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The United States has been rocked over the past month with images and stories relating to massive protests, rioting and statue-removing furor set off by the death of George Floyd while being arrested in Minneapolis, Minnesota. As the weeks passed, the toxic confluence of the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns, anger, widespread unemployment, summer heat, pent up frustration, a breathless media, and the echo chamber of the Internet have all worked their worst influences to bring out some of the most socially divisive traits, allegations and arguments among Americans in more than 50 years.
Over the last couple of weeks, some enthusiastic or activist Masons have advocated for the fraternity to 'get on the right side of history' and support the Black Lives Matter movement. Some energetic Masonic keyboard artists have created graphics to combine the square and compass of Freemasonry with symbols of social activism, such as a clenched fist of BLM, confederate flags, the 'gay pride' rainbow,' or others. Such symbols have been making the rounds of the Internet, often with the exhortation to 'get on board' with one side or another, because, according to the bromide, 'silence is violence.'
With all due respects to my energetically demonstrative brethren, that's not the role of Freemasonry. It never has been, and it cannot be today. Its role is just the opposite.
Freemasons are human beings, and as individuals, we often take different sides in arguments. This is as it has always been throughout the history of the fraternity, sometimes violently so. When you examine the wars involving America and other Western nations in which Masons have fought in the last 300 years, you will find dedicated Freemasons on both sides of those conflicts. We tout the famous Masons who led the American Revolution, but there were plenty of loyalist Masons throughout the American colonies who fought and died to keep us British. (And, no, the Boston Tea Party was NOT a Masonic action, despite what you might have been told.)
Individual Freemasons may fight for the causes they support, but 'The Freemasons' do not take sides in social, political, cultural or religious conflicts.
Freemasonry teaches men to behave properly, to treat each other fairly, to live by the cardinal virtues and follow our precepts. But it does not tell Masons what to think, how to vote, how to worship God, what protests to march in, what products to boycott, or what bumper stickers to put on our cars. The sanctuary of the lodge is absolutely shattered by any member who seeks to abuse its good offices by assigning political or religious motives to it that do not exist.
Freemasonry is a force for good by espousing and teaching mannered toleration, reinforcing the cardinal virtues, and providing a sanctuary from the divisive nature of the profane world. If a Mason abuses the square and compass into a symbol that creates a deliberately divisive atmosphere within the Masonic community, to compel his brethren to also adopt his favored cause, or to erroneously create a false public perception of Masonry's motives - that Mason has erred, not the fraternity.
James Anderson listed in the Constitutions of Masonry our responsibility to the civil authorities (second only to God):
The Western world is currently caught up in a moment that measures diversity only by the hue of skin color - literally the one human trait that cannot be altered, controlled or changed, and therefore the very least important one - and not by diversity of thought, belief, achievement, or aspiration. That is how Freemasonry seeks to differ from the outside world. If we're doing it right, we welcome diversity among men in all its intellectual, theological, economic and vocational forms. But I have never in my 20 years as a Mason seen a petition for the degrees of Freemasonry that asked a man's race.
It is why, for instance, the meetings of lodges under the Grand Lodge of Israel are attended by Masons who are Jewish, Muslim and Christian, from all races, and from political persuasions that are diametrically (sometimes militantly) opposed to each other in that turbulent part of the world. Even the seal of their grand lodge reflects its uniquely Masonic diversity. It is the true meaning of meeting 'on the level.'
We say that Masonry becomes the 'center of union' because it conciliates true friendship among men who would for any other reasons have remained at a perpetual distance. Living through a tumultuous moment in time with heated passions on all sides doesn't imbue any of us with the ability to decide who is 'on the right side of history.' That's the nature of mass conflict and social unrest and upheaval. Only the lapse of time and history itself can make that judgement.
The famed 'Friend To Friend' statue at the top of this post, erected at Gettysburg by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, is a parable in bronze that demonstrates the unbreakable mystic tie between two Masons on opposing sides of a deadly conflict. Union General Winfield Scott Hancock and Confederate General Lewis Addison Armistead were personal friends and both were Freemasons. Secession wasn't a Masonic cause, and neither was preserving the Union. These two men had served and fought side by side in the US Army before the Civil War broke out. But Armistead said he could never raise his sword against his fellow Southerners and joined the Confederate Army in 1861.
Freemasonry is a force for good by espousing and teaching mannered toleration, reinforcing the cardinal virtues, and providing a sanctuary from the divisive nature of the profane world. If a Mason abuses the square and compass into a symbol that creates a deliberately divisive atmosphere within the Masonic community, to compel his brethren to also adopt his favored cause, or to erroneously create a false public perception of Masonry's motives - that Mason has erred, not the fraternity.
James Anderson listed in the Constitutions of Masonry our responsibility to the civil authorities (second only to God):
A Mason is a peaceable Subject to the Civil Powers, wherever he resides or works, and is never to be concern’d in Plots and Conspiracies against the Peace and Welfare of the Nation, nor to behave himself undutiful to inferior Magistrates ; for as Masonry hath been always injured by War, Bloodshed, and Confusion, so ancient Kings and Princes have been much dispos’d to encourage the Craftsmen, be- cause of their Peaceableness and Loyalty, whereby they practically answer’d the Cavils of their Adversaries and promoted the Honour of the Fraternity, who ever flourish’d in Times of Peace. So that if a Brother should be a Rebel against the State, he is not to be countenanc’d in his Rebel- lion, however he may be pitied as an unhappy Man ; and if convicted of no other Crime, though the loyal Brotherhood must and ought to disown his Rebellion, and give no Umbrage or Ground of political Jealousy to the Government for the time being; they cannot expel him from the Lodge, and his Relation to it remains indefeasible.Masons from the past who have been prominent leaders of revolutions (along with not-so-prominent ones who were on the losing sides of failed ones) never marched at the head of mobs wearing a giant square and compass on their chest or helmet, for good reason. Riots, revolts, revolutions, wars - these take place between nations or factions or masses or mobs of peoples. Freemasonry is practiced between individual human beings who seek to retain their individual honor and humanity, and to civilize and improve their town, their country, and the world by their own actions. Freemasonry is not a movement - it is a cultural institution that can only function if it is seen as a diverse, calm, civil, and evenhanded organization of a community's best leaders, regardless of their particular political affinities.
The Western world is currently caught up in a moment that measures diversity only by the hue of skin color - literally the one human trait that cannot be altered, controlled or changed, and therefore the very least important one - and not by diversity of thought, belief, achievement, or aspiration. That is how Freemasonry seeks to differ from the outside world. If we're doing it right, we welcome diversity among men in all its intellectual, theological, economic and vocational forms. But I have never in my 20 years as a Mason seen a petition for the degrees of Freemasonry that asked a man's race.
It is why, for instance, the meetings of lodges under the Grand Lodge of Israel are attended by Masons who are Jewish, Muslim and Christian, from all races, and from political persuasions that are diametrically (sometimes militantly) opposed to each other in that turbulent part of the world. Even the seal of their grand lodge reflects its uniquely Masonic diversity. It is the true meaning of meeting 'on the level.'
The famed 'Friend To Friend' statue at the top of this post, erected at Gettysburg by the Grand Lodge of Pennsylvania, is a parable in bronze that demonstrates the unbreakable mystic tie between two Masons on opposing sides of a deadly conflict. Union General Winfield Scott Hancock and Confederate General Lewis Addison Armistead were personal friends and both were Freemasons. Secession wasn't a Masonic cause, and neither was preserving the Union. These two men had served and fought side by side in the US Army before the Civil War broke out. But Armistead said he could never raise his sword against his fellow Southerners and joined the Confederate Army in 1861.
Armistead led his men against Hancock’s troops in the ill-fated Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, but was mortally wounded in the battle - by the irony of fate, Hancock was also wounded during the same battle. The statue depicts Union Captain Henry Bingham, also a Freemason and staff assistant to General Hancock, rendering aid to the fallen Confederate General. It was a bloody day - Henry Bingham himself had been wounded in the fighting, but he knelt by Armistead's side as he died. General Armistead is shown handing his watch and personal effects to be delivered to his friend and Brother, Union General Hancock. A final act of friendship among men who would for any other reasons have remained at a perpetual distance.
It's one of those lessons people can learn if statues aren't toppled by mobs.
It's one of those lessons people can learn if statues aren't toppled by mobs.
