Salt Lake City, UT – On Monday morning, the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints formally announced its intent to petition the Grand
Lodge of Utah for inclusion as an officially recognized Masonic appendant body
within the grand jurisdiction. In a
statement made on the steps outside of the church’s largest temple, Salt Lake
Temple, Elder Joe Smythe explained the church’s rationale behind this historic
move toward inclusion. “The move comes on the heels of months of in-depth
research into the history of both our own church and the organization known as
Freemasonry. It came to our attention several months ago that the Church and
Freemasonry share similar grips, words, underwear, and other modes of
recognition. Naturally, we launched a comprehensive investigation immediately.
Given overwhelming evidence, we can now conclude that both organizations were
divinely—albeit separately—inspired. It is only natural that we seek to make our
disparate bodies whole, as God intended.”
When asked about the church’s long-term goals for Masonic
integration, Elder Joe explained that recognition in Utah was only the
beginning: “Of course we want to make this change at a global scale. We see the
LDS Church fitting in very well in the York Rite chain of appendant bodies, and
we will be contacting the Grand Encampment of Knights Templar to explore this
further. As the Book of Mormon is the natural capstone to the Christian Bible,
so should the LDS Church be the capstone to the ‘Christian’ branch of
Freemasonry.” However, Elder Joe added that the inclusion of the LDS Church in
the York Rite would necessitate some changes in practices on the part of the
GEKT: “Naturally, any man who wants to join the LDS Church as a Masonic
appendant body must go through the Knights Templar orders first — provided the
GEKT stops serving wine during the Order of the Temple. We simply can’t budge
on that one.”
Elder Joe appeared unfazed when he was questioned on the
possibility of the shared organizational modes of recognition arising due to
Joseph Smith’s affiliation with Freemasonry prior to founding the Church. “That
makes complete sense!” Elder Joe exclaimed, “Naturally, Brother Joseph
imparted his secrets to Freemasonry in its infancy, ensuring the two
organizations would carry on his divine inspiration!”
This writer of The
Past Bastard remains cautiously optimistic about the ability of the LDS
Church to provide a substantial contributions to Freemasonry as a whole. In fact,
if the church ever re-institutes the doctrine of polygamy or practice of plural
marriage, it might very well singlehandedly bring women’s bodies and youth
organizations back from the brink of extinction.
The Grand Lodge of Utah did not immediately return calls
requesting comment.
-SK Bro. Mason Burhmaster
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteRight, Joseph Smith, the Great Diviner, who looked into hats to find the devil, never stole anything in his life , except people's trust and Masonic secrets. This post is a joke isn't it? There isn't really an Elder Joe is there? Give a person LSD and any number of psychotics and he would still be more rational than this Elder Joe. is.
ReplyDelete...financially speaking, it's much more likely that Masonry would ask to become a part of the LDS church! They certainly have the funds that we don't have anymore!
ReplyDeletevery interesting! How come a "church" who forbade its members to become Masons for years, all of a sudden wants to become part of us. Smith, who was a Freemason, until thrown out, supposedly plagiarized Masonic material for the ceremonies to become part of the higher orders of his church
ReplyDeleteCan we please demand that Cryptic/RSM be restored as a prerequisite to the Orders first? If we're going to invigorate appendant and concordant bodies with this strategy, the General Grand Council should take priority over DeMolay. We'll still get the kids who want to become knights, and teach them a lesson in delayed gratification to boot. We could revise the Ritual to place the Golden Tablets inside the Secret Vault and substitute Moroni for Hiram to give the most beautiful lecture in all of Masonry. Could replace Jerusalem with Palmyra, as a coup de grace.
ReplyDeleteThis article would be laughable if it didn't point to a pathetic truth. A dear friend recently told me that he could not become a Freemason because it was too religious. I was shocked! Where did he get this idea? Now I find increasing evidence for my friend's perceptions, and this ambiguous article adds to it. Do other Masons feel as I do that we must step back from this brink?
ReplyDeleteCharles I do indeed feel the same. I joined because I felt that Masonry was able to improve myself morally without injecting religion into everything. Leaving the religiosity out of the picture and up to my personal interpretation. I mean that's what it's supposed to be anyway right? Someone correct me if I'm wrong. I would oppose this because by the sounds of it LDS doesn't want to be some "appendant body" of Freemasonry. It sounds like the other way around. Masonry is supposed to include all religious beliefs. It's bad enough outsiders already think Freemasonry is some obscure religion without injecting a bunch of religion into Masonry. It's exhausting enough explaining why we aren't a religion without having to also explain why I'm not a Mormon. (Not saying Mormonism is a bad thing. It's just exhausting to set people straight constantly.)
DeleteI guess some don't understand satire. SMH
ReplyDeleteWill we have to stop serving coffee at Pancake Breakfasts?
ReplyDelete