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In doing a little bit of family history, I found that my great, great, great, great grandfather (pretty great, I know), Thomas Bullock, besides being Joseph Smith’s clerk and holding many other clerk positions in the church, was the clerk for the Nauvoo Masonic Lodge. That led me to research Freemasonry in Nauvoo, and then to this little article I hadn’t seen before on Freemasonry and it’s relationship to the endowment. Author: Godfrey, Kenneth W.
And, here is the article by the same author on
Freemasonry in NauvooCheck the archives, I’m sure the first article has been discussed before. SamBee wrote:Check the archives, I’m sure the first article has been discussed before.
Oh, shoot! I didn’t mean to duplicate. I searched and didn’t find it in the first few pages of search results, so I posted. Can you post a link to that thread?
Years ago, I let go of the anxiety I had whenever I faced the possibility that the Temple’s origins were in Freemasonry. I am one of those people that did benefit spiritually from going to the Temple. It’s been years since I last attended, but I believe that it is the environment of the Temple that has the potential to spark a deeper level of spiritualism, and not necessarily the words or rituals per se. For that reason, I am not bothered if it has an origin that is not really rooted in antiquity. A few years ago, I was hanging out at the local bookstore, browsing through a book on freemasonry. It had pictures of what are believed to be the gestures from that era, and to me it was obvious that the modern post-1990 endowment ceremony has superior symbolism that better reflects the progression of spiritual enlightenment. So whatever the origin of the endowment ceremony, it’s not dishonest to say that the Temple today has no substantive connection to Freemasonry.
The way I view it is if I enjoy it and get something out of it, it doesn’t matter where it came from. If it motivates me to be a better man and allows me opportunities to develop a stronger sense of spirituality, then who cares why it is similar to Freemasonry? I see it as a sort of Brother of Jared sort of thing (Whether or not you believe in the BOM as an inspired scripture is beside the point). Maybe God didn’t tell Joseph Smith (the level to which you accept/don’t accept JS as a prophet is beside the point) word for word and motion for motion how things should be done, but, that doesn’t mean there isn’t approval from on high. I imagine the Church without the endowment, and I see how it makes the Church better for me.
I’m definitely at the point where I don’t really care how God does things so much as that they were done. If God created man through evolution, I don’t care – I care that God created man. If God inspired or directed Joseph Smith to take from the masonic rituals to form parts of the endowment instead of revealing it by his own hand, so be it. Over the past few months especially I have come to an understanding of how little is actually literal in scripture, including the D&C. In other words, I’m not so sure God actually revealed much to Joseph Smith, rather he allowed him to do things and approved it – like a great CEO would do. If there are temples and endowments on other worlds I bet they differ from ours but the message is the same. Again, this fits with my hands off view of God, so for me this works. DarkJedi wrote:I’m definitely at the point where I don’t really care how God does things so much as that they were done. If God created man through evolution, I don’t care – I care that God created man. If God inspired or directed Joseph Smith to take from the masonic rituals to form parts of the endowment instead of revealing it by his own hand, so be it. Over the past few months especially I have come to an understanding of how little is actually literal in scripture, including the D&C. In other words, I’m not so sure God actually revealed much to Joseph Smith, rather he allowed him to do things and approved it – like a great CEO would do. If there are temples and endowments on other worlds I bet they differ from ours but the message is the same. Again, this fits with my hands off view of God, so for me this works.
My feelings exactly.
I always highly recommend this interview with Greg Kearney, he is both a faithful Mormon and a Master Mason, I think his insights on the subject are gold.
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