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aedifico42| Religious Freedom: Under Seige in America

Posted at: 10:11 am

   Masons have stood for religious freedoms in America forever (well, forever for the US…which is about 232 years). We have always preached that ‘preaching’ (in Lodge) is bad Mojo.  We don’t disrespect anybody’s choices regarding how or to whom they pray.  It’s the Masons’ way to promote free religious worship and expression.

   A disturbing incident occurred recently in the US Congress.  More disturbing, though, is the reaction to the incident and the distorting our history…OUR Masonic History!

   We are proud to have among our ranks many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, and countless other Men who fought to create this country. The First Amendment to our Constitution, ratified many years after the Declaration was signed, signals the ideas of a secular government insofar as “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.”

   Masons were right there in the thick of it, and the principle stated above is one of our Craft’s founding principles as well.  In fact, it would be just as correct to say that, “The Grand Lodge shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Right? Of course! That’s what Masonry is all about!!

   So here’s the set-up. Not too long ago, a Hindu holy man (I don’t know his title, but I know it’s not Preacher or Rabbi) tried to give the opening prayer on the floor of the US Senate. He was interrupted by some very rude fundamentalist wackos (it doesn’t matter what religion they are from…they were rude and stupid to interrupt him) because they didn’t believe in his Way.

   Can you imagine the outrage of the Senators involved? Neither can I…because there was none.  The politicians nearby did nothing to shut-up the wackos and give this guy the respect that each one of us would have given him.  But that’s not the point of this blog. It doesn’t matter that nobody reacted to the mistreatment of an honored guest opening the session with a prayer…as sessions have been opened for over two hundred years! What matters is what some of our representatives are saying in response to that prayer…

   Before I go on, let me make one thing clear. This is not a political blog (I mean, like party-politics…it is inherently political, of course, because it has to do with Congress). This blog is a call to Masons, in order to wake us to the incredibly anti-Masonic sentiment that is overwhelming our country!

   The Nampa Press Tribune did a story where Representative Bill Sali of Idaho (party affiliation is unimportant), in decrying the prayer (he was speaking against what he called multiculturalism…thinly veiled religious intolerance is what it really was) given by the Hindu holy guy…well, you read the quote: “Sali said the United States was founded on principles derived primarily from the Scriptures. And he said drifting away from those principles could put the country in danger.”

   Did you catch that? ‘Principles derived primarily from Scriptures.’ Ok Rep. Sali…as a Mason, I’d like to know which scriptures you are talking about? The Vedas? The Koran? The Satanic Bible? How about the Book of Mormon?  You see, dear reader…the assumptions and arrogance of Rep. Sali permeate our own biases because we all know what ‘Scripture’ he is talking about.

   Our nation’s founders, many of whom were Masons, were quick to diminish the ties between the church and the State. They did believe in the S.A.O.T.U., to be sure. I seriously doubt that any of them were anti-religious or atheists.  But to claim that our founders based this country on religious principles is nonesense and anti-American. It is revisionist history to put religion at the core of America’s founding…when it was religious freedom that attracted the original colonists in the first place.  What’s worse, to claim that a bunch of Masons chose a specific religious text upon which to found the United States is plainly Anti-Masonic.

   But (you ask) how can it be that promoting the same VSL as a guide to our nations founding, which is the same book on the altar at my Lodge, is anti-Masonic? Masons are taught to follow the rule from that very same book, are we not?  Our lectures and ritual are replete with references and reverence for the Holy Bible!  AEdifico (I hear you asking) have you lost your mind?  By being Masons, our founding fathers HAD to have followed the principles out of that very same scripture…right?

   Wrong.

   Here’s why; Masons and other founders lived in a time when the religion and the State acted hand-in-hand. The founders were sons of the enlightenment who knew the dangers of promoting and preserving close ties between government and religious leadership. Many of our founding fathers (and even some of the Masonic ones) were not even Christians! They knew the value of religion to the individual, and honored it.  They were spiritual men who understood the value of worship and the importance that our faith holds to each one of us.  But insofar as public institutions were concerned, they felt and recognized that religion, regardless of the sect or creed, was dangerous when combined with the forces of government.

   Otherwise…why did they make the first words of the first ammendment so clear?

   But the worst thing is not the distortion and implication that our founders were religious dopes who had not an original thought in their heads, and that they had to draw our government’s principles out of scripture (by the way, which sermon was it where Jesus mentioned a tripartite government?). It is bad enough that this politician from Idaho has never read his history, but after he re-writes one of Masonry’s proudest achievements, he makes his version of events a REASON TO FEAR!

   After falsely framing our nation’s founding principles, Rep. Sali tells us that, “drifting away from those principles could put the country in danger.” Danger?!? What danger? How is my country in danger by drifting away from principles that you just used historical revisionism to invent?  Am I that big of an idiot to think that your new history is going to make me less-safe?  Rep. Sali…please tell me that you are not creating new domestic enemies by dividing our nation on religious lines!  That’s the most anti-American thing a sitting Congressman could do!  Re-writing history in order to divide people?!?  And doing it in a way that tramples the memory and work of our Masonic founding? 

   Is this guy nuts? Does he think that we are all that stupid to fall victim to his rhetorical stunts?  Sadly, there are probably lots of Masons that think the United States is a Christian nation. To be sure, a majority of Americans are Christian of one form or another, so statistically speaking we are a Christian nation.  But statistically speaking, most Americans are female also, so does that make us a Women’s nation?  A more accurate description (if we are focusing on the principles that framed our nation’s founding) is that we are a Masonic nation. 

   The United States of America was founded during the age of Voliaire and Franklin, Diderot and Russeau.  The United States of America, from a historical perspective, is a Nation founded by Enlightenment philosophers and their adherents…not by Christians.  They may have been mostly Christian…but those ideas were kept to the individual.  The ideas of the Enlightenment, one-man-one-vote, representative government, clearly defined powers and checks-and-balances, budgets and accountability, trial by jury, free expression, clear and respectful debate, the rule of law over all men…none of these are religious principles, they were Masonic in context at the time, and from them our nation was founded.

   Again, I am certain that many (if not most) of our founders were Christian. But what denomination? Did they follow the Pope in Rome? Anglicans? Lutherans? Puritains? Probably many others as well. But it was not the holy book that bound them together to form this political union…it was political ideas based in Freemasonry! 

   Of course religion was a big part of all of their lives, but they were smart enough to keep it at arms distance when establishing a nation of (all) the people, by (all) the people and for (all) the people.

   Masonic America should condemn the idea that scripture created America. Men created America. Thinking men who respected differences and united themselves around political principles that allowed each of them to worship as they saw fit…these are the men who created America. These men used (even though some of them may not have known it) Masonic principles to establish the greatest nation that this earth has ever seen!

   Why would we let our Masonic legacy fall to religious competition or the immature and sophomoric platitudes of the guy who would claim “My God can kick your God’s ASS!!”?!?

   Why would we ignore the Anti-Masonic (and frankly, Anti-American) sentiment of those who would elevate one religion over the other where politics is concerned? Have we forgotten our obligations? Do we have no courage to decry the idiocy that is permeating our national discourse?

   No Jew, Muslim or Buddhist is ever less of an American than I am simply because I am a Christian.  On the contrary, anybody who claims to be more American because of their faith is anti-American, and anti-Masonic.
 

  Our nation was based in reason and our founders thoroughly considered the role that religion should play in politics - a minimal one. We have opening prayers at the beginning of Congressional sessions because no man should ever embark upon any great or noble undertaking without first invoking the blessings of God. This is an appropriate expression of Masonic thought and teachings. We added “under God” to our pledge AFTER we survived a Civil War, WWI, the Great Depression and WWII.  And even then, we only added those words to distinguish us from the Atheist Communists - Not to establish this as a religious or Christian nation!  Again, Masonry permeates all aspects of American government, and American government is designed to prevent religion from permeating the same.

   But to distort history, and to de-Masonify this country, in a way that calls people to have inappropriate and unfounded fear of others because of their beliefs, is just plain bad. It’s anti-Masonic, anti-American…and when you think about it…it’s even anti-religious!

   This blog is going to upset some of our brothers. But what would we expect from mixing religion, politics and Masonry!

   I just hope that, by pointing-out the rhetorical trick used by that politician to subversively undermine our nation’s Masonic history, I have helped at least one Mason stand for our Craft’s proud history. My goal with this is not to change anybody’s mind, but to help identify why knowing our history and knowing our Craft makes it easier to see past the bull-crap.

   Religious freedom and free religious expression are under seige in America.  Masons should stand-up and, at the very least, take notice.  When all is said and done, it is our principles, expressed and executed by thinking members of our Craft, that will save this fraternity, and save this nation.

   May the S.A.O.T.U bless the U.S.A.!

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