The Pendragon's Hall

Americans love conspiracy theories. The Pendragon has often been embroiled in conversations about various organizations and the nefarious grip they have on our government our national culture. If it's not some leftist bemoaning the power of the Christian right, it's a Christian wringing his or her hands over the influence of Mormons, Unitarians, or Freemasons. For myself, I have always discounted such things, not being given to conspiratorial thinking, but I have recently discovered that historical records now back me up on at least one of these famous conspiracies: that of the Freemasons. The Pendragon has often been called to debate whether the Founding Fathers could possibly have been Christians since so many of them were Freemasons. Of our 43 Presidents, at least 3 (Washington, Jackson and Andrew Johnson) were Freemasons and some well-meaning Christians, taking over from the Anti-Mason Party of the 1820s and 30s, have decided that this means American has no Christian background and was founded by a cult. But whatever the current implications of being a Mason are (and I am far from sure it disqualifies one from being a Christian even today), in the late 18th-century, historian Steven Bullock notes in Revolutionary Brotherhood: Freemasonry and the Transformation of the American Social Order, 1730-1840, Freemasonry, for all its lore of stretching back to the builders of Solomon's Temple and possessing secrets of craft from the ancients, were actually an enlightened society and more of a social club than anything else. When Freemason Benjamin Franklin's pious mother grew worried over her son's involvement with a group suspected, even then, of magical leanings, Franklin quietly responded, "They are harmless enough people." This seems to have been the only time he mentioned the Masons in all of his voluminous correspondence. His involvement with the group was not a huge part of his life. George Washington, the other famous Mason, only attended the lodge on public occasions--he did not make a habit of hanging out there. It is hard to advance the argument that Freemasonry exerted a great, sinister, influence on America when its two most famous members barely ever contacted the group. Washington and Franklin used the group as a social outlet for networking with other leaders, but weren't too wrapped up in its stranger manifestations.

Why is this important? It's important because too often politics in America is based on fear of the conspirator. When people are motivated by fear, they make foolish choices. A proper understanding of the choices before us is a must if we are to make wise decisions about the future of our country. Americans have not done too well on that in previous centuries, but perhaps there is hope we can move beyond the hype about groups we have never tried to understand, and deal with real life.