Chapter 14 Freemasonry and Eastern Religions
Jessica Harland-Jacobs and Jan A.M. Snoek
Introduction
Freemasonry’s opening up to religions other than Christianity was an extended process of crossing successive borders. The religions involved in these cross- ings were first Judaism, followed by Islam, Zoroastrianism and Hinduism. At first Freemasonry was Christian, though—revolutionary for the early eigh- teenth century—admitting all Christians: Roman Catholics, Anglicans and dis- senters alike. But, over time, Freemasonry opened to candidates with less and less knowledge of the Biblical texts on which its rituals were based. Jews would not (want to) understand the allusions to New Testament passages, referred to in the rituals. Yet they were admitted from the 1730s onwards. Muslims would not (want to) understand the allusions to both Old Testament and New Testament passages, referred to in the rituals. Yet they were admitted from ca. 1800 onwards. Members of non-Abrahamic religions would not even be famil- iar with the most central symbol on which the rituals were constructed: the Temple of Solomon. Yet they were admitted from the 1840s onwards. Those whom contemporary Englishmen regarded as polytheists were supposedly unable to work to the honor of the (singular!) ‘Great Architect of the Universe’. Yet, Hindus were admitted from the 1870s onwards. The admission of members of those religions were not separate developments, but all part of one and the same border-crossing process. Except for the first one (Judaism), all these border crossings happened, not accidentally, in India (South Asia). The first to cross the boundary between Abrahamic and non-Abrahamic religions was a Parsi (a Zoroastrian) who moved easily between the Indian and British worlds of Bombay (Mumbai), India. Once he was a member, other Parsis, Sikhs, Jains, etc., though not Hindus, were admitted. The debate over the admission of Hindus was also centered, and resolved, in India. In both cases, it was essential that Parsis and Hindus demonstrate their monotheism before being admitted into Freemasonry. By 1872, when the first Hindu joined an English lodge in India, members of all religions seem to have been accepted without exception. While these developments unfolded, for the most part, in India, they had consequences for the whole world. Whether one agrees or not, within ‘regular’
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Freemasonry, the ‘United Grand Lodge of England’ creates in this respect the norm for all Grand Lodges in the world. So, the decisions taken in India within the context of the UGLE opened the same possibilities for all other Grand Lodges as well. The admission of candidates adhering to religions other than those previously accepted in other Grand Lodges was therefore part of the same process traced here, though usually there was some time delay.
From Christians to Jews and Muslims
There can be no doubt anymore that Freemasonry was originally a product of the Christian Western culture. Most likely, the idea of initiation rituals was borrowed from the Church, which had used such rituals as baptism and ordination of priests for many centuries before Freemasonry emerged. The allusive method, as so prominently applied in masonic rituals, uses not just the Tanakh, but the whole Bible—Old and New Testament plus the cross-references in the notes—as its referential corpus. When in 1723, James Anderson published The Constitutions of the Free-Masons—the first book of regulations of the Freemasons—he for- mulated the first Charge, “Concerning God and Religion”, as follows:
A Mason is oblig’d, by his Tenure, to obey the moral Law; and if he rightly understands the Art, he will never be a stupid Atheist, nor an irreligious Libertine. But though in ancient Times Masons were charg’d in every Country to be of the Religion of that Country or Nation, whatever it was, yet ‘tis now thought more expedient only to oblige them to that Religion in which all Men agree, leaving their particular Opinions to themselves; that is, to be good Men and true, or Men of Honour and Honesty, by what- ever Denominations or Persuasions they may be distinguish’d; whereby Masonry becomes the Center of Union, and the Means of conciliating true Friendship among Persons that must have remain’d at a perpetual Distance.
It is clear now that with the expression “Denominations and Persuasions” only variations of the Christian religion were intended (Chakmakjian 2008; Impens 2008). Surely, even that was proof of great tolerance. After all, Great Britain had known in the seventeenth century more than 90 years of civil war, largely over religious issues. As long as candidates were officially Christians, there was no problem to initiate them. In British North America, for example, Freemasonry served as an important point of contact between the British and