God and the Odd Fellows

by Christopher Hodapp

Over the last few years, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows fraternal organization has been attempting to grow by reaching out to a younger demographic. Some have been embracing their decidedly offbeat name as a welcoming place for men and women who proudly celebrate themselves as being 'odd', an image the organization didn't really have of itself before. Many IOOF lodges have tried to expand with this strategy, but some apparently fear that local lodge officers are doing so by shunning or ignoring some of the most basic precepts of the IOOF that date back since time immemorial. And the national Grand Lodge for the U.S. has just fired a warning shot across the collective bows of those who have been selectively dodging the rules.

The Odd Fellows' 300+ year history parallels Freemasonry in many respects. Formed in London in the 1730s, they are non-sectarian, but require a belief in a non-specific God or Supreme Being. Their name stems from the medieval period of the craft guilds in England, purportedly for craftsmen who didn't belong to a specific guild of their own (or who had no such guild to join). Like the Masons, they expanded worldwide during England's colonial period. They created their own national grand lodge in America in the 1820s, flourished during the Golden Age of Fraternalism, and their popularity briefly exceeded that of Freemasonry in the early pre-Depression 1900s. Part of that popularity had to do with the perceived snobbishness and expense of joining the Masons, and they unfortunately got branded in many minds as the "poor man's Masons." The core organization, the Odd Fellows, is closely allied with the women's' group known as the Rebekah's, which was created originally as a sort of women's auxiliary group, much like the Order of the Eastern Star's association with the Freemasons. Also like the Masons, when white lodges refused membership to black men in the 1800s, the parallel Grand United Order of Odd Fellows was formed by and for blacks in America, much like Prince Hall Freemasonry did.

In town squares all across the U.S., lodge buildings sporting the 'three chain links' of the IOOF were as commonly seen as the square and compasses of the Masons. In many towns, the Masons and the Odd Fellows even shared lodge buildings. Like the Masons, they have three 'degrees' of membership within the lodge: the Lodge, which teaches Friendship; the Encampment, which teaches Love; and the Patriarchs Militant (similar to Masonry's Knights Templar), which teaches Truth. Their symbolic charts look remarkably like the Freemasons, and are often mistaken for being Masonic. They even wear lodge aprons. And their requirements for membership were historically the same as the Masons: men only, of lawful age of consent, of good character, and recommended by other members. In efforts to attract new members in recent years, they lowered the age requirement to just 16, and began admitting women. In many states these days, women commonly serve as grand lodge officers. But one thing that hasn't changed is that they still require all members to declare a belief in Deity, regardless of their personal conceptions or religious affiliation.

And therein lies the source of the current problem. 

More and more younger people in America have shown a dramatic increase in having no religious beliefs at all, at best claiming to be 'spiritual, not religious' (whatever THAT means), and often without any concept of a supreme deity of any kind. (That trend may be receding after more than a decade - see the note at the bottom of this article.) Consequently, some IOOF lodges have been lax about admitting men (and now women) who openly say they have no real belief in deity, or who dodge the question entirely.

Last week, the Grand Secretary of the Odd Fellows issued a sternly worded warning to all IOOF lodges that the core tenets of Odd Fellowship have not changed, and that all members must declare as part of their petitioning process, in writing, that they have a belief in a deity. More than a few local lodges have been glossing over that requirement, or ignoring it altogether. 

According to the letter, initiates have been told to ignore the requirement (or it's not mentioned it at all), lodges have been failing to display the Holy Bible on altars during meetings, the role of Chaplain has gone unfilled, and required prayers have been ignored or eliminated from their degree ceremonies. (Like the Masons in most jurisdictions these days, multiple books deemed sacred by an Odd Fellows lodge's members may be on the altar at the same time, although the Christian Bible must be there, regardless. )

Apparently, the situation has become widespread enough that the Grand Secretary's office is demanding that the entire letter be read at their next regular meeting, and that the order must be mailed directly to every lodge member within 30 days. (Click images below to enlarge.)

There have been calls within Freemasonry for more than two centuries to eliminate our fraternity's requirement of a declaration of faith, as the Continental Masons of the Grand Orient de France did in 1877 – and there's no denying that the Grand Orient has long been the largest (and continuously growing) Masonic jurisdiction in that country. But as has been the case there, the elimination of such a vital landmark of the fraternity was followed by the loss of others, such as overt political involvement and the eventual admission of women into their lodges. And it must be remembered that France has had a contentious and tumultuous history regarding religion ever since their revolution in 1789, and even before. French society is not directly analogous to American society when it comes to widespread attitudes regarding religion and secularism. We can't simply transplant their brand of Masonry to our own without dramatically changing the core of what has made American Freemasonry so successful in the past.

Despite all of the many changes to their fundamental membership requirements over the last few years, Odd Fellowship in America continues to dwindle. In my own hometown of Indianapolis, with well over 1 million people in the metropolitan area (plus burgeoning populations in other nearby communities) there is a single lodge hall location on the city's far west side that remains open, and it's part of their statewide Grand Lodge office building. If their newsletter numbers are to be trusted, the tiny number of new members taken in nationwide last year are shocking. 

It doesn't appear that their many changes have borne fruit.

So is there a cautionary example for Freemasonry to avoid this sort of change, or to embrace it as we watch our own numbers continue to decrease (albeit at a far, FAR slower rate than the IOOF's)? 

• Should we remain true to our most basic foundations, or make alterations to appeal to men (and maybe women) who give us the go-by now? 
• If such changes were to eventually be made, how can we honestly believe that Masonic membership would suddenly become desirable to our critics? 
• Would the detractors of our own fraternity rush out to join a local Masonic lodge if we permitted women to join, dropped our faith requirement, and openly took on partisan political stands of one viewpoint or another? 
• Or would they simply shrug and say, "Well, it's about time you dinosaurs crawled into the 21st century, but I'm really not much of a joiner..." ?

It’s worth keeping an eye on what transpires with the Odd Fellows in the next few years as they grapple with these very challenges.

*NOTE: People with no definable religious beliefs have, in recent years, been referred to by researchers as the "nones." In Pew Research Center’s 2023 polling, 28% of U.S. adults were religiously unaffiliated, describing themselves as atheists, agnostics or simply “nothing in particular” when asked about their religion. That was lower than surveys done in 2022 and 2021, and identical to the statistics in 2020 and 2019. After more than a decade of dramatic growth in "nones" (from just 16% in 2007), religious leaders are cautiously optimistic that faith may be making a slow comeback in this country.

Pew describes the "nones" this way:

• Most “nones” believe in God or another higher power. But very few go to religious services regularly.
• Most say religion does some harm, but many also think it does some good. They are not uniformly anti-religious.
• Most “nones” reject the idea that science can explain everything. But they express more positive views of science than religiously affiliated Americans do.

Attempting to woo less than a third of the adult population in this country by removing the declaration of faith requirement may be a dwindling goal for the Odd Fellows. For an all-male fraternity like the Masons, that number shrinks to just about 15% of adults as a raw statistic, and that doesn't take into account the vast numbers of "I'm-not-a-joiner" folks who wouldn't give any such club a second glance. 

Call me a a bitter old curmudgeon who smells like fetid four day-old Brussels sprouts if you like, but altering your organization that dramatically to chase such a small number of possibly potential members seems like a fool's errand to this insouciant whelp...

Seniors, Loneliness and the Lodge

(Getty Images)

A study was just done in the United Kingdom that brings up a sobering problem, and Masonic lodges in particular need to take notice of it.  Grand lodges are single-mindedly obsessing about the Millennial generation, but the truth is that, right this moment, the biggest growth cohort for new Masons is currently the Baby Boomers - men over about 55 years of age.

If you read the Path Forward survey done by the Scottish Rite NMJ three years ago, you'll discover that our current TARGET now should be the Baby Boomers, aged 55-75. They are settled, with time and money, stable, more likely to be married and with older kids and grandkids, frequently bored now that their careers are slowing (or ended), and most important, still have a grounding in the virtues and morals from the remnants of any shred of religious traditions or connections from their own upbringing. Sadly, more Millennials don’t have that and are rudderless, which means more heavy lifting on our part to teach what they don’t have just to reach and retain them. That’s all why the Boomers are currently our growth target right now.

We already have a major percentage of Brethren over the age of 65, and more are joining every day. Moreover, if you look at the precipitous decline in the birthrates in the U.S. and most European countries over the last 40 years, the simple law of supply, demand and aging are all combining to further skew our demographics to the older range. As fewer of our own members have children and even get married less, by their retirement years they will have even less of a close support network than seniors have today.

Which brings me back to the study in Old Blighty. A group called AgeUK partnered up with Cadbury Dairy Milk for a study on aging in the U.K. They surveyed 1,896 seniors over age 65, and they veered into a situation that is alarming, depressing, or just plain sad, depending on how you look at it. 

And our lodges can actually do something about it, if only among our own members.

According to their survey, about 22% of seniors over 65 (around one in every five) will speak to no more than three fellow human beings in an average week. In the U.K. that translates into about 2.5 million seniors who don't have any human contact on a daily basis. Bore into it a little deeper and you'll see they found that 225,000 seniors there will go a whole week without talking to anyone face-to-face. And one out of eight seniors say they don't leave their homes at all because of loneliness.

So, sure. That 225,000 sounds like a lot until you step back and see that the UK has 67 million people. In that light, a quarter million is a rounding error statistic. But it isn't.

From the article Lonely Lives: Alarming Number Of Seniors Go Entire Week Without Talking To Anyone:

“Loneliness is a huge problem because retirement, bereavement and ill health mean many older people find they are spending a lot less time enjoying the company of others than they’d like,” says [Caroline Abrahams, charity director at Age UK]. “Loneliness can affect your health, your wellbeing and the way you see yourself – it can make you feel invisible and forgotten.”

About 40% of seniors say they’d feel more confident to head out each day if they knew their neighbors. Just the thought of someone stopping to chat with them brightens their outlook: 54% of respondents agree that even a short conversation with a neighbor or acquaintance would greatly improve their day overall. And a quarter of older adults say it makes them feel good when someone smiles or acknowledges them while waiting in line at places like the bank or grocery store. One in five would be thrilled if someone stopped to ask them how their day had gone.

Meanwhile, another survey of 2,000 people ages 16-45 in the UK shows that 55% of younger folks admit to worrying about being lonely in their elder years. With that in mind, two-thirds of this segment say they’re willing to do something to help boost the confidence of a lonely senior, but 37% worry that such a gesture wouldn’t be well-received. Another 30% feel too shy to spark up a conversation with seniors, 27% admit they aren’t sure how to help, and a quarter say they’re simply too busy themselves.

As you age, your connections with the past are more important than at any other period in your lifetime, and yet they get yanked away at an ever increasing rate. Talk to literally anyone over about 70 and you'll begin to hear the same thing over and over. "All my friends I've known are dead, dying, or moved far away to retire or be with their grandkids" (if they have any). It's highly probable that they've lost their spouse, all their contemporary friends, and even the house they lived in and treasured for 30 years gets replaced by a 8x10 room in a retirement community. That's where the loneliness sets in described in the study.

How many times have we all contacted a Brother whom no one in lodge ever heard of to pin a 50-year (or 75-year!) pin on their lapel, and heard him say,"Gee, I haven't been in a lodge in 45 years?" As a lodge Secretary, I heard variations time and again. "I still proudly keep my card in my wallet. But I couldn't work my way in, I've forgotten everything. And besides, I don't know anybody there. All the guys I joined with, and my mentor, the officers - all gone now. It's not even the same building I was raised in. Why don't you just mail me that pin?" 

You hear it over and over.

Freemasonry's core principles are Brotherly Love, Relief and Truth. If your lodge has a group of aged members you've never seen or heard from, make it a point to call them all. Visit them. Sit in their living room, hear their old stories, learn their histories, and invite to drive them to lodge events. Become their new mentor to bring them back to their lodge again. Ask them to just come and describe the old lodge to your members as your education for a night. Tell then they are the connection with the lodge's past that the rest of you need. Make them a star for the evening. 

Within reason, be a pest in the most fraternal way possible, because what you're really fighting against is his firmly held desire not to be a burden to anyone. Just like your old physics teacher said, objects at rest require far more energy to get moving. It goes for people, too.

Do the very same thing for your lodge widows, because those ladies may be every bit as lonely and bereft of human contact as your senior Masons. 

And don't just do it once, keep it up. Because in addition to actually engaging in Brotherly Love and Relief, you're also setting an example to your fellow lodge brothers to follow when the day comes that it's YOU sitting alone in a retirement home.

So This Is Sixty, Is It?

Eh?! 

As so many Facebook and private e-mail friends have piled on today to wish me a happy birthday, I'd like to thank each and every one of you. With more than 700 already, I've given up trying to go in and acknowledge every one of them.

That said, I now openly admit to turning 60 today, which I suppose is some sort of milestone or millstone, perhaps. In fact, with now 60 of them, I've basically been celebrating birthdays for two months of my lifetime. Sixty is the birthday that is supposed to signal the crossover from "middle aged" into full-fledged geezerhood. You go from "Get off my lawn" and "Aren't you too damned young to be a doctor?" straight into shopping for golf carts and having entire portions of your body independently deciding to give up the ghost and void the warranty. 

When you're 40, you start asking about Viagra. 

At 50, you start forging prescriptions for the stuff, or just demanding it outright with high decibel screams. 

By 60, you can't remember why.

From 60 onward there's more behind us than in front of us, and I've already been scoping out nice burial plots. With a view, just in case. And ostentatious headstone designs. Preferably involving solar powered LED lighting. After a lifetime of lowering property values in every neighborhood I've ever inhabited, I'd at least like to follow through in death. Deceased Russian mobsters seem to be a good inspiration in that regard.

Russian crime lords have the best headstones 

At prior ten year intervals, there have been parties or other special memorable events. When I turned 40, I had just petitioned for the degrees of Freemasonry and would become an Entered Apprentice in another three days. Of course, I had also just purchased my first Chrysler and had two sets of golf clubs in the trunk, so I thought life was all but over then. Just ten years later – on my 50th – I was being interviewed for my first Masonic television show by A&E, and had lunch with the video crew at Gadsby's Tavern in Alexandria. 

In the last ten years, I've survived obesity, a 14 pound goiter, heart failure, stomach cancer, partial blindness, partial deafness, drug interaction-induced insanity, and I can't smell anything anymore. By the way, nobody will tell you, but chemo makes your original teeth fall out at random moments, usually at a public dinner right before you are expected to make a speech. All in all, I feel pretty good. I answer to the name "Lucky."

That's how strange life can be when you aren't paying attention. You never know. No one ever knows. 

Which is why a longstanding, common theme of Freemasonry and most major fraternal organizations over the last three centuries has been, in order to live a better life, contemplate Death, and live every day as though it's your last one. That's what all of those skulls and crossbones are about. You find that you don't go to waste that way.

This year, Alice and I will mark this occasion quietly at home. With some of my past health issues, she's been handed a shovel by more pudding-faced doctors and told to take me for one last trip to Disneyland more times than I can shake an ear trumpet at. They even advised me to skip Epcot the last time. Notwithstanding, I'm still kicking and don't intend to shuffle off this mortal coil voluntarily, or anytime soon. I'm perfectly content with not joining the Great Majority until I am completely spent. Forged in the snows of February, we November babies are resilient.

Speaking of ear trumpets, I am scheming for the next millstone birthday, my 65th in 2023. Since that half-decade mark is when the Social Security Administration officially declares you to be a discarded fossil, I'm already planning ahead.

Evelyn Waugh's personal ear trumpet 

At 65, the English author Evelyn Waugh (best known for the two wildly different works, Brideshead Revisited and The Loved One) officially declared himself to be "old." At that point, his son jokingly bought him an old fashioned Victorian ear trumpet, and Waugh carried it the rest of his life. He was known to brandish the thing and punctuate his conversations with it, more than once poking an argumentative adversary in the chest with it. More to the point, when he didn't want to listen to someone anymore, he simply pulled it away from his ear and pretended not to hear them at all. I'm already looking for one.

In truth, I've got better odds than most, which has been bourne out by my surviving multiple and bizarre surgical escapades and fallacious diagnoses over the last ten years. My father made it to 93, and still had his hair and his own teeth when he went. Meanwhile, my mother who is about to turn 90 in January (also in full possession of her choppers and coiffed hair) has already called to demand that I get a haircut. She does this once a week, and has ever since I was four.

If I had an ear trumpet, I'd simply claim I can't hear it anymore.