by kimosabe » Fri Nov 04, 2016 11:03 am
Culture and society has changed, so must Freemasonry if it wants to survive beyond being a niche hobby of ever decreasing numbers. My initial thoughts since rejoining:
Freemasonry holds that it's star character died 3,000 years after the universe was created, aka 'Anno Lucis'. This is further upheld by using and dating Anno Lucis (AL) to around just over 5,000 years ago. Outside of Freemasonry, bezerk creationists also accept this Biblical date and they are rightly being removed from mainstream culture, because they are fundamentally wrong. It's all about the 'light' of education, knowledge and the resulting wisdom from that. Is it wise to teach and enforce patently incorrect religious dogma ? If so, do you expect people to change their understanding of reality in this sense, to match that of Masonic teaching or vice versa?
Freemasonry excludes women, while modern western culture is doing all it can to do the exact opposite. Mixed lodges, Women's lodges and Men's lodges must be created. Why is this still being treated as an impossibility? Tradition! Dig your heels in all you want but that won't stop cultural norms from changing.
Theism is declining in direct proportion to greater access to information ie discovery, education and knowledge. Membership of all Masonic and related orders is decreasing too. Atheism and notheism is increasing. Coincidence? It's okay to use moral teachings from religious texts but there are other ways. Freemasonry does not require religious indoctrination in order to work and swearing oaths on religious texts is unnecessary and often hypocritical. It's like accepting small print which no normal person either could or would read, so why do it? A person can be good and do good things without religion. The Church is no longer the driving force behind our culture even if it still acts as if it is.
Openness. Many Masons regard this as causing the death of Freemasonry, while in fact the opposite is true. Remaining closed and unreachable, except when you know someone who can get you in, isn't a great marketing strategy. It wants to lure men and only men, by pretending that it possesses many great secrets, while also asking modern men to ignore the modern ability to find out several thousand answers in a fraction of a second, via a search engine on their phone,tablet or PC. Why aren't Masons more overtly present in everyday life? We have everyone from royalty down to vaguely employed men among our number and we achieve amazing things for good causes. Being closed is disingenuous because it raises suspicion and puts people off the idea of joining. It also feeds the bezerk conspiracy theories which eventually filter down to common knowledge.
Ritual. Is the ritual more important than the man himself? 'The rank is but the Guinea stamp, the man himself the gold.' Many fail to reach the chair because of the exactness of ritual. Conveying correct meaning is what should be important, not pedantic dogma but without the latter, the former cannot happen. Fair? Reasonable? Self-defeating?
Those were my thoughts while reflecting on recent events in my Masonic career. I look forward to your responses.
Kimosabe