Past Grand Master Nagel, who is a true leader of men, if not always a popular one (one cannot often be both), used to say something about it being a great time to be a Mason. He is right, but perhaps not in the way he intended. These are certainly interesting times.
Your Grand Lodge is currently trying to figure out how to square openness and inclusivity with the numerous Biblical references. This will reach its zenith at Annual Communication. This arose after our GM exercised his privilege to recommend a change in the law. No doubt he has the highest ideals of equality and inclusiveness when he recommended that we excise any mention of the Holy Bible from our ceremonies and instead adopt the term Holy Writings. One wonders how the lecture of the third degree will sound afterward. Much shorter perhaps.
But this is a troublesome task, for there are so many references to strike. One of the greatest examples: we are reliably informed that some of the saints, who are described as being patrons of our Craft, are included in our teachings by virtue of their eminent patronage, rather than for the deeds which lead to their original canonization.
We are tying ourselves in knots, and I fear that once so tied, those bonds will be hard to break. When the GL goes around spouting revised history, it is similar to the way in which we are told that a man is really a woman, Y chromosomes notwithstanding. Black is white, war is peace, slavery is freedom. But you know the Truth; it is a divine attribute they say. Do you believe that there are certain universal truths? Steer clear of these liars. Eventually Solomon himself will be found to be too ethnocentric for our Lodges. After all, he is mentioned in only three(?) holy works. That doesn’t sound inclusive at all.
And when our beautiful ritual is rewritten for the sake of political correctness, will there be anything special remaining?