The show features interviews with Pennsylvania Brother Salmon Sheikh and Grand Master Jeff Wonderling at the Philadelphia Masonic Temple, and Grand Archivist Arturo DeHoyos at the Scottish Rite SJ's House of the Temple.
(Curiously, either the time period was too short or the editors didn't think it was important to point out just what the Scottish Rite is and how it's different from the local lodge brand of Masonry, so the audience is left baffled about Masonry and Supreme Commanders and the House of the Temple's sanctum of its Temple Room.)
It's mostly benign, superficial ('C'mon, show me the handshake!'), and apart from a brief attempt to gin up a little controversy over Brother Sheikh's short period of resignation over anti-Muslim insults in his first lodge, the show ultimately does no harm.
Not really worth signing up for a month of Fox Nation just to see this one, but it's at least good natured. Or to borrow the expression from the Encyclopaedia Galactica, "mostly harmless."
While I'm happy that this production is mostly positive, I feel that Grand Master Wonderling missed a golden opportunity to make Freemasonry appealing rather than just try to get out of the corner. Instead of the same back peddling we have done for 40 years by saying "it's just a business meeting" he could have actually highlighted why we exist and what we offer other than business meetings. Perhaps he doesn't understand that some lodges DO use incense, and do so because they acknowledge the transformative possibilities within Freemasonry. He created a false dichotomy in his defensiveness instead of saying "well actually we do sacrifice something in our lodges- our egos. More people should try it."
ReplyDeleteDru Wood PM
Claremont No. 436