Freemasonry is a fraternal organization built around three principles: Brotherly Love, Relief, and Truth. Men who join commit to honest conduct, care for one another and for the communities they live in, and a genuine effort to improve their own character. It is the oldest and most widely practiced fraternal organization in the world, with lodges in nearly every country and a history in the United States stretching back to the colonial period.
The short answer is that Freemasonry is a brotherhood for good men who want to be better. The longer answer has to do with how that works in practice, where the tradition came from, and what a man actually finds when he joins.
Where It Comes From
Freemasonry in its modern form grew out of the stonemason guilds of medieval Europe. Those guilds organized skilled craftsmen, protected the knowledge of their trade, and maintained standards of conduct among their members. Over time the lodges began admitting men who were not working masons but who were drawn to the guild's traditions of fellowship and moral instruction. By the seventeenth century, these speculative lodges were more common in some areas than operative ones.
On June 24, 1717, representatives from four London lodges met at a tavern near St. Paul's Cathedral and formed the Premier Grand Lodge of England, the first governing body of modern speculative Freemasonry. That event established the structure that Masonic grand lodges worldwide still follow. Anderson's Constitutions, published in 1723 under the Grand Lodge's authority, codified the rules and the guiding principles that shaped the fraternity for the next three centuries.
Freemasonry spread quickly from England to the American colonies, to continental Europe, and beyond. By the time of the American Revolution, lodges were operating throughout the colonies and their members included many of the men who shaped the new republic. George Washington was a Master Mason and served as Worshipful Master of his lodge in Virginia. The Marquis de Lafayette, whose name and whose apron this lodge carries, was a Mason. Benjamin Franklin was Grand Master of Pennsylvania.
The full history of the Craft in America and in Colorado is covered in detail on the History pages of this site. The point here is simply that Freemasonry did not arrive in the United States as a foreign import that found a foothold. It grew with the country, shaped by many of the same men who shaped the country itself.
The Three Tenets
Every lodge in the world, regardless of jurisdiction or tradition, teaches the same three principles. Brotherly Love is the commitment to treating fellow Masons and, by extension, all people with genuine care and respect, extending charity of spirit beyond what convenience or self-interest would otherwise produce. Relief is the obligation to provide practical help to those in need, within the fraternity and beyond it. This lodge and its predecessor lodges have donated tens of thousands of dollars to local causes and awarded scholarships to students of merit. Truth is the commitment to honesty in conduct and in character, and the ongoing effort to understand more than one currently does.
These tenets are not aspirational slogans. They are working principles that Masons are expected to apply in their lives, and a lodge's character is measured in large part by how seriously its members take them.
A Brotherhood, Not a Religion
Freemasonry requires that a man believe in a Supreme Being. It does not ask what that belief looks like, which tradition it belongs to, or how a man practices it. Men of every faith have been Masons for three centuries. The lodge room contains a Volume of Sacred Law, which may be the Bible, the Quran, the Torah, or another scripture according to the tradition of the jurisdiction. Every Mason takes his obligations on the scripture of his own faith.
Freemasonry is not a religion and does not function as one. It offers no theology, no path to salvation, and no substitute for a man's personal faith or religious practice. A man who joins expecting a spiritual community in the religious sense will find a fraternal one instead, which is a different and in many ways equally valuable thing.
Freemasonry also takes no position on politics. The lodge room is one of the few places in modern life where men of opposing political views meet as equals and leave those views at the door. That tradition is deliberate and guarded carefully.
A Society with Secrets
Freemasonry is sometimes described as a secret society. The more accurate description is a society with some secrets. The lodge has a website. The building has a sign. The membership is not hidden. Masons wear lapel pins, carry cards, and answer honestly when asked whether they belong to the fraternity.
What is private is the content of the degrees: the ceremonies, obligations, and certain modes of recognition that have been passed down through the lodge system for centuries. Those things stay in the lodge room. Everything else, including the principles, the history, the tenets, and the purpose of the organization, is openly discussed and freely shared. This site is evidence of that.
Who Joins
Any man who meets the basic requirements can petition a Masonic lodge. He must be of legal age, be of good moral character, hold a belief in a Supreme Being, and come to the fraternity of his own free will. No one is recruited. A man who wants to become a Mason asks to join.
Beyond the formal requirements, Freemasonry tends to attract men who are genuinely curious about the world, take their own character development seriously, and find value in belonging to something with a longer history and deeper purpose than most of what modern life offers. It is not for everyone, and it does not try to be. The right man tends to find his way to the right lodge.
Freemasonry in Denver
Colorado has been home to Masonic lodges since the Gold Rush era of the 1850s, when the first informal gathering of Masons took place in a tent at the confluence of Cherry Creek and the South Platte River in what would become Denver. The Grand Lodge of Colorado was formally constituted in 1861 and has operated continuously since. There are currently more than one hundred active lodges across the state.
Marquis de Lafayette Lodge No. 41 meets in the historic Denver Masonic building at 16th and Welton in downtown Denver. The lodge traces its history through five predecessor lodges to 1881, when Schiller Lodge No. 41 was chartered by German-speaking Masons who had carried their Masonic tradition from Europe. The lodge holds the only charter in Colorado authorizing the conduct of Masonic work in the German language.
For a man in Denver who is considering Freemasonry, this lodge is one place to start that conversation. Dinner is served before each stated communication and the door is open to men who want to learn more before committing to anything. Come on a Wednesday.
Sources: Anderson's Constitutions (1723); Mark A. Tabbert, American Freemasons: Three Centuries of Building Communities (NYU Press, 2005); Grand Lodge of Colorado (coloradofreemasons.org); United Grand Lodge of England (ugle.org.uk).