JohnnyFlotsam
Premium Member
Yes. It's a rhetorical question, but one that (it seems to me) clearly needs to be asked.
Recent discussions in another thread have made it clear to me (yet again) that a good many of our Brethren labor under the mistaken notion that the VSL (specifically, the KJV Bible) upon which they took their Obligation is to be used as the authority when judging the thoughts, words and deeds of a Brother Mason. I'd like to offer them the benefit of the doubt and simply attribute this to habit; "cultural inertia" if you will. After all, even today, for men brought up in certain communities that book's divine authority is simply "a given". But we are Masons, and as such we are taught to recognize that "divine authority" is not universal in it's form.
Or rather, we are supposed to be taught as much. The alarming frequency with which I hear Masons insist that their VSL is the moral authority for all Masons, however, makes it clear that we are doing a poor job of teaching on the matter or (and rather more chilling) that we are teaching a lie, actually advancing the notion that the KJV Bible legitimately is that authority. This saddens me, deeply.
A man's choice to recognize a spiritual authority by which he should govern his life is fundamental requirement to even be considered for Freemasonry. The importance of that recognition can not be overstated. It is repeated often in our lessons and ritual. That any thinking person, much less a Freemason, could then trivialize this relationship with the GAOTU by assuming that it's "one size fits all" is, frankly, astonishing in it's arrogance. I need scarcely add that such arrogance is at the heart of much of our world's troubles today, but the irony that, even in the face of almost daily examples of fear and intolerance, any Freemason could exhibit the same bias, is profound.
So, what do we do about this. What can we do about this?
Recent discussions in another thread have made it clear to me (yet again) that a good many of our Brethren labor under the mistaken notion that the VSL (specifically, the KJV Bible) upon which they took their Obligation is to be used as the authority when judging the thoughts, words and deeds of a Brother Mason. I'd like to offer them the benefit of the doubt and simply attribute this to habit; "cultural inertia" if you will. After all, even today, for men brought up in certain communities that book's divine authority is simply "a given". But we are Masons, and as such we are taught to recognize that "divine authority" is not universal in it's form.
Or rather, we are supposed to be taught as much. The alarming frequency with which I hear Masons insist that their VSL is the moral authority for all Masons, however, makes it clear that we are doing a poor job of teaching on the matter or (and rather more chilling) that we are teaching a lie, actually advancing the notion that the KJV Bible legitimately is that authority. This saddens me, deeply.
A man's choice to recognize a spiritual authority by which he should govern his life is fundamental requirement to even be considered for Freemasonry. The importance of that recognition can not be overstated. It is repeated often in our lessons and ritual. That any thinking person, much less a Freemason, could then trivialize this relationship with the GAOTU by assuming that it's "one size fits all" is, frankly, astonishing in it's arrogance. I need scarcely add that such arrogance is at the heart of much of our world's troubles today, but the irony that, even in the face of almost daily examples of fear and intolerance, any Freemason could exhibit the same bias, is profound.
So, what do we do about this. What can we do about this?
