Instead of talking to a grand master, or one or two of us regulars in the go-to lineup of high-visibility usual suspects who often get interviewed for these kinds of stories, Rosenberg put out an appeal for responses in the very active Reddit r/freemasonry community. She was especially interested in hearing from men under 40, and this article is the result.
Apart from flubbing the date of the English grand lodge's founding as 1710 instead of 1717, I daresay that this would be a decent article for grand lodges to link to in their social media as information from a dispassionate third party as to why young men would be interested in our fraternity. If your membership committee is hunting contemporary motivations for joining, give this a read.
It features responses from many brethren as to their personal reasons for joining the fraternity, and one thing glaringly missing from previous generations is mention of dad, grandad or other relative who had been a Mason. This may be the first cohort of men since 1717 that is seeking out a lodge independent of a family tradition. Nor will you find a single reference to George Washington, or any other famous Freemasons.
Whether you regard that as sad or not, it's the reality we have to deal with today.
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