vague supreme being with those requiring belief in a specific religion.

This entails some members of a freemasonry in affinity with another would not be allowed to become members of the other but pragmatically ‘received’ as passive visitors.

One current masonic handbook uses the terms “a Supreme Being” and “The Supreme Being”. What is the difference?

Whilst not advocating a gospel according to Google, try a mind experiment. Type in the question Do you believe in The Supreme Being and Spell/Grammar check it.

Then commence a series of variations: upper and lower case, definite and indefinite articles; also with upper and lower-case S and B.

Which are correct/incorrect and why; perhaps this questions the validity of the question. Would it not be easier if ‘being’ was a verb.

Perhaps it is time for freemasonries to come out of the cloisters.

Moral lessons can be interpreted from ancient texts without belief in super-natural concepts or entities. Freemasonries provide a moral compass, derived from the workplace, and applied to the rest of human life; it was never intended as a movement for the acquisition of favour from agencies beyond spacetime.

The ritual is excellent if understood as secular playlets and not as religious liturgy. To have contemporary and future relevance, freemasonries must, explicitly and demonstrably, cut the apron strings that bind it to religion, come out of the cloisters openly and visibly.

Transparency is honesty: to say I do not know is perhaps the ultimate truth.

*This article has been updated from its original publication in ‘Candide’s Column’, Autumn 2009, Pietre-Stones Review of Freemasonry*