Casting the First Stone

British author sees threat to society
from religious and political intolerance

Excerpts from Brother Gilbert's new book, Cast-
ing the First Stone, distributed in the U.S.A. by
Element, Inc., 42 Broadway, Rockport, MA
01966. A full review will appear in the next issue.

By ROBERT A. GILBERT
Copyright  1993 by R. A. Gilbert
All Rights Reserved
Reprinted by permission

In an ultimate sense we are all depen-
dent on one another, and it serves no
one's best interests to oppress his fel-
lows. The need for global cooperation
to husband our food and energy re-
sources is recognized by responsible
governments and individuals alike, but
an awareness of that need has not fil-
tered through to those in thrall to the
forces of unreason. Nor will it do so
without a conscious and determined
effort on the part of all who believe in
political, economic and religious free-
dom, as we strive to overcome the re-
surgence of ethnic and religious
rivalries and hatreds that have fol-
lowed the collapse of the monolithic
power blocs of the former Communist
world.

The dreadful alternative is to turn
inward and to build isolated, mutually
hostile societies propagating their own
brands of mutually exclusive religious
and philosophical "truth." The risk of
such a scenario is all too real: the mur-
derous hatreds bringing chaos and de-
spair to the former Yugoslavia are
witness to that. And as our energies
are occupied with separating physi-
cally warring peoples--who would
not be so busily killing each other if
their former rulers had practised the
tolerance and equality they so emptily
preached--they are turned from the
task of feeding millions who needlessly
starve .

Compared with the magnitude of
these tasks, the effort of encouraging
tolerance and mutual respect among
those who differ over religious beliefs
within a stable democracy may seem
of little account. But unless true toler-
ance is encouraged--and taught by
example--we shall see the flowing
of bitter sectarian strife as the seeds
of intolerance and bigotry grow and
our own society becomes ever more
divided and divisive. That those seeds
continue to grow throughout Britain,
Europe, North America and all the
supposedly democratic world is all too
evident.

The pernicious practices that consti-
tute "Political Correctness" have be-
come endemic in American academic
life, blighting careers and devaluing
true scholarship, while in Britain the
supporters of traditional religious be-
liefs and practices face the venom of
unreasoning and self-serving oppo-
nents who seem to seek change sim-
ply for its own sake. All that this
achieves is an equally hysterical back-
lash that drives rational and humane
men and women from both university
and church, impoverishing both edu-
cation and institutional religious life.

It is admittedly difficult to with-
stand naked hatred, but if we wish to
see humanity maintain all that makes
it deserve the name, we must stand up
and fight against unreason and in-
tolerance, whether it be religious or po-
litical. We shall not overcome the
irrational forces we face by acknowl-
edging bigoted beliefs as true; we must
face them with love, but love tempered
by reason. Only by understanding
their true nature can we identify the
falsity of their reasoning and thus be
able to display them to the world for
what they are and so defeat them.

It would be quite wrong to claim that
religious fundamentalism, whether
Christian or of any other faith, neces-
sarily leads to persecution and repres-
sion, but by its very exclusivity it
contains the seeds of intolerance
within itself and often finds fertile soil
in those who embrace fundamental-
ism. Nor can it be justly claimed that
religious fundamentalism poses, at
present, a general threat to the civil lib-
erties of the entire population of the
Western world; but on many occasions
in the past, social pressures in small
and self-contained communities have
generated religious fanaticism that has
led to physical persecution and even
to death.

The most obvious example is the
false accusation, persecution and un-
just punishment during the 16th and
17th centuries of innocent men,
women and children in many parts of
Europe, and in New England, on
charges of witchcraft. Despite many
thousands of books written in a vain
attempt to prove the reality of "witch-
craft" and the crimes of the accused,
no shred of evidence has ever with-
stood the cold light of objective anal-
ysis. But the accusations were made,
the "witches" were found guilty, and
they suffered because of the fear, envy
and misplaced religious zeal of their
peers.

Could such events happen again?
Alas, they could. Political repression is
all too real, even in Western democ-
racies.

Faced with the presence of what
are perceived as alien cultures and
creeds in a wider society increasingly
beset by social tensions, and an unpre-
dictable political and social future,
there are many in all Western countries
who seek intellectual and spiritual ref-
uge in the certainties of simplistic and
dogmatic versions of their traditional
faiths; that is, in religious fundamen-
talism.

This shift in religious beliefs and
behavior toward fundamentalism is
not confined to Christians: it can also
be observed among Muslims and Jews,
but as the majority of people in west-
ern Europe and North America are
nominally Christian, it is Christian fun-
damentalism in particular that is con-
sidered in this book, although a
parallel rise in intolerance within the
Jewish community cannot be ignored.
It must be stressed again, however,
that fundamentalism does not neces-
sarily lead to intolerance, and by no
means all fundamentalists would be in
favor of persecuting those of other
faiths. But enough of them are intol-
erant, and do persecute those who do
not conform to their canons of moral
and religious rectitude, to constitute a
real threat to religious freedom, and to
justify an analysis of their beliefs, aims
and actions.

I do not seek to proselytize on be-
half of any denomination, movement
or specific belief. I do not condone any
action that is contrary to the law of the
land, and I do not seek to endorse the
specific beliefs, practices or social and
spiritual attitudes of any individual,
body or institution referred to in this
study. But I do hold that every one of
us has an inalienable right to choose
his or her own set of social, philosoph-
ical and religious beliefs; to propagate
those beliefs within the law; and to en-
gage in whatever form of worship and
lifestyle--again within the law of the
land--they may imply.

It is necessary to expose the fear,
the ignorance and, on occasion, the de-
liberate deceit that lies behind these
examples of persecution in the name
of faith. Only by replacing ignorance
with knowledge, and deceit with the
truth, will the fear be overcome. Only
then will there be any hope that the
persecutors might cease to persecute,
and freedom of faith become a reality
in our supposedly pluralist society.

The greatest venom is reserved for
institutions perceived as esoteric, or
"occult" Orders. Some of them, such
as the Fraternity of the Inner Light,
and its parent body, the Hermetic Or-
der of the Golden Dawn, are just that,
and while their activities may not merit
the wrath of fundamentalists in the
eyes of the world, one expects it. The
same should not be true of Freema-
sonry.

Although it is a secular Order,
with between five and six million
members worldwide, Freemasonry is
perceived by fundamentalists to be a
religion. It exists to promote universal
tolerance and social harmony, its ba-
sic principles being brotherly love, re-
lief (i.e., charity in its broadest
interpretation, as an active support of
the community in every possible way),
and truth. And every Freemason must
believe in God, although he does not
have to accept any specific faith or de-
nomination; indeed, there is not the
slightest reason why he should, be-
cause Freemasonry is not in any sense
a religion: it does not promote or ad-
vocate any specific religious doctrines
or dogmas, and it does not engage in
public or private acts of religious wor-
ship. Nor can there be said to be, in
any sense, a 'Masonic God' as such;
the individual Mason is required to be-
lieve in God, but it is for his own con-
science to determine how he under-
stands and worships God, and how
he conceives both his personal and
communal relationship with God. A
body founded on tolerance would not
and could not dictate to its members
what religion they must follow; equally
it neither could nor would accept
among its members those who were
dedicated to evil doing and to the wor-
ship of Evil personified. More suc-
cinctly, no Freemason can also be a
Satanist .

But this is precisely what its funda-
mentalist detractors say Freemasonry
is: Satanism. They have been saying it
since the early 18th century, and the
same distortion, error and deceit reg-
ularly recurs. Thus Edward Decker, an
American Baptist minister from Wash-
ington state, can say:

The Mason who would call him-
self Christian and allow himself to
partake of a ritual resurrection by
the power of Lucifer is no Chris-
tian. He is a Satanist. He stands,
having been born again and raised
from the dead as a Master Mason,
through the power of the Masonic
god, whom the God of Israel cast
into the pit! (Freemasonry not Com-
patible with Baptist Faith, c. 1980)

Charismatic critics are no more gentle.
Their attitudes are expressed in pro-
paganda leaflets distributed by the
Christian Publicity Organization (CPO)
of Worthing (whose leaflet Freemasonry
states that "it throws a veil over the
mind and can lead to real spiritual op-
pression," and: "If you are a Freema-
son, God wants you to agree with him
that it is wrong"). A leaflet, Can a
Christian be a Freemason?, issued by
the Oxford New Testament Fellowship
is littered with mistakes and wild inter-
pretations: ''It has its own 'temple,'
altar, hymns, prayers, chaplain, theol-
ogy and god." "Inside it is a web of
deceit." Royal Arch Masons are ac-
cused of blasphemy and idol worship;
the scurrilous assertion is made that
''a Freemason is under oath to favor
other Freemasons" (which he is not);
and far more disturbing is the insis-
tence on renouncing Freemasonry and
destroying everything personal con-
nected with it.

More recently a bitter attack was
launched in an allegedly "carefully re-
searched'' book, The Secret Teachings of
the Masonic Lodge, A Christian Perspec-
tive, by John Ankerberg and John Wel-
don (Chicago, 1990). This offers all the
old canards but in a new package.
Freemasonry is described variously as
"metaphysical Satanism"; "a poten-
tially occultic religion"; and as offering
"both an introduction to, and a furth-
ering of, the cause of paganism, mys-
ticism, the psychic and the occult."

A dispassionate analysis of Free-
masonry shows no such tendency, and
it can only be passed off as so by
stretching the meanings of words to
their limits after taking them from care-
fully selected quotations that represent
only personal opinions.

In England the two most widely
read books on Freemasonry of recent
years, both bestsellers, are attacks on
the craft, but neither is the work of a
Christian fundamentalist. Both books
(The Brotherhood by Stephen Knight,
1983; and Inside the Brotherhood by Mar-
tin Short, 1989) are hostile tirades
against the craft. Both works rely on
innuendo, unsubstantiated allega-
tions, long-exploded canards and the
testimony of deeply unreliable wit-
nesses; but to the public their allega-
tions and insinuations are simply
"facts. "

Stephen Knight quoted selective-
ly from the papal Bull Humanum Genus,
ignoring its attacks upon both democ-
racy and secular education, and thus
gave a false view of both its contents
and context; he also made false allega-
tions against named individuals that he
was legally obliged to withdraw before
the book was published, and other al-
legations that were removed before it
was reprinted in 1985; but he then ad-
ded without evidence or justification
that Grand Lodge had banned "Free-
masons from owning, discussing or
even reading the book." His successor,
Martin Short, produced a longer, more
carefully written and altogether more
malicious book--in that its innuendoes
are more subtle, being cloaked in a skill-
ful rhetoric which lends his allegations
an easy plauslbility.

Freemasons could, of course, ig-
nore such attacks. But they are no
longer the work of fundamentalists
alone--although it is they who have
continually stoked the fires of preju-
dice and ignorance--and false, dam-
aging notions about Freemasonry are
becoming common currency. If the at-
tacks are not rebutted with vigor, then
another group of unjustly maligned in-
dividuals will suffer from the smears
of a noisy and bigoted minority.

Each one of us must take an active
part in the struggle to preserve our lib-
erties of mind and spirit, and in that
struggle we must not forget, as the
nominally Christian enemies of toler-
ance choose to do, that Christ did not
command his followers only to love
God; he also said, "you shall love your
neighbor as yourself.'' Unless we act
in that spirit we shall not attain our
goal.

The Northern Light   August 1993
