A Brother E-Mailed me a response to Greg Stewart’s article on the Mercedes-Benz Super Bowl Ad which I had sent him.
“So we go online and speak out against this atrocity and in doing so we link ourselves to the myth. How many years had masonry survived with this type of public outcry? Unless we begin to teach masons to live the lives taught by our fraternity and stop trying to be a social icon, Masonry will continue to be ridiculed. It is only when you can show that the myth is in fact a myth and that we prove it every day by the way we live our lives, that Freemasonry will regain it honored reputation. The more we bend to clamor in public, the more the critics come after us. If we disregarded the critics they have no one to argue with, thus the argument dies for want of a debate. Sadly you and others do not understand this. But I urge you to really reflect on it. A well spent life is mightier than the sword or any media response.”
I guess I just don’t get it. At least he thinks I just don’t get it. But I would say that he doesn’t get it.
This is the attitude of Freemasons of 50 and 100 years ago – never talk about the fraternity, never mention to anyone that you are even a Freemason. Everything about Freemasonry is secret. Not one word about the Craft should escape a Mason’s lips.
This is one of the reasons Freemasonry missed many good candidates back then. A guy 50 years old would finally say to his buddy, “I have been waiting 20 years for you to invite me to join Freemasonry. How come you never asked me?”
Old time Masons never asked another to join. Those who desired to join Freemasonry had to ask a Mason. Some Masons would demand that they ask three times before they would consider recommending them.
Anti Masons that spread lies about Freemasonry are not to be answered. Leo Taxil’s Masonic hoax, even after he recanted and admitted he made the whole thing up, was still believed by many people because Freemasons never would refute it.
“Turn The Other Cheek Freemasons” do not believe that disputing or refuting lies about the Craft are a productive use of Masonic resources. They do not believe that Masons should stoop to the level of their detractors. Masons are above all that, they say. What Masons need to do is lead by example and all these crazy charges will just die the death of untruth all by themselves.
And problems within the Fraternity, well we don’t talk about them either. The refusal of some Masons to allow African Americans in their Lodges, their constant black balling of any applicant who isn’t Christian, Grand Masters expelling Master Masons without a Masonic Trial, Grand Masters closing Lodges and pulling charters without reason or recourse, are all problems that Brethren must solve without discussing these problems in public. “Airing dirty laundry” is definitely a no-no with “Turn The Other Cheek Freemasons.”
And if these problems emanate from other jurisdictions, well sticking one’s Masonic nose into other people’s business is a double no-no. That’s their business, that’s their problem.
And so stand “The Turn The Other Cheek Freemasons.” Withdraw from society, have nothing to do with it, let people do what they may but Freemasonry will live on, no matter what.
But it won’t. The younger generation will never join an organization that refuses admittance to non Whites and non Christians. It just ain’t going to happen. And who would join an organization that is in league with the Devil? And someday soon Malecraft Freemasonry will have to change its policy on women. The fact is Mainstream Masonry is dying a slow, agonizing death.
THE MERCEDES-BENZ HOAX IS A 21st CENTURY REMAKE OF THE LEO TAXIL HOAX.
Freemasonry was never designed to be a Monastic Brotherhood or a Cloistered Sect. Paul Revere is rolling over in his grave right about now. So is Joseph Warren who died at the battle of Bunker Hill fighting for liberty in America. As a Grand Master he used Freemasons to transmit anti British communications among the Patriots.
Not answering your critics is naïve and very detrimental to your cause. The big lie repeated over and over again without refutation will gradually stick. No one knew this better than Goebbels, Hitler’s Propagandist Minister.
“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”- Goebbels
The fact is turning the other cheek doesn’t work. This is the real world where the truth doesn’t always become self evident. Sometimes we must help the truth be known. Failure to do so only empowers our enemies. And the big lie is believed because it must be true if no one will stand up for the truth and dispute it. People interpret silence as acceptance of guilt. If you were unjustly charged with sexually molesting a child, would you remain silent in hopes the truth will win out or would you deny the charges and do everything you could to refute them?
“Turn The Other Cheek Freemasons” are hurting this beloved fraternity and are hastening the demise of the Craft.
Way to go. Give us the name “Turn the other cheek Freemasons” I will accept that moniker. After all that is what the bible tell us to do. Should we turn our back on that too. All I can say is go ahead appeal to the public, then come back in ten years and tell me what results you have gained. While I on the other hand will teach masonic ways and lessons and bring people even one at time to know that the clamor is from those who have no idea what Freemasonry stand for or teaches. Maybe in ten years I will have only brought a few to see right and truth and what masonry is, but I will do it with the way I live and not a soap box in the corner of a public square. Nor will I go the the media to tell them how great we are, or how much wrong is in the world and wrong with Masonry. No my Brothers, I am afraid you have place the wrong name on some good men. There are thousands of cases where good masons have bound together to right a wrong. you just stated a few son them in your rebuttal. We did use masonry to help us make America what it is. but we did not broadcast it to the British and tell them how wrong they were treating us. We did it by bring together med on like minds and creating an unbeatable force that won us a country.
We met in secret to bring about necessary events that helped us win.
Turn the other cheek masons huh? We shall see in ten year of so who had done the most good. The loud and boisterous who do nothing but talk. or the quiet brother who lives what masonry teaches and sees not color differences, an who in secret plot to right the wrongs of those who came to power with out knowing masonry, who got there offices by bribery and politicking. Such as Grand Masters and Grand Lodges who forgot they were created to support the subordinate lodges.
Ten years is not so long for me to way to see the outcome. But in the long run, I and those like me will bring more people to light than all the forms of rucks or legislation you can enact.
That’s my take in it.
ole Blake
Amen to everything you wrote! I couldn’t agree more. Make it all public when a lodge is using its “power” and doing evil. Show the public what you stand for! Show by example what men are made of! Don’t hide from the world. Things that are done in secret already have the appearance of wrong doing. Don’t leave it up to guesswork for people like me. I want to belong to something bigger than myself but too much confusion and too much secrecy… I want to know what Freemasons Stand For? I live by “If you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything”. A man with no identity is lost! I want to belong to something Good! Come out of hiding. Show yourselves and show yourselves honorable! So much fear of the unknown… If some man in a suit walked up to you on the street and offered you a pill and said that it is good and it will be the best thing you ever did, would you take it? The people that answer “No” are the people that you need in your Fraternity….
Blessings,
Gary
Somewhere in between meekness and the hard line exists a prudent search for and demand for what is just and proper. The freemason is supposed to be a perpetrator of what is right and just and a defender of justice and equality of all other paths so that all individuals seeking light on their own paths are not stymied by those who would propagate ignorance and cast darkness over the paths of the individual causing that individual to fall and be delayed on their own search for truth.
It seems a difficult task to defend ourselves as Masons when Masonry is itself a defender of ALL truth no matter it’s origins. Masonry seems best exemplified by what it really is rather than defended on what it is not.
My view is, unless there is an injustice that has occurred by someone wearing what looked to be a Masonic ring, then there may not be a “thing” to actually defend?
Implications of devil worship and “sin” always seem to come from groups who band together in their own form of darkness or ignorance in order to seem as if they hold THE TRUTH, when in fact it seems dogma has stalled their own progress towards truth.
I really don’t know how we can defend Masonry from that. But I know we can shine light on our own search for truth in all of its forms.
The bible also says that if a man takes your cloak, you should also give him your tunic. Well, nobody has stricken anybody nor stolen a cloak, so in this context I suppose a strike could be synonymous with perpetuating a falsehood. Then perhaps stealing our cloak could be synonymous with insulting our character? Perhaps giving them our tunic could be surrendering our dignity?
I think you have hit upon a couple of powerful observations here, and they almost go unnoticed in the larger context of the topic of turning the other cheek.
You stated that “[T]he younger generation will never join an organization that refuses admittance to non Whites and non Christians. It just ain’t going to happen. And who would join an organization that is in league with the Devil? And someday soon Malecraft Freemasonry will have to change its policy on women. The fact is Mainstream Masonry is dying a slow, agonizing death.”
The other part of this issue is that younger people will not join, or if they do, long remain in, any organization that stiffles their freedom to criticize how things are done. It is for this reason as well, that the mainstream grand lodge system is gasping its last breath.
I FOR ONE—WILL NOT LET A GRAND LODGE NOR A SUBORTANT LODGE MAKE UP UNTRUTHS ON ME—SLUR MY FAMILY NAME—KEEP MY PERPETUAIL DUES UNJUSTLY—EXPELL ME–AND GET AWAY WITH IT—IM A GOOD MASON—I WORKED 20 YEARS FOR MASONRY–VERY HARD—I HAVE NEVER ASK FOR HELP ON THIS –IM NOT NOW—BUT IM ALLSO NEVER GOING TO ==TURN THE OTHER CHEEK===IF THESE MEN ARE SO GREAT==LET ME ASK THIS ==WHY DONT THEY TURN THE OTHER CHEEK?==ITS BECAUSE TO ME THEY ARE DEVILS—IM DOING SOMETHING ABOUT THIS–IM TELLING THE TRUTH ON THEM—THERE ARE A LOT OF COWARDS OUT THERE THAT WANT TO SWEEP THIS UNDER THE RUG—GOOD LUCK–AT PRETENDING YOUR A MASON
After all that is what the bible tell us to do. Should we turn our back on that too.
Not if it’s your book.
But do you think that Masons who are not Christians should be required to abide by the rules of a Christian Volume of Sacred Law?
I disagree that Freemasonry is dying. I do agree that it is losing members. There is a vast difference between the two. And if what I see of the young people en mass today. I am not at all sure that I would want them to join.
After all there is a character requirement. Is it not the inner qualities that qualify a man to be a mason. Today among the young vulgar language is the norm not the rare. Loose morals abound as well as pornography.
However I do have to admit that making masons on sight with out regard to the character, might just have it’s advantages. The Mormon Church started that way and today is the second largest church in the world. Joseph Smith was made a mason and with in a month started his own temple and made master masons on sight in one day. Then of course he was expelled from the craft, but that did not stop him from forming a church using masonic ritual as guide lines. Today the Mormons have a great following. So Maybe you are right to take it public and make as many masons as possible. As for me. I will quietly go about doing what I believe masonry teaches me to do. History will tell the story in later years. The outcome will be known to all.
Regards
ole Blake
I don’t think any of us are your virtual opposite Ole Blake. None of us do not believe that teaching, mentoring , learning, studying and practicing the Craft are noble pursuits that have to be a part of Freemasonry. Then putting all this into practice by leading exemplary lives, well that’s part of being a Mason also and a part we wholeheartedly endorse. We don’t disagree with anything you have to say until you want to make us a secret, no comment organization.
We,as Masons, live in society not in a Monastery. We cannot divorce ourselves from the problems and the goings on of society all around us. And how we interact with society will in a large part determine how well we can succeed in influencing it and in making more good men better.
So we will continue to do everything you do in our practice of Masonry plus we will interact with society for the benefit of mankind and in order to get our message out to the widest number of people and to attract as many good men as we can to sign on to our way of life.
Freemasonry was never designed to be a Monastic brotherhood or a cloistered sect. It doesn’t enter the arena of partisan politics and sectarian religion but it is called to be a light to humanity and to extend an arm of compassionate assistance here and there. It can try to make a better world by promulgating the virtues of the Craft to society while at the same time it mentors, instructs, educates and teaches individual Masons one at a time.
It can do both and by working in both arenas it can dispel the myths and misinformation that swirls around a secret institution that is held in suspicion merely from the fact that it is secret. Freemasonry really has no secrets. What it has is a way of life offered to humankind. The act of offering it is not a violation of traditional Masonic tenets.
A few men with a mission can do more than a multitude of public clamoring
How do you remove a Grand Master that has gone wrong or the officers that follow him. As far as I know only by vote can the be removed. It then remains for a few brethren to find support for the elections and vote them all out of office. That brings on another problem: Finding replacements.
Take a look at the problems in Virginia, or the problems with Florida’s new found ideas of what you can or can’t believe in, Or maybe the wrongful ways of the Grand Master of Arkansas. No public outcry has done anything to quell these arrogant men who apparently were never taught the lesson of masonry and were allow not only to slip through the west gate of the local lodges but were able to rise to wear the purple of the fraternity. More then their wrong doing is the fact that master masons allowed them to do it. Now you want to bring it to the public to try to do what no one was willing to stand up to do in the lodges. No my brethren, the problems will not go away with public outcries nor court room battles. It has to be solved by real mason using what has been taught us.
And I do believe that the fraternity was to be more monastic than public.
It was only meant for those men who could meet the requirements of morality and character and share a common belief that there was something greater than mankind working among us.
What does masonry teach that mankind has not been trying to teach all along but failed. Masonry succeeds because of the secret way we teach. We impress it upon the mind if we do it right.
But then my words fall upon deaf ears. For we were once told “he that hath eyes let him see, and he that has ears let him hear”
Never was masonry meant to be a community pillar or national icon, It has and always will be at the very bottom line an educational institution. It’s goal is to turn out men that will be able to live in morality and truth.
A great many masons today believe that the only teaching or lesson that masonry has are to be found in the ritual, but the ritual is on a bare hint at an index.
Pleas when it happens show me the good results of bringing a masonic wrong or matter to the public eye and ear. I have yet to see it do any good but, I have seen it do much to harm the craft. Did you mother or father publicize your punishments to the community or were they ashamed of your bad conduct and sought to correct it privately. Do you suppose that bring your family’s wrong doing to the public will help them to regain a good reputation or will that publicity hound them for the rest of their lives whether or not they were right or wrong. Accuse a man of being a child molester and he could be as innocent as heaven itself but the mere fact of it being brought to the public will tarnish his reputation for life.
I don’t see things according tr ole Blake’s way, I see the reputation and effectiveness of the media on on the craft. And the picture is not pretty. The internet abounds with our wrong doing, devil worship and plans to take over the world. It is only by teaching masons how to live by the masonic code that the hearsay will be dispelled. Public court room battles and news media will continue to ruin the good we have done.
But only time will really tell that story. I guess I an not educated enough to explain what is happening.
So we each go our own ways an see what truly works for the craft.
Regards
ole Blake
Really Ole Blake you are most naive. Perhaps you have never dabbled in Grand Lodge politics. You can’t vote to reverse what a tyrannical Grand Master wants or does. If you try to make a motion from the floor he will gavel you down and not allow the matter to be brought up. If you submit a proposal in writing for Grand Lodge consideration at a voting session it will be declared written improperly – resubmit it next year. When the Grand Master finds out who you are – plotting against him – he will expel you on the spot without a Masonic trial. If anybody objects to his methods he will expel them on the spot without trial. If a number of “rebels” are found to be all from the same Lodge he will come to said Lodge and pull the charter, close the Lodge down and expel multiple Brothers on the spot with no Masonic trial.
Do you have any idea how hard it is for citizens in North Korea or Iran who want to reform their government? Those who dissent disappear, never to be heard from again. And those who dissent in a Grand Lodge are no longer Masons and cannot get reinstated anywhere else in the world.
Have you no idea what is going on in these jurisdictions that abuse their power? Theory is theory but reality is reality. And the reality is that the Brethren today – in 2013 – cannot institute changes and accomplish reforms through elections. My God man how is it that you do not know this?
When it became evident in the 1960s that equal rights for African-Americans was going to be the law of the land and a number of Southern states would not comply was it sound policy to leave the matter in the hands of the states to change in due time? Is that why President Eisenhower sent federal troops into Little Rock, AR to open the schools to Black children? Is that why we subsequently had the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that made racial integration the law of the land throughout every state in the Union? And here it is coming up on 50 years later and Mainstream Masonry is still not allowing African-Americans to be raised in some Lodges.
I do not want the general public to solve our problems. I never said I wanted to bring in the public. That’s your twisted interpretation. I do think that we need to involve Masons from other jurisdictions to solve some of these problems. American Freemasonry cannot allow the fraternity to be rewritten, remade and transformed into something else in another jurisdiction.
What Mainstream Masonry can do is to pull recognition from the rogue Grand Lodges now operating outside Masonic law, in violation of their own Constitutions and God’s law.
And Mainstream Masons in these rogue Grand Lodges can in mass demit and go somewhere else in the nation to practice their Freemasonry thus decimating tyrannical Grand Lodges.
American Masons can and will solve Masonic problems in all jurisdictions. But the general public is not going to play a part in these matters at all. They may read of some of our problems as we try to rally the troops nationwide but they have no bearing on the situation. What we publicize is for Masons only to act upon.
Problems do not solve themselves, nor do they just go away. All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. You would rather do nothing then bring a fight out into the open. But you are shoveling sand against the tide and your way will doom American Freemasonry.
I find it odd that anyone opposes challenging falsehoods told about our fraternity other than elder member stubbornly set in their ways when this was common practice in the past. What harm do we cause by responding to slander and libel? Is doing so advertising our numbers and that we’ve achieved affecting change for the good in the history of this world? Is it propping us up by claims of all the good we do and have done? We are given a charge not to engage they who would besmirch our name. The wording of such is quite generic and, like many of our veiled words, means more than the simple way stated. We’ve always been charged to be peaceable citizens and to comply and not trouble the government we live under. That to is more than it seems, had they followed that charge literally, the United States may never have been born. This is no different, the charge to not engage purpose is to ensure that we don’t stoop to their level and besmirch the name through our own lips and actions. It means do not give an eye for an eye. But it also doesn’t mean sit back and take it on the jaw either. To combat ignorance with knowledge is a good thing. To think standing up for for the fraternity will not bring in the right people is makes little sense. To think that doing so will not allow us to properly teach the craft and pass on the light is also foolish.
We’ve seen what allowing these people to say what they will and have us remain silent can do. It can result in our fraternity having to lay low, to go in hiding, to be banished in certain countries. It can result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of us. Maybe had our brethren of the past not stood by in silence while others shouted these atrocities to any and all that would listen, we would have escaped such fates in the past. We’ve endured the test of time because of our virtue and because we are the men who will not stand idly by when our family, friends, neighbors and Brothers need us.
I find it odd that anyone opposes challenging falsehoods told about our fraternity other than elder member stubbornly set in their ways when this was common practice in the past. What harm do we cause by responding to slander and libel? Is doing so advertising our numbers and that we’ve achieved affecting change for the good in the history of this world? Is it propping us up by claims of all the good we do and have done? We are given a charge not to engage they who would besmirch our name. The wording of such is quite generic and, like many of our veiled words, means more than the simple way stated. We’ve always been charged to be peaceable citizens and to comply and not trouble the government we live under. That to is more than it seems, had they followed that charge literally, the United States may never have been born. This is no different, the charge to not engage purpose is to ensure that we don’t stoop to their level and besmirch the name through our own lips and actions. It means do not give an eye for an eye. But it also doesn’t mean sit back and take it on the jaw either. To combat ignorance with knowledge is a good thing. To think standing up for for the fraternity will not bring in the right people is makes little sense. To think that doing so will not allow us to properly teach the craft and pass on the light is also foolish.
We’ve seen what allowing these people to say what they will and have us remain silent can do. It can result in our fraternity having to lay low, to go in hiding, to be banished in certain countries. It can result in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of us. Maybe had our brethren of the past not stood by in silence while others shouted these atrocities to any and all that would listen, we would have escaped such fates in the past. We’ve endured the test of time because of our virtue and because we are the men who will not stand idly by when our family, friends, neighbors and Brothers need us.
Just briefly… It takes very little wrong, even if only rumors, to wipe away a world of good deeds. It’s normal for us to remember the bad moments in our lives vs all the positive things. I believe a “good name” is worth fighting for. That’s all we really have is our identity. Ask a man who he is and he will often tell you his Craft or Affiliation or Title before he will give you his name…