In a recent message, I referred to an article and television interview David Gergen did with Alan Wolfe, author of One Nation, After All. In his book, Wolfe reports the results of extensive interviews with typical Americans. He concludes: "Most people are embracing three central values in their lives: God, family, and country." That can only be encouraging to Scottish Rite Freemasons since these are the three values Masonry teaches should be at the center of each person's life. But perhaps the most encouraging finding is this: "Instead of fighting over religious differences, as so many other societies have, Americans have come to respect each other's beliefs even as they continue to hold fast to their own faiths....They are reluctant to impose their own standards upon other people's private behavior even as they apply a traditional moral code to their own....We seem to have a new Eleventh Commandment: Thou shalt not judge."
One Scottish Rite writer, less formal than Gergen in his phrasing, put the same thought this way: "The essential lesson of the Rite is this: cut others all the slack you can; cut yourself none at all."
Perhaps no human activity gives rise to so much pain and suffering as trying to force our own standards on someone else. Toleration of and respect for others are taught in almost every Degree of the Rite. The basis is simple—if you have a right to control the behavior of others, they have a right to control yours—and that is contrary to the fundamental American and Masonic principle of individual freedom and responsibility.
Albert Pike's words on the judgement of others are so important they are worth repeating here: "We know but little of the real merits or demerits of any fellow-creature. We can rarely say with certainty that this man is more guilty than that, or even that this man is very good or very wicked....When we condemn or pity the fallen, how do we know that, tempted like him, we should not have fallen like him, as soon, and perhaps with less resistance?"
If, in fact, Americans are adopting "Thou shalt not judge" as a Commandment, it is a sign of growth and maturity. It is not, as some will say, a lack of standards. Rather, it is the acceptance of a higher standard. It is not saying "anything goes," but asserting, "I am responsible and accountable for my own thoughts and actions, but I have no right to control yours." It is a proof of the strength of the teachings of the Scottish Rite and American history as well as an affirmation that society does, in fact, make progress.
"Judge not, that ye be not judged" (Matthew 7:1) is not just a warning, it is a path to a productive life.