FREEMASONRY……
IS IT CHRISTIAN OR SATANTIC
From the book "SECRET SOCIETIES" by David Barrett
Is Freemasonry satanic?
It is necessary to spend a little more time on the charge that Freemasonry is a front for Satanism. The charge keeps being raised, always with much the same 'evidence'; it seems irrelevant to the critics that this has long been discredited.
Martin Short's book, for example, contains a chapter entitled 'The Devil in Disguise?' in which he uses several arguments to suggest that Freemasonry is satanic. He begins with some anecdotes of Masons who suffered problems. 'From such personal testaments two strands emerge: the psychic and psychiatric distress which Freemasonry can cause in certain personalities; and the idea that, somewhere in all this, the devil is making himself manifest.'54
The first 'strand' may be true, inasmuch as 'certain personalities' can be tipped over the edge by anything, no doubt including Freemasonry. The second 'strand' is actually unsupported by the anecdotes, except for a couple of born-again Evangelical Christians saying 'I believe it is of the devil' - a phrase which one hears just as frequently applied to pubs, dances, rock music, short skirts, long hair, television plays, advertising and any other such wicked temptations which the fervent convert now believes kept him away from God. Such claims, though commonplace, have no objective validity.
(TRUE….. JUST CALLING SOMETHING SIN OR SATANIC DOES NOT MAKE IT SO; YOU HAVE TO HAVE BIBLICAL PRINCIPLES FOR SIN AND/OR SAYING IT IS NOT CHRISTIAN…..AND YES MANY EVANGELICALS HAVE STRANGE IDEAS ABOUT SIN, OFTEN THE WHOLE AS SIN, I.E. CALLING "DANCING" PERIOD, SIN! WHEN IT SHOULD BE "SOME DANCING CAN BE SIN" AND "SOME ROCK MUSIC" CAN BE DEMONIC AND UN-CHRISTIAN; SOME "PUBS" CAN BE UN-CHRISTIAN. THE POINT IS SATAN IS INTO EVERYTHING, AND THE CHRISTIAN HAS TO GOVERN WHEN THIS OR THAT HAS GONE OVER THE LINE TO BECOME UN-CHRISTIAN - Keith Hunt)
Short then turns his attention to Albert Pike, Grand Commander of the Supreme Council of the Scottish Rite in America.
On 14 July 1889 Pike allegedly issued these instructions ... 'Lucifer is God, and unfortunately Adonay is also god ... the true and pure philosophical religion is the belief in Lucifer, the equal of Adonay; but Lucifer, God of Light and God of Good is struggling against Adonay, the God of Darkness and Evil.'55
This is, of course, a restatement of the extreme Dualist position in Gnosticism (see p. 21), though it is by no means the belief of all Gnostics. Whether it is the belief of Pike remains to be demonstrated. Having quoted Pike's 'alleged' instruction, Short says:
There are problems with this quotation: its meaning is not immediately clear and its authenticity is in doubt. It was first attributed to Pike in 1894 by a French authoress who detested Freemasonry, yet no original text seems to exist.
One might wonder, then, why Short felt it worthwhile quoting it. But then he continues: 'Yet the quote sounds authentic . .. If genuine, it indicates there is a Satanic - or Luciferian - strain in American Masonry.'
This is simply guilt by innuendo: Freemasonry, it seems, must be Satanic.
(SHORT USES A STRANGE AND WEAK ARGUMENT, ESPECIALLY IF THE STATEMENT CANNOT BE PROVED…..SO WHY TRY USING SUCH WEAK ARGUMENTS; THERE ARE OTHER BIBLICAL POINTS THAT PROVE FREEMASONRY IS UN-CHRISTIAN - Keith Hunt)
Here are the facts about the 'alleged' quotation and the 'French authoress'. It is a story of immense embarrassment to both sides of the conflict, and is widely known and fully documented.
A French Mason, Gabriel Jogand Pages, under the pseudonym Leo Taxil, was the scourge of the Catholic Church with 'scandalous stories concerning ecclesiastics' - until, in 1885, he was thrown out of the Masons, changed sides, and began attacking Freemasonry in a similar vein; according to Waite he was 'a writer of pornographic romances'. In 1891 he wrote Ya-t-il des femmes dans la Franc-Magonnerie? ('Are There Women in Freemasonry?'), which described a rite supposedly invented by Pike called New and Reformed Palladium, which was a Masonic Order for both men and women and included both Satanism and sex-magick. This was followed by a pamphlet entitled 'Are there Lodges for Women?' which, says Waite, 'contained a forged instruction of Albert Pike, advocating the worship of Lucifer as the true God, licence in sexual intercourse, and other enormities and follies.' Next, in 1893, came Le Diable au Dix-Neuvieme Steele ('The Devil in the Nineteenth Century') under another pseudonym, Dr Henri Bataille. This made Pike 'Sovereign Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry', and said there was 'another and most secret Masonry' behind the public face of Freemasonry, which was devoted to Lucifer and the occult in general, and was both anti-Christian and politically revolutionary. Then, in 1895, came Taxil's piece de resistance, a serial magazine entitled Memoir es d'une Ex-Palladiste ('Memoirs of an Ex-Palladist'), supposedly written by a Miss Diana Vaughan who, now a good Catholic girl, was confessing to her part in sexual and Satanic rituals as 'the wealthy, beautiful and highly placed Palladian Grand Mistress'.
In 1896 A.E. Waite exposed all of this as a complete fabrication,56 and in 1897 Taxil owned up: he and some co-writers had done the whole thing, he claimed, to further discredit the Catholic Church by exploiting the 'known credulity and unknown idiocy of the Catholics'. (He had even taken in Pope Leo XIII, who had granted him a private audience.)
Leo Taxil avowed that the whole transaction had been an imposition from beginning to end, that he had never been a genuine convert to the Catholic Faith, and that his life had been devoted to the invention of literary rascalities and hoaxes. As to Diana Vaughan, she was a typist in his employment.57
This was the source of the text which Short quotes. It is not the case that 'its authenticity is in doubt'; its authenticity is provably false.
Whatever his motives might have been, Taxil was not the first, and has certainly not been the last, to use deceit to blacken the name of Freemasonry. He was, however, one of the most influential; his fictions are still being quoted a century later.
(THERE IS A VERY SIMPLE STRAIGHT-FORWARD BIBLICAL WAY TO PROVE FREEMASONRY IS UN-CHRISTIAN. NO NEED TO MAKE UP FALSE STORIES - Keith Hunt)
Short is also disturbed by the symbolism in Freemasonry. 'Occult symbols are often also sexual symbols, and in these Freemasonry abounds.'58 Among these are the vesica piscis or mandorla, the pointed oval shape made by two overlapping circles, which can symbolize female sexuality but which has been used for centuries in religious art to enclose portraits of Christ as Redeemer, uniting heaven and earth; the tau-cross, which Short finds phallic, but which was the symbol of, among others, St Antony of the Desert; and the dot in the centre of a circle, which he sees as the penis in a vagina, but which has for millennia symbolized the manifest God.
Symbolism has to be interpreted, and it can often be interpreted in many different ways. This doesn't invalidate symbolism in the slightest, but it does mean that one has to be careful when seeking to prove a point by referring to symbols. As the singer-songwriter Melanie says in her song 'Psychotherapy', 'A thing's a phallic symbol if it's longer than it's wide.'59
(YES INDEED SYMBOLS, SHAPES, CAN BE INTERPRETED IN THE EYE OF THE BEHOLDER, TO FIT THE BEHOLDER'S IDEAS. IT'S SILLY TO TRY AND USE "SYMBOLS" TO SAY SUCH AND SUCH IS UN-CHRISTIAN AND SATANIC - Keith Hunt)
When critics can use such arguments to lead up to the rhetorical question, 'Are Masons today inadvertently worshipping the devil instead of a benign God?'60 it is hardly surprising that the Masonic scholars John Hamill and R.A. Gilbert are upset by Knight's book and by Martin Short's more recent and immeasurably more venomous attack, Inside the Brotherhood. Both of these works - allegedly 'researched' in depth - abound in mistakes, distortions, illogical arguments, and the repetition of old and long exposed fables and lies, and yet they have been publicized and promoted by press and television alike as sound and scholarly productions that reflect a true state of affairs.61
Almost any book about Freemasonry written by a Mason will contain ample evidence that such critics, for whatever reasons of their own, are deliberately muddying the water. The following quotation is taken almost at random:
A man who does not believe in the existence of God, and in the doctrine of a future state, in which is implied that of a judgment to come, is declared by one of the ancient landmarks [of Freemasonry] to be incapable of admission into the Order; a profession of belief in these simple first principles of religion being required of every candidate. That more than this is desired, evidently appears from the reverence shown to the Word of God, and the place assigned to it in all Masonic solemnities ... However simple and few the absolute requirements of religious profession, purposely made so that all may be admitted to the benefits of Freemasonry except those who have no religion, yet it must be considered that the greatest perfection in religious knowledge and faith is deemed desirable, as indeed Freemasonry aims at nothing short of perfection in all that it cultivates, or incites the members of the brotherhood to cultivate.62
These are hardly the sentiments of a Satanist.
(TRUE….. THEY SOUND LIKE "GOOD CHRISTIAN STATEMENTS" - A BASIC BELEIF IN GOD AND JUDGMENT TO COME, BUT A DEEPER RELIGION IS DESIRABLE. ALL KINDS OF "RELIGIONS" BELIEVE IN "GOD" AND AFTERLIFE WITH A JUDGMENT DAY, BUT THAT DOES NOT MAKE THEM "CHRISTIAN" - THE VERY WORD PUTS "CHRIST" IN THE EQUATION. AS JESUS HIMSELF SAID, "HE THAT IS NOT WITH ME, IS AGAINST ME, AND HE THAT GATHERS NOT WITH ME, SCATTERS ABROAD" (MATTHEW 12:30). ANYTHING LIKE A "WORSHIP" OR "RELIGION TOWARDS GOD" MUST HAVE CHRIST IN IT; IF IT DOES NOT IT IS A FALSE RELIGION. ANYONE READING THE NEW TESTAMENT WILL SURELY SEE THAT RELIGION TOWARDS GOD THE FATHER, MUST HAVE JESUS IN IT. TRUE GODLY RELIGION IS UN-SEPARABLE FROM CHRIST. BOTH THE FATHER AND THE SON MUST BE IN THE TRUE RELIGION. LEAVING THE SON OUT MAKES IT A FALSE RELIGION TOWARDS GOD. THEN THERE IS MORE YET, FOR HAVING GOD AND HIS SON IN YOUR RELIGION, YOU CAN STILL BE WORSHIPPING IN VAIN, AS I WILL SHOW SHORTY - Keith Hunt)
Should Christians be Freemasons?
There have been several books arguing that Freemasonry and Christianity are incompatible, partly because of the bloodcurdling oaths that initiates had to make until recently, but mainly on theological grounds. Much of the argument rests on definitions. Is Freemasonry simply a society with religious connections, like the Mothers' Union or the Scouts, or is it a religion in itself? If Freemasons actually mean all the things they say in their rituals, argue the Christian critics from as far back as the great Evangelical preacher Charles Finney in 1869,63 they're blaspheming, but if it's simply theatrical mumbo-jumbo, then they're trivializing spiritual matters. Damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Some of these books are written by traditionalists, some by Evangelical Christians. In both cases their authors often confuse the issue in their enthusiasm for the purity of their belief, by redefining terms without saying so. For example, both Walton Hannah in Darkness Visible and Robert Morey in The Truth about Masons condemn everything which isn't Christian as pagan (note the lower-case 'p'). This is factually incorrect. The word pagan was originally applied by Roman city-sophisticates to the ways and customs of unsophisticated country-folk ('pagan' means 'of the country', just as 'heathen' means 'of the heath'). With a capital letter, Pagan refers to the old religious beliefs of a people before the benefits of Western civilization and a state religion are brought to them - and also to twenty-first century neo-Pagans.64
The many localized early forms of Hinduism could be called Pagan; so can the Celtic beliefs of northern Europe - but not Judaism and Islam.
(PAGAN IS A WORD THAT CAN HAVE DIFFERENT CONNOTATIONS OF USE FOR USE. HOW THE WORD IS USED AND THE CONTEXT IS THE KEY. ANYTHING THAT IS CONTRARY TO THE TRUTHS OF GOD, HIS DIRECTIVES, HIS WAY OF LIVING BY EVERY WORD FROM HIM, COULD BE CALLED "PAGAN." THEN IDEAS, BELIEFS, CUSTOMS, TRADITIONS, FROM OTHER PEOPLES THAT CONTRADICT, ADD TO, TAKE AWAY FROM, THE WORDS OF GOD, CAN ALSO BE CALLED "PAGAN." GOD HAS A WAY TO WORSHIP HIM, REVEALED IN HIS WORD; AND HE WARNS ABOUT TRYING TO WORSHIP HIM, WITH WAYS OF THE NATIONS THAT ARE AN ABOMINATION TO HIM - SEE DEUTERONOMY 12: 29-32.
Hannah asks 'whether it is lawful for the Christian to join in common worship with the Muslim of a common-denominator God specifically of neither faith, whom each in his heart worships as his own God,'65 forgetting that the Muslim God is in fact the same being as the Christian God, the Jewish God and, for that matter, the Baha'i God. The Religions of the Book (which can arguably now be taken to include the Baha'i Faith) all worship the same God by definition; Yahweh is God-the-Father is Allah. The names, the theology and the means of approach might be different, but it is the same One Creator God in each of these religions.
I WILL COMMENT.
NOT SO AT ALL!!! MEN MAY CLAIM IT IS SO, BUT THAT DOES NOT MAKE IT SO. YOU CAN NOT WORSHIP THE GOD IN HEAVEN AND LEAVE OUT CHRIST. YOU MAY THINK YOU ARE WORSHIPPING "THE" GOD IN HEAVEN; PEOPLE LIKE THIS AUTHOR MAY SAY ALL THESE DIFFERENT RELIGIONS ARE WORSHIPPING THE GOD IN HEAVEN, BUT IT IS JUST NOT SO.
JESUS SAID. "I AND MY FATHER ARE ONE!" (JOHN 10: 30). THEY ARE ONE AS HUSBAND AND WIFE ARE ONE (GENESIS 2: 24). YOU CAN NOT HAVE THE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER. YOU HAVE TO WORSHIP GOD THE FATHER IN SPIRIT AND IN TRUTH (JOHN 4:24). THE TRUTH IS TO WORSHIP GOD IN TRUTH, CHRIST MUST BE THERE ALSO, THEY ARE INSEPARABLE, THEY ARE ONE. JESUS ALSO SAID, "TRULY, TRULY, I SAY UNTO YOU. HE THAT HEARS MY WORDS, AND BELIEVES ON HIM SENT ME, HAS EVERLASTING LIFE, AND SHALL NOT COME INTO CONDEMNATION, BUT IS PASSED FROM DEATH TO LIFE" (JOHN 5: 24). THE CLEAR TEACHING HERE IS THAT IF YOU DO NOT HEAR CHRIST'S WORDS [MEANING HEAR AND OBEY THEM] YOU DO NOT HAVE EVERLASTING LIFE. BELIEVING IN ONLY THE FATHER GOD IN HEAVEN IS NOT ENOUGH TO HAVE ETERNAL LIFE.
As we have seen, Jesus said if you are not WITH Him you are AGAINST him. And if you do not gather with Him you scatter abroad. Gathering with Him means you accept Him, you accept what He taught and instructed, you do what He did; you gather in others as He gathered in. If you do not do it His way, with Him, you are just scattering people into man made religions, which have no eternal life in them. Jesus further said, "Truly, truly, I say unto you. He that enters not by the DOOR into the sheepfold, but climbs up some OTHER way, the same is a thief and robber……I say unto you, I AM THE DOOR of the sheep[fold]…..I AM THE DOOR, by ME, if any man enter in, he shall be saved….." (John 10:1-9). How plain Jesus spoke - you do NOT enter the sheepfold and have eternal life [be saved] BUT BY HIM! Jesus further stated, "I am the resurrection and life….." (John 11: 25). Christ never ever said any words that you could be saved ONLY by believing in the Father God, without believing in Himself.
THEN NOTICE THESE WORDS FROM JESUS: "I AM THE RESURRECTION AND LIFE, NO MAN COMES UNTO THE FATHER BUT BY ME!" (John 14:6). How plainer could Christ get? I mean a child of 7 can understand these clear words. Just believing in some mighty ONE up in heaven [as the Muslim people believe in Allah, and the Jews believe in some single Most Holy being in heaven] is NOT GOING TO GET YOU MEETING THAT GOD IN HEVEN; YOU CAN ONLY GET TO THIS GOD, THROUGH JESUS THE CHRIST!!
NOTICE THESE WORDS: "I am the vine, the Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that bears no fruit He takes away….I am the vine you are the branches; he that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit; for without me you can do nothing. If a man abide NOT in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered, and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned" (John 15: 1-6). AGAIN PRETTY PLAIN WORDS…. YOU NEED TO BE IN CHRIST IF YOU ARE TO ESCAPE BEING BURNT UP. THE GOD IN HEAVEN AND CHRIST ARE ONE. YOU CANNOT HAVE ONE WITHOUT THE OTHER. YOU HAVE TO HAVE BOTH TO HAVE ETERNAL LIFE, OR YOU FACE BEING BURNT UP IN THE SECOND DEATH, IN THE LAKE OF FIRE (Revelation 20).
FINALLY WE HAVE THESE PLAIN, CLEAR, EASY TO UNDERSTAND, WORDS FROM THE APOSTLE PETER: "THEN PETER FILLED WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT…..THAT BY THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST OF NAZARETH…..THIS IS THE STONE THAT WAS SET AT NOUGHT OF YOU BUILDERS, WHICH IS BECOME THE HEAD OF THE CORNER. NEITHER IS THERE SALVATION IN ANY OTHER: FOR THERE IS NO OTHER NAME NAME UNDER HEAVEN GIVEN AMONG MEN WHEREBY WE MUST BE SAVED" (ACTS 4: 8-12).
ANY RELIGION THAT LEAVES JESUS CHRIST OUT, IS A FALSE RELIGION. IT MATTERS NOT WHAT GOOD WORKS THEY DO, HOW FANCY TALKS THEY DO, HOW PIOUS THEY LOOK AND SOUND, WITHOUT CHRIST THEY HAVE NO ETERNAL LIFE, THEY WILL NEVER GET TO SEE GOD THE FATHER! Keith Hunt
Many will not like this assertion; some will doubt its accuracy. A moment's reflection will show that it is true.
(A REFLECTION OF THE WORDS OF CHRIST WILL SHOW IT IS NOT AT ALL TRUE - Keith Hunt)
The Christian God the Father of Jesus is undeniably the God of the Old Testament, the Jewish or Israelite God, 'the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob'. The Koran contains many references to Old Testament figures, including Adam, Moses, Aaron, Noah, Joseph, Jonah, Solomon, David and Goliath, and Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - and also to New Testament figures including Jesus, Mary, John the Baptist and the apostles. The God of all these people in the Old and New Testaments is also the God of these same people in the Koran, and hence the God of the Muslims, Allah - which, in any case, is simply the Arabic word for God, or 'the God'; it is probably etymologically related to El, one of the several Hebrew words or titles for God.
(AS I HAVE SHOWN THIS GOD OF THE OLD TESTAMENT IF YOU THINK IT IS THE "FATHER GOD" OF JESUS, IS NOT THE "GOD" THAT ISLAMIC AND JEWISH PEOPLE WORSHIP, FOR THEY WORSHIP THEY KNOW NOT WHAT. WITHOUT JESUS IN THE EQUATION YOU DO NOT KNOW THE TRUE HEAVENLY GOD, NOR ARE YOU WORSHIPPING HIM; YOU ARE WORSHIPPING A FIGMENT OF YOUR IMAGINATION; YOUR "RELIGION" IS FALSE AND VAIN; YOU ARE STILL VERY MUCH BLINDED TO SPIRITUAL TRUTH. Those who accept Moses in their religion as part of the true people of God need to hear these words from Christ, "How can you believe, which receive honour one of another, and seek not the honour that comes from God only? ….. there is one that ACCUSES YOU, even MOSES, in whom you trust. FOR HAD YOU BELIEVED MOSES, YOU WOULD HAVE BELIEVED ME, FOR HE WROTE OF ME! BUT IF YOU BELIEVE NOT HIS WRITINGS, HOW SHALL YOU BELIEVE MY WORDS?" (John 5: 44-47). The Muslims and Jews have Moses, but they do nor believe Moses, they do NOT see where Moses wrote about Christ, they are spiritually BLIND to the Old Testament. Hence they do NOT accept the New Testament, and so do not accept the WORDS of Christ Jesus. THEY DO NOT WORSHIP THE TRUE GOD IN HEAVEN, THEY HAVE MADE UP A MAN MADE RELIGION, WHICH IS FALSE AND VERY MUCH DECEPTIVE, AND KEEPS THEM IN SPIRITUAL BLINDNESS TO THE REAL GOD OF HEAVEN AND HIS SON JESUS CHRIST - Keith Hunt)
It is often not realized just how many different terms were used by the people who became the Israelites to describe their own God: El, Eloah, meaning 'a God'; Elyon, El Elyon meaning 'the most high God'; Elohim meaning 'Gods'; Yahweh, from the verb 'to be' (T am that I am', Exodus 3:14); Yahweh Elohim; Yahweh sebaot meaning 'the Lord of hosts'; Qedos Yisrael meaning 'the Holy One of Israel'; and other titles. In English Bibles the sacred tetragrammaton YHWH (Yahweh) is usually changed to 'Lord' or 'Jehovah', though the name Jehovah is not biblical at all; it is a medieval composite of YHWH and the vowels of the word adonai, which means 'lord'.66
(IT MAKES NO DIFFERENCE WHAT WORDS ARE USED TOWARDS THE GOD IN HEAVEN. THE GOD IN HEAVEN DOES NOT HAVE TO ACCEPT YOUR WORSHIP JUST BECAUSE YOU MAY USE WORDS THAT TRUE DISCIPLES USE TOWARDS THIS GOD. WORDS ARE JUST WORDS….. AND AS I HAVE SHOWN, WITHOUT CHRIST IN THOSE WORDS YOUR WORSHIP IS IN VAIN, AS JESUS SAID TO THE WOMAN AT THE WELL (John 4) "YOU WORSHIP YOU KNOW NOT WHAT…" THOSE SAMARITANS HAD IT WRONG, THOUGH THEY THOUGHT THEY WERE WORSHIPPING THE TRUE GOD IN HEAVEN [they had Jacob as father and had his well of water]. BUT THOSE SAMARITANS LISTENED TO JESUS FOR TWO DAYS, ACCEPTED JESUS, BELIEVED JESUS, KNEW HE WAS THE CHRIST AND SAVIOR OF THE WORLD. The Islamic and Jewish people AIN'T GOT TO WHERE THE SAMARITANS GOT, NOT BY A LONG WAY - Keith Hunt)
One might also look at it another way: Judaism, Christianity and Islam all believe in the One Creator God, and there is only room for one such, whatever the various names and attributes given to him by man.
(NO THE CHRISTIAN GOD IS "ONE" BUT IN A VERY DIFFERENT WAY FROM THE MUSLIM AND JEWISH "ONE" GOD….. THE CHRISTIAN ONE GOD IS GOD THE FATHER AND HIS SON JESUS THE CHRIST…. AS WE HAVE SEEN YOU NEED BOTH TO BE WORSHIPPING THE TRUE GOD AND TO HAVE ETERNAL LIFE; ANYTHING LESS IS A FALSE RELIGION - Keith Hunt)
Freemasonry insists on a belief in the One Creator God. From the details of the Craft rituals, it is clear that this is the God of the Old Testament, who is common to Judaism, Christianity and Islam. A favourite hymn in Masonic meetings is:
Immortal, invisible, God only wise,
In light inaccessible hid from our eyes,
Most blessed, most glorious, the Ancient of Days,
Almighty, victorious, thy great name we praise . . .
Great Father of Glory, pure Father of Light,
Thine Angels adore thee, all veiling their sight;
All laud we would render: O help us to see
'lis only the splendour of light hideth thee.67
This is a glorious hymn in praise of the majesty and power of God. It is sung in Christian churches around the world, though it nowhere mentions Jesus. Theologically it could just as easily be sung in Jewish and Muslim services. Christians, Jews and Muslims could stand side by side singing this hymn in praise of the One Creator God, without any of them compromising their faith. Indeed, they do - in Masonic Lodges.
(AND THAT IS WHERE THE DECEPTION COMES IN. CHRISTIANS SINGING THIS STILL KNOW AND HAVE A GOD THAT IS ONE WITH CHRIST JESUS; THE MUSLIM AND JEWISH PEOPLE DO NOT! AS THE AUTHOR SAYS, THE FAITH IDEAS OF THE MUSLIM AND JEW ARE NOT COMPROMISED WITH A GENERIC SONG, BUT THAT DOES NOT MEAN THEIR RELIGIOUS FAITH IS CORRECT OR SOMEHOW TRUE CHRISTIANS CAN WORSHIP ALONGSIDE MUSLIM ADN JEWISH PEOPLE. FOR A TRUE CHRISTIAN TO WORSHIP IN A GENERIC GROUP OF PEOPLE LIKE IN A MASONIC LODGE, WOULD BE GIVING CREDENCE TO THE IDEA THAT MUSLIMS AND JEWS ARE WORSHIPPING THE TRUE GOD, WHICH THEY ARE MOST CERTAINLY NOT DOING, BECAUSE THEY REJECT JESUS CHRIST AS GOD'S SON AND ONLY SAVIOR. MUSLIMS AND JEWS REJECT THAT THROUGH THE SON IS THE ONLY WAY TO ETERNAL LIFE - Keith Hunt)
As Freemasonry doesn't teach any specific theology, doctrine or dogma, but simply requires a belief in God, many of the complaints of Hannah, Morey and others vanish away, because Jewish, Christian and Muslim Freemasons are acknowledging the same God. The charges that Christian and non-Christian Freemasons are worshipping different Gods alongside each other, or are worshipping a composite God, are simply wrong.
(NOT WRONG AT ALL! THE TRUE CHRISTIAN GOD HAS JESUS CHRIST IN THAT GOD; TWO GOD BEINGS BUT ONE GOD; AS MAN AND WOMAN IN MARRIAGE ARE TWO BUT BECOME ONE. THE CHRISTIAN GOD IS A UNITY OF FATHER AND SON, THEY CANNOT BE SEPARATED. MUSLIMS AND JEWS DO NOT ACCEPT CHRIST AS DIVINE GOD UNITED WITH THE FATHER GOD. THE MUSLIMS AND JEWS HAVE NO GOD'S SON JESUS AS SAVIOR, AS ONLY SAVIOR, AS ONLY THROUGH HIM IS SALVATION AND ETERNAL LIFE. THEY ARE THEN NOT INTERESTED IN THE NEW TESTAMENT; NOT INTERESTED IN READING AND OBEYING THE WORDS OF JESUS CHRIST. MUSLIMS AND JEWS THINK THEY CAN HAVE ETERNAL LIFE WITHOUT CHRIST. THEY ARE VERY WRONG! THEY THEN DO NOT KNOW OR UNDERSTAND THE TRUE SUPREME GOD ALMIGHTY IN HEAVEN. THEY WORSHIP THEY KNOW NOT WHAT… THEY ARE SPIRITUALLY BLINDED TO THE TRUE GOD. FOR A CHRISTIAN TO WORSHIP IN SOME KIND OF "GENERIC" GOD SERVICE WITH JEWS AND MUSLIMS, WOULD BE GIVING APPROVAL TO THE IDEA THAT JEWS AND MUSLIMS ARE WORSHIPPING THE TRUE GOD IN HEAVEN, WHEN THEY ARE MOST DEFINITELY NOT - Keith Hunt)
Some Christian critics, like Hannah, accuse Freemasonry of going for the lowest common denominator among religions. He mentions several times that Christianity is an exclusive religion, and that membership of Freemasonry cannot be compatible with this. Theologically, in one sense Hannah is right. Mainstream Christianity states that God became man, that Jesus was God, that God died to save us; Jews and Muslims don't believe this. Judaism and Islam, on the other hand, while accepting that Jesus might well have been a prophet, find the assertion that he was God blasphemous. The two positions are mutually exclusive.
(YES INDEED SO, THE AUTHOR HIT ON A TRUTH - Keith Hunt)
But Freemasonry doesn't require people of different faiths to accept each other's beliefs as true; in fact, it categorically forbids discussion of variant religious beliefs in the Lodge. The only religious requirement is a belief in God. The mutual exclusivity of different religions is irrelevant to the Craft.
(AND THAT IS WHERE AND WHY THE TRUE CHRISTIAN CANNOT BELONG TO SUCH A CLUB OR GROUP OF PEOPLE. PUTTING CHRIST TO ONE SIDE, GIVING CREDENCE TO OTHERS THAT THEY ARE ALSO WORSHIPPING THE TRUE GOD IN HEAVEN, WHEN THEY ARE NOT, A CHRISTIAN SIMPLY CANNOT DO. IT WOULD BE A DENIAL OF CHRIST, AND JESUS SAID THAT WHOEVER WOULD DENY HIM BEFORE MEN, HE WOULD DENY BEFORE THE FATHER (Matt. 10: 33). THE CHRISTIAN GOD IS GOD THE FAHTER AND GOD THE SON, TWO BEINGS MAKING THE ONE GOD. NEITHER CAN BE SEPARATED OR PUT TO ONE SIDE FROM THE OTHER. THERE IS A VAST DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE TRUE CHRISTIAN GOD AND THE MUSLIM AND JEWISH GOD. SUCH A DIFFERENCE THAT THE THREE CANNOT BE WORSHIPPING TOGETHER WITH SOME GENERIC GOD. DENYING TALKING ABOUT RELIGIOUS BELIEFS AS IMPORTANT AS THE NATURE OF THE TRUE GOD AND ONLY WAY TO SALVATION, WOULD BE A DENIAL OF JESUS WHILE CLAIMING OTHERS NOT BELIEVING IN JESUS ARE WORSHIPPING THE TRUE GOD, AND WILL ALSO BE SAVED. IF A CHRISTIAN WANTS TO DO "GOOD WORKS" AS MAYBE FREEMASONRY DOES, THEY CAN JOIN A CHRISTIAN GROUP OR GIVE THEIR MONEY TO GOOD CHARITIES THAT SERVE AND HELP PEOPLE AND/OR ANIMALS - Keith Hunt)
Christianity may well be, as Hannah says, an exclusive religion; but a lot depends on the definition of Christianity. For many Christians, it is not only Christianity which is exclusive, but their own particular brand of Christianity. For many Roman Catholics, until very recently, the word 'Christian' meant 'Roman Catholic'; anyone else was beyond the pale. Similarly, for many Evangelical Christians, any other variety of Christianity isn't Christian: High Church Anglicans are in league with Rome, and Rome is the Whore of Babylon, while liberals are treated with more suspicion and horror than were communists at the height of McCarthyism. Some Fundamentalist Evangelicals, such as the Exclusive Brethren, will not even eat a meal with anyone who is not one of their own number - or even with one of their own who has committed such an act.
(NOW SURE THERE ARE EXTREMES OF CHRISTIAN RELIGION. AND THERE CAN BE EXTREMES WITHIN A CERTAIN SECT OF CHRISTIANITY. BOTH EXTREMES ARE WRONG…..THE SO LIBERAL THAT ANYTHING IS JUST ABOUT ACCEPTED ["GAYS" - SAME SEX MARRIAGE - GAY MINISTERS] AND THEN YOU HAVE SOME THAT SAY CARD PLAYING, DANCING, AND THE LIKE ARE SINS. BUT I HAVE NOT BEEN TALKING ABOUT SUCH. I'VE BEEN CENTERED ON A VERY FUNDAMENTAL PART OF THEOLOGY AND THE BIBLE, ESPECIALLY THE NEW TESTAMENT, AND THAT IS THE CENTRAL ROLE OF JESUS CHRIST. ALL THAT I KNOW ABOUT CHRISTIANITY IN ITS VARIOUS SECTS, STILL HAVE ONE BASIC AND CENTRAL FOCUS….. JESUS CHRIST AS THE SON OF GOD; SENT TO PREACH ADN DO THE WILL OF THE FATHER; SENT TO BE SAVIOR FOR ALL PEOPLES. SO GETTING OFF ON TO THE TWINGS AND BRANCHES OF THE TREE, AS THE AUTHOR IS DOING HERE, AND NOT STICKING TO THE HUGE MAIN TRUNK, IS JUST MUDDYING THE WATERS. THE TRUNK OF THE TREE IS JESUS CHRIST. FOR ANY "RELIGIOUS" OR "WORSHIPPING TOWARDS GOD" ORGANIZATION THAT DOES NOT HAVE THE TRUNK OF THE TREE, IS A FALSE RELIGION IMMEDIATELY, BEFORE EVEN GETTING INTO THE DUG-OUT TO PLAY THE GAME - Keith Hunt
There seem to be more varieties of exclusivity within Christianity than in most other religions. The word 'Christian' means different things to each of them. This clearly affects how they view any religious practice which is not their own.
(TRUE TO A POINT. BUT THEY ALL AGREE IF BEING CHRISTIAN AND HAVING AND HOLDING THE BIBLE OF CHRISTIANITY, THAT JESUS CHRIST IS CENTRAL FOR SALVATION AND BEING SAVED. THE MUSLIM AND JEWISH RELIGIONS DO NOT HOLD THAT CENTRAL THEME. THEY BOTH BELIEVE YOU CAN HAVE ETERNAL LIFE WITHOUT JESUS CHRIST. AND THAT THEOLOGY JUST CANNOT CO-EXIST WITH ANY SECT OF CHRISTIANITY - Keith Hunt)
The practice of Freemasonry, that Christian, Muslim and Jew - and indeed, anyone who believes in One Creator God - may pray and sing hymns to that God side by side, would be seen as dangerous liberal heresy both by those who believe in the authority of the Apostolic Succession in the Church, and by those who would cry 'Idolator!' if they saw a priest bobbing his head at the cross on an altar.
(YES THEY BOTH WOULD INDEED SAY IT IS A DANGEROUS LIBERAL HERESY, TO HAVE CHRISTIANS TRYING TO WORSHIP GOD, WITH MUSLIMS AND JEWS, AND NOT HAVING JESUS CHRIST IN THE PICTURE. TO THINK IT COULD BE A REGULAR PRACTICE FOR CHRISTIANS TO JOIN ISLAM OR JEWISH SERVICES, MAKING OUT THAT ALL THREE RELIGIONS ARE ACCEPTABLE TO THE ONE TRUE GOD, IS CONTRARY TO ALL THE TEACHINGS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT, FROM CHRIST TO THE APOSTLES - Keith Hunt)
Those for whom Christianity, or their branch of Christianity, is exclusive might well find difficulty in accepting the open approach of Freemasonry. Those who are less inclined to believe that they alone have the truth find this less of a problem; indeed many, like John Hamill, find within Freemasonry a confirmation and strengthening of their beliefs:
Freemasonry reinforces my religion. The ceremonies made me think again, and took me back into my religion . . .Freemasonry expects its members to have a religion; how they practise it, how they progress through it, is entirely up to the individual, and Freemasonry will not either guide or direct them. It lays out that it's there, and it's up to them then to follow.
(AH BUT IT IS SO TEACHING THAT YOU DO NOT NEED CHRIST, JUST A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF "YOUR FAITH" AND YOU'LL BE ACCEPTABLE TO GOD AND BE SAVED. NOTHING COULD BE FURTHER FROM THE TRUTH. HAVING A DEEPER UNDERSTAND IF ISLAM SO YOU CAN LIVE AS A MORE SPIRITUAL MUSLIM, DOES NOT REPLACE OR JUSTIFY YOU FROM HAVING CHRIST, HIS WORD AND HIS LIFE EXAMPLE, AS CENTRAL IN YOUR LIFE. HAVING A DEEPER UNDERSTAND OF YOUR FAITH IN BUDDHISM, DOES NOT "DO AWAY" WITH THE TRUTH THAT JESUS IS THE SON OF GOD, OR JESUS MUST BE PERSONAL SAVIOR IN YOUR LIFE TO BE SAVED - Keith Hunt)
However, the religious thrust of Freemasonry is liberal, if only in that it accepts that the Truth is not to be found exclusively in Evangelical Christianity, establishment Roman Catholicism, or any other subset of the huge diversity of Christianity. Moreover, it accepts the findings of comparative religious studies and of biblical criticism that there is much of value in earlier religions, and that, whatever the historicity of the Jesus myth, there is little in Christian doctrine or practice which is original. This is anathema to devout Christians of many persuasions, and particularly - but not only - to Evangelicals.
(THERE IS INDEED LITTLE IN CHRISTIANITY PER SE THAT IS NEW OR ORIGINAL. THE GOSPEL OF THE OLD TESTAMENT TAUGHT A SAVIOR TO COME. THOSE FROM ADAM, CALLED TO FOLLOW THE TRUE GOD, LOOKED TO THE COMING OF A SAVIOR TO TAKE AWAY SINS. THOSE SINCE JESUS DIED AND WAS RAISED AGAIN, LOOK BACK TO A SAVIOR THAT CAME, FOR THE REMISSION OF SINS. THE BASIC WAY TO SALVATION AND BEING SAVED, WAS FROM OLD TIME TO THE PRESENT TIME UNCHANGED. THE SAME BASIC TRUTHS OF THE GOSPEL, SIN, REPENTANCE, DEATH, RESURRECTION, JUDGMENT, AGE TO COME, AND THE ONLY WAY TO BE SAVED, HAS REMAINED THE SAME FROM THE BEGINNING. THE JEWS AND MUSLIMS MAY HAVE A FEW SECTIONS OF THEOLOGY THAT CHRISTIANS HAVE, BUT THE DIFFERENCE ON HOW TO BE SAVED INTO ETERNAL LIFE, IS A GAP OF SUCH A HUGE PROPORTION AS LIKE EUROPE IS FROM AMERICA - Keith Hunt)
Walton Hannah, a High-Church Anglican priest who later joined the Roman Catholic Church, raises the issue in Darkness Visible, saying that Masons will argue:
Is not Christianity also full of pagan customs and ceremonies, is not Easter a time-immemorial festival of new life in the Spring, and the reverence paid to the Mother of God but an echo of the Magna Mater of imperial Rome? Did not other religions have as a saviour a virgin-born demi-god who died and rose again.
The answer to all these questions, and to many others of a similar nature, is of course 'yes', Hannah admits 'the possibility of a substratum of truth in these assertions', but then goes on:
Before that supreme and final revelation of truth in the Incarnation of our Lord there had of course been partial glimpses and foreshadowings of it, purely human and not revealed, by no means entirely limited to the Jewish nation. There were anti-types [sic presumably he means 'ante-types'] indeed of our Saviour in the pagan world... whatsoever truth, however partial, had been before guessed or discovered by man's intellect was naturally included [in Christianity] Many customs, symbols, and ceremonies which were of value were adopted.
They were indeed, in large number, along with many beliefs and many standard religious myths, such as the Virgin Birth. But by defining such 'borrowings' as ante-types, Hannah is simply echoing the second-century Justin Martyr, who claimed that 'whatever things were rightly said by any man, belong to us Christians'. The argument is as strong or as weak now as it was 1,800 years ago.
(THE WRITER SAYS, "RELIGIOUS MYTHS SUCH AS THE VIRGIN BIRTH" - SURELY TELLS US HE IS NOT AN EVANGELICAL CHRISTIAN, NOR ROMAN CATHOLIC FOR THAT MATTER. SURELY INDEED A SO-CALLED "CHRISTIANITY" HAS MANY ERRORS LIKE EASTER REPLACING THE PASSOVER, AND CHRISTMAS BEING ADOPTED FROM THE ROMAN WINTER FESTIVAL. ALL KINDS OF ERROR AND FALSE PRACTICES WERE ADOPTED INTO THE POPULAR CHRISTIANITY OVER HUNDREDS OF YEARS. THAT DOES NOT MEAN PURE CORRECT CHRISTIANITY DID NOT EXIST ALONG WITH THE FALSE TEACHINGS AND CUSTOMS OF A FALSE CHRISTIANITY. ALL OF THAT FACT DOES NOT ALTER THE OTHER FACT, THAT THE BASIC TENANT OF OTHER RELIGIONS LIKE ISLAM AND JUDAISM DO NOT HOLD TO A SAVIOR CALLED JESUS CHRIST, AND THROUGH HIM ALONE IS SALVATION AND ETERNAL LIFE. THE FALSEHOODS IN THE MAJORITY OF CHRISTIANITY, DOES NOT JUSTIFYING HAVING A RELIGION THAT EXCLUDES JESUS AS ONLY SAVIOR, AND THROUGH HIM ONLY CAN SINS BE FORGIVE, AND A PERSON CAN BE SAVED - Keith Hunt)
If a time-traveller were to visit first-century Palestine and ask one of the twelve disciples about the Trinity he would be met with a blank look; if he asked about the Virgin Birth, he would probably get the response, 'Which one?' The hundreds of small Fundamentalist Christian denominations which claim to go back to the pure beliefs of the New Testament Church generally forget that the fundamentals of Christian theology were not developed until some considerable time later - in some cases with 'retro-fitting' of proof texts into the New Testament itself; one example is '. . . baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost' (Matthew 28:19), which the authoritative Peake's Commentary accepts is 'a late doctrinal expansion'69 rather than Jesus' own words.
(MAINLY GARBAGE FROM THE AUTHOR. FIRST, YES, THE APOSTLES OF THE NEW TESTAMENT DID NOT TEACH A "TRINITY" AS TAUGHT BY THE POPULAR CHRISTIANITY OF TODAY. THE VIRGIN BIRTH WAS INDEED BELIEVED AND TAUGHT BY THE APOSTLES. THE WRITER LOOKS AT THE "FUNDAMENTALS OF CHRISTIAN THEOLOGY FROM THE HISTORY OF THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER IS: ALL OF THE FUNDAMENTALS OF TRUTH CHRISTIANITY ARE IN THE NEW TESTAMENT, AND THE OLD TESTAMENT. USING THE WHOLE BIBLE THE FUNDAMENTAL DOCTRINES OF GOD WERE KNOWN BY THE FIRST APOSTLES, AND ARE IN THEIR WRITINGS AS INSPIRED BY THE HOLY SPIRIT. THE "PEAKE'S COMMENTARY" IS VERY WRONG, AS ARE MANY "MODERN" SO-CALLED CRITICAL SCHOLARS OF THE BIBLE. AND SO WERE SOME VERY EARLY ONES LIKE ORIGEN WHO TAUGHT JUST ABOUT EVERYTHING IN THE BIBLE WAS ALLEGORICAL, NOT TO BE TAKEN LITERALLY, BUT ALL MEANT SOMETHING ELSE. THERE ARE MANY TODAY WHO TAKE A VERY LIBERAL VIEW OF THE BIBLE AND THE WORDS IN IT. TO THEM THE BIBLE IS NOT INSPIRED, BUT OFTEN IS THE WRITINGS OF MEN UN-INSPIRED - Keith Hunt)
One point missed by most critics of Freemasonry, whether writing from a Christian viewpoint or not, is that the ritual stories enacted in Freemasonry are not intended to be taken literally. They are stories, fables, allegories, not history. Robert Morey and others get hot under the collar about the central legend of the murder of the builder Hiram Abiff not being scriptural; Masons never claim it is. It is a teaching story, a morality play - a parable.70
(OKAY SO WE WILL NOT GET "WORKED-UP" OVER SUCH THINGS. I COULD CARE LESS ABOUT SUCH THINGS. YOU DON'T HAVE TO USE TEACHING STORIES TO PROVE FREEMASONRY SHOULD NOT BE A PART OF A TRUE CHRISTIAN'S LIFE - Keith Hunt)
But Morey has a strange attitude to such stories in any case: 'Legends, myths . . . and traditions are so unreliable that they are worthless.'71 In fact myths - and legends, traditions and even folklore - are at the heart of all religions. Whether one accepts that they have any factual basis must be an individual decision; it is their meaning which is of importance.
(DON'T HAVE TO BOTHER WITH STORIES, LEGENDS ETC. TO PROVE FREEMASONRY IS DECEPTIVE AND NOT FROM GOD - Keith Hunt)
Books such as Morey's The Truth About Masons are not always reliable themselves. For example, he asserts that 'Waite... took over the Order of the Golden Dawn. .. after Crowley died.'72 In fact Waite died in 1942, five years before Crowley. Then he says, 'Aleister Crowley. .. was the previous leader of the Golden Dawn.' Crowley was never leader, and was actually only involved in the movement for a short time (see p. 219).
(SO INDEED HAVING TO DELVE INTO FREEMASONRY AS MOREY TRIED TO DO, AND GET THINGS MIXED UP AND WRONG, IS NOT NEEDED. I HAVE ALREADY PROVED THE EVIL AND DECEPTION OF FREEMASONRY FROM THE NEW TESTAMENT WHICH THEY DO NOT HOLD, WILL NOT TEACH, AND WILL NOT LET ANTONE TEACH TO OTHERS - Keith Hunt)
Morey complains that in Freemasonry:
while all other religions can pray in the name of their deity such as Allah, Buddha, Shiva, or Krishna, Christians are the only ones who are forbidden to pray in the name of their deity, Jesus Christ! If the Muslims can use the name of Allah, why can't the Christians use the name of Jesus?73
This is incorrect. As a Fundamentalist, Morey is understandably rejecting the fact that Allah is the same deity as Yahweh, Jehovah or the Lord, who is the same deity as God the Father of Jesus. But in fact Christians are not the only ones who are forbidden to pray in the name of their deity'. Muslims are not allowed to use the name of Allah in the Lodge; even in a totally Muslim Lodge they would use the terms Great Architect of the Universe, Grand Geometrician, and Most High, just as in any other Lodge.
(OKAY THE AUTHOR SAYS MOREY HAS IT WRONG. AGAIN WHY BOTHER WITH SUCH ARGUMENTS WHEN YOU COULD GET THEM WRONG IF NEVER A PART OF FREEMASONRY. THE FACTS WE HAVFE SEEN VERY PLAINLY IS YOU CANNOT TALK ABOUT CHRIST AS SAVIOR, AND THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION. THE FACT IS FREEMASNORY IS A MULTI-NEUTRAL RELIGION. JUST LOOK TO A ONE-GOD-BEING IN HEAVEN, AND ALL WORSHIP HIM IN THEIR OWN WAY OUTSIDE OF THE MASONIC LODGE, AND DO NOT TALK ABOUT ANY OTHER BELIEFS IN THE MASONIC LODGE SERVICES. THEY ARE TEACHING THIS GOD-BEING WILL ACCEPT ALL WITH WHATEVER BELIEFS, AND YOU CAN BE SAVED TO BE IN HIS PRESENCE ONE DAY, WITHOUT JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR PERSONAL SAVIOR - Keith Hunt)
Morey is not alone in propagating such errors, as Hamill explains.
There's a whole similar literature in America, where the Fundamentalist Evangelicals now have got to the level where they run programmes on cable television and on local radio, which are basically anti-Masonic programmes. A couple of American Masonic scholars have looked at the booklets and pamphlets they put out, and quite a lot of it is just blatant lies. If you actually look at the sources they're quoting, they're either misquoted or taken completely out of context - or, in a number of cases, the quotations which they produce don't exist in the books they claim they come from. There is an interesting example of this in Morey's book. In a chapter on 'The Legacy of Albert Pike' (see pp. 151-54), Morey sets out both to damn Pike fairly comprehensively, and also to show how widely respected he is, at least in American Freemasonry, thus also damning Freemasonry by its approbation of Pike. Among the other plaudits is one which appears to be from Waite: 'In 1970, the occultist A.E. Waite did not hesitate to call Pike, "a master genius of Masonry."'74
(AGAIN A LOT OF USELESS TIME WASTED ON THINGS THAT DO NOT MATTER, OR THINGS YOU COULD GET WRONG, IF YOU'VE NEVER BEEN A FREEMASON. THE TRUNK OF THE TREE HAS ALREADY BEEN EXPOUNDED TO YOU IN THE AUTHORS OWN WORDS, ABOUT HOW YOU ARE TO CONDUCT YOURSELF IN WORDS AS A FREEMASON, AND ESPECIALLY WITHIN THE FREEMASON LODGE…… BIBLE'S NEW TESTAMENT IS OUT, AS IS TALKING ABOUT JESUS CHRIST AS PERSONAL SAVIOR, AND THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION AND ETERNAL LIFE - Keith Hunt)
Apart from the fact that Waite's New Encyclopaedia of Freemasonry, from which this quotation comes, was first published around 1920, and that Waite had been 28 years dead by the time of the 1970 reprint, what Waite actually says is that Pike "has been characterised as 'a master-genius of Masonry"'; he is quoting other people's opinion. Wake's own opinion of Pike is not at all as Morey paints it:
as a critical scholar of Masonry, a historian and a writer on the ethical and philosophical side of the subject he is not to be taken as a guide. No man had a greater opportunity and no one a freer hand when he undertook to revise the Rituals of the Scottish Rite, and he scored only failure.75
(ONCE MORE TRYING TO GET THE TWIGS IS SILLY, WHEN THE TRUNK OF THE TREE OF WHAT IS THE BASIC PHILOSOPHY OF FREEMASONRY IS VERY APPARENT AND SO EASY TO SEE - YOU DO NOT TEACH THE NEW TESTAMENT OR CHRIST JESUS AS THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION AND ETERNAL LIFE - Keith Hunt)
One can only speculate as to why Morey found it necessary to misrepresent Waite's judgement so comprehensively. Perhaps it was to give support to his entirely unsubstantiated assertion that Waite, who was actually a devout mystical Christian, was a Luciferian.76
(YEP WRONG APPROACH BY MOREY - Keith Hunt)
In the last few decades traditional church-going in Britain as elsewhere has been on the wane, but the Evangelical wing of Christianity has been growing rapidly. Although most mainstream Christians would be reluctant to say that all Jews, Muslims and members of other religions are unbelievers who are going to hell, Fundamentalist Evangelicals, by definition, do believe this. The liberal religious aspects of Freemasonry would certainly not be acceptable to them.
(AH INDEED SO. I GUESS I WOULD BE CLASSIFIED BY THE AUTHOR AS FUNDAMENTAL EVANGELICAL. BUT I DO NOT BELIEVE PEOPLE IN FREEMASONRY AS GOING TO HELL AS POPULAR EVANGELICALS TEACH IT. NOPE, FREEMASONS ARE SPIRITUALLY BLINDED, THEY ARE DECEIVED, IF NOT CALLED TO GOD'S TRUTHS IN THIS LIFETIME, THEY WILL COME UP IN THE SECOND RESURRECTION [REVELATION 20], HAVE THE BIBLE OPENED TO THEM, HAVE THE TREE OF LIFE OPPORTUNITY, AND BY WHAT THEY DO WITH THE TRUTHS OF THE BIBLE, THEY WILL ACCEPT JESUS AS SAVIOR, HAVE ETERNAL LIFE, OR HAVE THE SECOND DEATH, IN THE LAKE OF FIRE, BE DEAD FOREVER - Keith Hunt)
Hamill agrees that there are difficulties for Masons who are fervent Evangelicals. 'Fundamentalists in any religion, not just Christianity, have to my mind tunnel vision, and the one thing that they don't like about Freemasonry is the fact that we teach tolerance.'
( THEY TEACH TOLERANCE TO A WRONG HERETICAL LINE - THEY TEACH ALL PEOPLE NO MATTER WHAT THEIR FAITH IS, CAN WORSHIP GOD AND BE ACCEPTED BY HIM, EVEN TO ETERNAL LIFE, WITHOUT JESUS CHRIST IN THE PICTURE - THAT IS HERETICAL TOLERANCE - Keith Hunt)
Earlier, Pelagianism was referred to as 'a very British heresy'. A lot of British people would say they were Christian simply because they were born in Britain, which is 'a Christian country'. If asked exactly what they do believe, many might become embarrassed. If pressed for an answer, few would come out with a doctrinally sound summary of orthodox Christian beliefs. Many would find difficulty with the Trinity, the Virgin Birth, and even the resurrection. And a fair number would say that salvation depended as much on leading a good life - i.e. by doing "good works' - as on faith.
(YES FROM PEOPLE NOT CALLED, THIS WOULD OFTEN BE THE ANSWER FROM THEM - THEY ALSO ARE SPIRITUALLY BLIND, SO TO THEM "WELL BEING A GOOD PERSON WILL GET YOU TO HEAVEN" - SUCH IS NOT THE CASE AT ALL. BUT FOR THE SPIRITUAL BLIND IT SOUNDS A REASONABLE ANSWER - Keith Hunt)
Both Pelagianism and Arianism - loosely, the belief that Jesus is not equal to the Father in a Triune Godhead - lurk within many a traditional British pew-sitter on a Sunday morning. Both 'heresies' would be entirely comfortable within the undefined theology of Craft Freemasonry. Both hark back to the early centuries of Christianity, before today's standard Christian doctrine was hammered out in councils and synods between bishops whose decisions were as often politically as spiritually motivated.77
(TRUE DOCTRINES OF GOD ARE NOT DECIDED BY COUNCILS AND SYNODS. THE BIBLE GIVES YOU THE TRUTHS OF GOD, PUTTING SCRIPTURE WITH SCRIPTURE, ALL VERSES ON ANY SUBJECT IN THE BIBLE COLLECTED, FOR THE TRUTH OF THE MATTER. THE GODHEAD I HAVE EXPOUNDED FULLY AND IN-DEPTH FOR YOU UNDER "GOD, CHRIST, AND THE HOLY SPIRIT" SECTION OF THIS W EBSITE - Keith Hunt)
Part of the reason for the strength of Freemasonry in Britain is that the Church of England has traditionally prided itself on being a broad Church. Any denomination that can include within itself the bells 'n' smells of High Anglicanism, the guitars and speaking in tongues of Evangelicalism and the Charismatic Movement, and the liberalism of the 1960s Bishop of Woolwich and the 1990s Bishop of Durham, can put up with the generalized theological approach of Freemasonry. Much the same applies in the USA, with the Episcopalian Church. But such broad tolerance is clearly changing, with the rise of Fundamentalism.
(THE TRUTHS OF GOD HAVE NEVER CHANGED; THE TRUE CHURCH OF GOD WILL REMAIN PURE. WHEN IN TIMES OF DEPARTURE FROM TRUTH INTO ERROR, CHRIST'S CHURCH HAS COME OUT OF THE ERROR AND CONTINUED ON THE STRAIGHT AND NARROW - Keith Hunt)
The compatibility or otherwise of Freemasonry and Christianity is thus even more of an issue today than it was when Hannah wrote Darkness Visible.
(TRUE I GUESS IF YOU WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE TRUE GOD HAS TO SAY ON THE SUBJECT - Keith Hunt)
The Secret Doctrine
Many of the religious critics of Freemasonry quote Joseph Fort Newton's statement "It is true that Masonry is not a religion, but it is Religion, a worship in which all good men may unite, that each may share the faith of all.' The critics see this as non-Christian, even anti-Christian. It is a shame that in their determination to condemn they don't read on to see what Newton was actually talking about. It is worth quoting at length.
(OKAY I'LL READ IT - Keith Hunt)
All this confusion results from a misunderstanding of what religion is. Religions are many; religion is one - perhaps we may say one thing, but that one thing includes everything - the life of God in the soul of mine, which finds expression in all the forms which life and love and duty take. This conception of religion shakes the poison out of all our wild flowers, and shows us that it is the inspiration of all scientific enquiry, all striving for liberty, all virtue and charity; the spirit of all thought, the motif of all great music, the soul of all sublime literature. The Church has no monopoly of religion, nor did the Bible create it. Instead, it was religion - the natural and simple trust of the soul in a Power above and within it, and its quest of a right relation to that Power - that created the Bible and the Church, and, indeed, all our higher human life. The soul of man is greater than all books, deeper than all dogmas, and more enduring than all institutions. Masonry seeks to free men from a limiting conception of religion, and thus to remove one of the chief causes of sectarianism. It is itself one of the forms of beauty wrought by the human soul under the inspiration of the Eternal Beauty, and as such is religious.78
(OH WOW….. WHAT CLEVER DECEPTIVE SOUNDING WORDS THIS IS. THE SAME KIND OF WORDS USED TODAY FOR ACCEPTING "GAYS" - "SAME SEX MARRIAGE" - "TRANSGENDER" - INTO THE "CHRISTIAN" CHURCH. OH THE HUMAN HEART IS SO LOVING, JUST SEE THE BEAUTY IN LOVING ALL PEOPLE WHO HAVE DIFFERENT WAYS OF LIVING; OH GOD IS SO LOVING HE ACCEPTS EVERYONE, ALL IS BEAUTIFUL TO HIM. OH YA? SUCH TALKING PEOPLE HAVE NEVER READ THE BIBLE FROM COVER TO COVER. GOD'S RELIGION IS IN THE BILE! GOD TEACHES US WHAT ARE HIS DOCTRINES, HIS TRUTHS, HIS WAY OF LIFE. HE TEACHES US HOW TO WORSHIP HIM. JESUS SAID, YOU COULD WORSHIP GOD IN VAIN, BY YOUR TRADITIONS, BY REPLACING GOD'S COMMANDMENTS WITH THE IDEAS OF MEN (MARK 7:6-7). THE TRUE CHURCH HAS ALWAYS STRIVED TO KNOW GOD'S MIND AND WAYS, TO LIVE BY EVERY WORD THAT COMES FROM GOD (MAT. 4:4). TRUE RELIGION TOWARDS GOD IS LIVING BY HIS EVERY WORD; IT IS ACCEPTING JESUS AS ONLY SAVIOR, THE VERY SON OF GOD; THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION AND ETERNAL LIFE. ANYONE, ANY ORGANIZATION THAT CLAIMS THEY WORSHIP TOWARDS "THE" GOD IN HEAVEN, MUST HAVE JESUS CHRIST AT THE CENTER OF THE GROUP, ORGANIZATION, CHURCH. ANYTHING LESS IS FALSE, IS A MAN MADE RELIGION, IS WORSHIPPING GOD IN VAIN, IS LAYING ASIDE THE COMMANDMENTS OF GOD TO HOLD ITS OWN MAN MADE TRADITIONS - Keith Hunt)
The religion within Freemasonry does not deny God's revelation in Jesus Christ, as Christian critics claim; but it also doesn't, as many Evangelical Christians appear to, refuse to acknowledge the importance of people's quest for God since the beginning of time. A relationship has to work in both directions. To suggest that people's longing for God before the advent of Christ 2,000 years ago was met only with a stony indifference by God, is surely a far greater heresy than the suggestion that there might be some truth in all religions, an idea which Fundamentalists condemn outright.
(GOD'S PEOPLE WERE NEVER MET WITH STONEY SILENCE, FROM THE DAYS OF ADAM GOD HAS HIS PEOPLE, CALLED AND CHOSEN. THEY ALWAYS KNEW THE WAY OF SALVATION…..THROUGH A COMING SAVIOR. THE FREEMASONS MAY NOT DENY GOD'S REVELATION IN JESUS CHRIST, AS ISLAMIC RELIGION ADMITS CHRIST WAS A PROPHET OF GOD. BUT LIKE MUSLIMS THE FREEMASONS DO NOT TEACH JESUS' WORDS, DO NOT HOLD HIM UP AS GOD IN THE FLESH, THE ONLY SAVIOR, THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION, AND THE ONLY WAY THEIR ORGANIZATION SHOULD TEACH TO WORSHIP TOWARDS GOD. BEING "NEUTRALLY OPEN" MEANS ANYTHING IS ACCEPTABLE TO GOD, AND AS LONG AS YOU STRIVE TO BE THE BEST IN "YOUR FAITH" [OR RELIGION] YOU CAN HAVE ETERNAL LIFE WITH THAT GOD YOU WORSHIP IN A NEUTRAL MASONIC LODGE. THIS IS COMPLETELY OPPOSITE TO THE VERY TEACHINGS OF CHRIST AND THE APOSTLES OF THE FIRST CENTURY - Keith Hunt)
Over the last few years there has been considerable confusion both within and without Freemasonry not just as to whether or not it is a religion, but even whether it is in any way religious - or, more to the point, whether it has any right to be. Some say it is, and should be; others that it is, and shouldn't; some deny that, at least for them, that it has any religious content at all.
(WELL I GUESS IF YOU CANNOT SPEAK ABOUT YOUR FAITH, IT CAN FOR SOME BE JUST A NICE SOCIAL CLUB, WHERE NO RELIGION IN SPECIFICS IS SPOKEN. BUT WE HAVE SEEN THE FREEMASON TEACHING IS "BE NEUTRAL" SO WHATEVER YOU BELIEVE TOWARDS GOD, IS NOT GIVEN TO ANYONE ELSE. NOW IF IT IS GOING TO BE JUST A SOCIAL CLUB WITH "GOOD WORKS" TOWARDS OTHERS AT TIMES, THEN IT NEEDS TO DROP ANYTHING TO DO WITH THE BIBLE OR ANY CONNECTION WITH ANYTHING THAT PORTENDS TO SOME "RELIGIOUS" WORSHIP OF A "GOD" - Keith Hunt)
Critics such as Martin Short say that Freemasonry is trying to be all things to all men; he seems to find it incomprehensible that some Freemasons derive deep spiritual satisfaction from the Craft, while others say they have little religious belief and enjoy it purely as a social club.
In court [Grand Lodge] claimed that Freemasonry is dedicated to advancing religion, but outside it was saying the Craft has no dogma and bans religious discussion. This must be a nonsense. How can Freemasonry 'advance' religion, and educate its members in spirituality, if they are not allowed to discuss the meaning of the ritual's religious elements?. . . each Mason, it seems, must fumble his own way through the ritual's labyrinth of ideas from all manner of primitive and mystical cults, some pre-dating even Judaism.79
But there is nothing incompatible here at all. What Short fails to grasp is that Freemasonry, through its rituals and their explanatory lectures, provides its members with a body of symbolism; and that whatever the members choose to do with this is entirely up to them. Some will grudgingly put up with all the ritual for the sake of the social side; others will enjoy the play-acting simply as spectacle; but some will let the symbolism of the ritual wash through them, leading them further on in their individual quest for the Divine.
(SO THE SYMBOLISM ETC. SHOULD NOT IN ANY WAY BE CONNECTED TO ANY RELIGION, HENCE BE FULLY NEUTRAL. THEN WHY NOT DO AWAY WITH THE RITES COMPLETELY AND JUST HAVE A SOCIAL CLUB THAT SITS DOWN TO PLAN ON DOING GOOD DEEDS TO OTHER PEOPLE AND CHILDREN. AND WHY THE "DEGREES" AND SECRECY FROM ONE STEP UP TO THE NEXT - Keith Hunt)
This, surely, is the whole point of the spiritual side of Freemasonry: in contrast to the set dogmas of the established Church, Freemasonry teaches that it is for each individual member to establish his own relationship with God, in his own way. Freemasonry may provide signposts along the path, but the path has to be walked by each man alone.
(AND DEPENDING ON THOSE SIGN POSTS AND HOW IT CONDUCTS ITS MEETINGS IN THE OVERALL, WILL DETERMINE IF IT IS TRYING TO BE A RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION FOR EVERYONE IN ITS MEETINGS. IF IT IS DOING AN "EVERYONE HERE IS WORSHIPPING THEIR GOD, AND ALL CAN BE TO SAVED TO FUTURE ETERNITY UNDER THEIR GOD" - THEN THAT IS CLEARY A RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION WITH A RELIGIOUS AGENDA TO PROMOTE - AND A TRUE CHRISTIAN COULD NOT IN GOOD CONSCIENCE BE APART OF, WITH NO JESUS BEING ALLOWED. CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A "NEUTRAL" RELIGION. TO BE PART OF A NEUTRAL RELIGION FOR A CHRISTIAN WOULD MEAN YOU AGREE THAT SALVATION IS OPEN TO ALL, WITHOUT JESUS CHRIST AS SAVIOR - AND THAT WOULD BE DENYING THE VERY WORDS OF CHRIST HIMSELF - Keith Hunt)
So Freemasonry can at one and the same time be 'dedicated to advancing religion' and have 'no dogma'. There is no contradiction; it certainly is not 'a nonsense'. As for banning religious discussion, this makes perfect sense. The moment people start to discuss their own individual, personal spiritual quests and experiences, arguments begin; there is dissension. Factions form - 'My path is better than your path' - which is precisely what Freemasonry has been against from the start. It is not just a Christian-Jew-Muslim problem; when Freemasonry began in an organized way, it was a Roman Catholic-Church of England-Methodist-Baptist-Congregationalist-Presbyterian-Quaker-Unitarian-Deist (and the rest) problem. Most of these were quite happy to tear out each other's throats (at least metaphorically) in argument.
(NO MATTER HOW IT BEGAN OR WHERE IT WENT TO OVER THE DECADES, I SAY AGAIN IF IT IS TRYING TO BE A NEUTRAL "RELIGION" - A RELIGION FOR EVERYONE, SO TEACHING ALL CAN COME TO GOD WITH "THEIR RELIGION" AND BE SAVED, THEN IT IS A RELIGION AND SO TEACHING ALL CAN HAVE ETERNAL LIFE "MY WAY" WITH OR WITHOUT CHRIST AS SAVIOR - SUCH A TRADITION OF MEN [MADE UP BY MEN] IS NOT ACCEPTED BY THE TRUE GOD. HIS WAY IS ETERNAL LIFE ONLY THROUGH HIS SON JESUS CHRIST - Keith Hunt)
Through the rose-tinted spectacles we turn on history, we see the Pilgrim Fathers and others crossing the Atlantic to escape persecution, and going to a Promised Land of religious tolerance. It wasn't so. They were just as bigoted as those they left behind. The Congregationalists who settled in New England in the early seventeenth century initially outlawed all other denominations. Eventually, reluctantly, they allowed Baptists and Episcopalians. In Massachusetts Congregationalists imprisoned and whipped Quakers. Four Quakers were executed there in 1659-61, for the crime of being Quakers.80
(THE TERRIBLE THINGS DONE BY SO-CALLED "CHRISTIANS" DOWN THROUGH THE CENTURIES, WAS VERY WRONG; THEY TOO WERE SPIRITUALLY BLINDED, NOT A PART OF THE TRUE CHURCH OF GOD, BUT A PART OF THE DECEPTIVE FALSE CHRISTIANITY OF SATAN THE DEVIL - Keith Hunt)
It made sense in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries to ban discussion of religion, and also discussion of politics, within the Lodge; it still makes sense now. And there is no dogma, no clear, specific teaching of the meaning of it all, because this would be forcing just one interpretation onto the symbolism, and insisting that just one spiritual path is correct. This is expressed exquisitely by Joseph Fort Newton:
With the subtleties of speculation concerning those truths, and the unworldly envies growing out of them, it [Freemasonry] has not to do. There divisions begin, and Masonry was not made to divide men, but to unite them, leaving each man free to think his own thought and fashion his own system of ultimate truth. All its emphasis rests upon two extremely simple and profound principles - love of God and love of man. Therefore, all through the ages it has been, and is to-day, a meeting-place of differing minds, and a prophecy of the final union of all reverent and devout souls.
Time was when one man framed a dogma and declared it to be the eternal truth. Another man did the same thing, with a different dogma; then the two began to hate each other with an unholy hatred, each seeking to impose his dogma upon the other - and that is an epitome of some of the blackest pages of history. Against those old sectarians who substituted intolerance for charity, persecution for friendship, and did not love God because they hated their neighbours, Masonry made eloquent protest, putting their bigotry to shame by its simple insight and the dignity of its golden voice.81
(AGAIN NICE SOUNDING WORDS FOR FREEMASONRY AGAINST A BACKGROUND OF SECTARIANISM IN HATE AND IMPOSITION OF OF "THEIR WAY" UPON ALL. THE TRUE CHRISTIAN WAS NOT PART OF THIS HISTORY; THEY STOOD ALONE IF NEEDS BE; THEY DID NOT HATE OTHERS FOR HAVING A DIFFERENT RELIGION OR BELIEFS OF DOCTRINE; THEY KNEW THE WORLD, EVEN THE WORLD OF CHRISTIANITY WAS DECEIVED. THEY ALSO KNEW A NEUTRALLY RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATION, WHERE THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST, EVEN JESUS HIMSELF AND HIS WORDS NOT ALLOWED TO BE SHARED, WAS THE ANSWER. ONE WAY WAS THE DECEPTION OF HATE AND BLOOD, THE OTHER WAY A DECEPTION OF THEOLOGY. BOTH ARE DECEPTIONS, AND A TRUE CHRISTIAN CAN NOT BE PART OF EITHER - Keith Hunt)
Newton is, however, too optimistic. He writes that 'a vast change of heart is now taking place in the religious world' as different religious movements begin talking to each other. Perhaps that was so in 1914 when he wrote these words; sadly, sectarianism and competing Fundamentalism seem stronger today than ever before. The need for 'a meeting-place of differing minds' is greater than ever. From this point of view, if none other, writers such as Walton Hannah, Robert Morey, Stephen Knight and Martin Short have made their own contribution to increasing the disharmony. Freemasonry's 'simple insight and the dignity of its golden voice' (if this was not an over-idealized view to begin with) have become buried under a mass of unpleasantness; some might indeed be of its own making, but most is the fault of its critics.
(SURE HOW YOU PRESENT A TRUTH, DIVULGING AN ERROR, IS VERY IMPORTANT. YOU CAN COUNTER WITH ANGER, SARCASM, WRONG QUOTES, DIRECT MISREPRESENTATION, EXAGGERATIONS, BIAS MOTIVES ETC. I HAVE TRIED TO ANSWER WHAT THE WRITER HAS GIVEN ME, FROM THE MIND OF CHRIST (PHIL.2:5). - Keith Hunt
What is the secret at the heart of Freemasonry? According to many Masons there isn't one. For perhaps most Masons the rituals express dramatically certain moral ideas, and that's that. But for the more mystically inclined Masons, what is the great secret they find within Freemasonry?
Critics sneer at the answer that it is a secret that can never be revealed because it is a secret which cannot be formulated or communicated. But this is the essence of an individual mystical experience, a personal spiritual quest, an apprehension or realization of God within and without: a gnosis. By definition it cannot be communicated, because for each man it is personal and different. In this it is like the latihan or spiritual exercise and experience of the Subud movement:
the latihan of two people can never be the same, because everyone is different from everyone else. It is clear, then, that there cannot be a theory or a spiritual teaching in Subud because each person is different. .. Every person will find for himself the right way towards God, and what may be the right way for one may be completely wrong for another.82
Subud, like Freemasonry, is open to members of all religions, and for the same reason.
(AGAIN THIS IS MAN TRYING TO FIGURE OUT GOD FOR THEMSELVES…..IT IS "WELL WHAT WORKS FOR YOU MAY NOT WORK FOR ME." THE ISLAMIC PERSON SAYS, "CHRIST WORKS FOR YOU, BUT NOT FOR ME." IT IS MAN FORMING THEIR OWN RELIGION WITHOUT GOD IN THE PICTURE. IT'S LIKE MAN SAYING, "NOW GOD, STEP TO ONE SIDE FOR A MOMENT, WHILE I TAKE SOME TIME TO FIGURE OUT FROM THIS GROUP I'M IN, WHAT WORKS FOR ME IN WORSHIPPING YOU." IT'S THIS GROUP LIKE FREEMASONS THAT IS TEACHING YOU ALL MUST TRY TO FIGURE WHAT WORKS FOR YOU TO WORSHIP GOD, WE ARE JUST HERE TO ENCOURAGE YOU ALL TO DO IT….AND DO SOME GOOD WORKS TO OTHERS ALSO." GOD DOES NOT ALLOW US TO WORSHIP HIM IN OUR WAY, WHAT WE ARE COMFORTABLE WITH. HE JUST GIVES US THE FREEDOM TO DO IT HIS WAY OR NOT. AND TO DO IT HIS WAY MEANS WE STUDY THE BIBLE TO KNOW WHAT HIS WAY IS. AND GOD DOES HAVE HIS TRUE MINISTERS TO HELP ANSWER QUESTIONS - Keith Hunt
The Secret Doctrine can be described in different terms. For Wake, 'it concerns the essential life of religion behind the externals of dogma and the translation of the cosmic Christhood into the personal life of each individual soul.' He explains how it can be found within Freemasonry:
a soul passes the threshold and so enters upon grades of real experience, which are shadowed forth in the secret Orders by revelation in symbols. They are thus suggested to the prepared heart in following the path of initiation, or the heart -independently of initiation - suggests them to itself, and is thus its own initiator. Mystical experience of this order may be defined provisionally as a substantial realisation of Divinity by means of loving intuition.83
(FANCY WORDS AGAIN THAT CAN SOUND SO GOOD. TICKLES THE HEART YOU COULD SAY, OR VERY SOPHISTICATED TO THE MIND. BUT IT NOTHING HERE ABOUT THE BIBLE, OR HAVING A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH CHRIST. NOTHING HERE ABOUT GETTING ON YOUR KNEES, REALIZING WHAT SIN IS, THAT YOU ARE A SINNER, ACCEPTING JESUS AS PERSONAL SAVIOR, SETTING YOUR MIND TO LIVE BY EVERY WORD OF GOD. STUDYING THE BIBLE TO SEE WHAT THE LORD TEACHES YOU, IN HOW TO LIVE AND WORSHIP HIM, HIS WAY, NOT YOUR WAY. NOTHING HERE ABOUT READING AND STUDYING THE WORDS OF CHRIST IN THE FOUR GOSPELS. NOTHING HERE ABOUT THE ONLY WAY TO SALVATION THROUGH CHRIST. NOTHING HERE ABOUT MOVING ON TO MORE SPIRITUALITY AND UNDERSTANDING OF GOD AND CHRIST THROUGH BIBLE STUDY, MEDITATION, AND PRAYER. MYSTICAL EXPERIENCE IS NOT THE ANSWER……. THE ANSWER IS A PERSONAL RELATIONSHIP WITH THE FATHER AND HIS SON, AND LETTING THEM TEACH YOU BY THE WORDS OF THE BOOK INSPIRED TO GUIDE YOU, AND THROUGH THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND THE MINISTRY OF THE TRUE CHURCH OF GOD - Keith Hunt)
Newton states it more simply:
Here lies the great secret of Masonry - that it makes a man aware of that divinity within him, wherefrom his whole life takes its beauty and meaning, and inspires him to follow and obey it.84
(WOW….. DOES IT TAKE THE MYSTERIES, THE RITES, THE SECRET STEPS OF MASONRY TO MAKE MAN "AWARE OF THAT DIVINITY WITHIN HIM"? DOES DIVINITY ABIDE INSIDE MAN AND THE BELONGING TO SOME MYSTIC MASONIC LODGE BRINGS IT OUT? OR IS THE TRUTH THAT IT TAKES A MIRACLE FROM GOD VIA THE HOLY SPIRIT TO FREE MAN FROM SPIRITUAL DECEPTION, TO BRING MAN TO THE WORD OF GOD, THAT REVEALS THE WAY AND WILL OF GOD, TO BRING TO MANKIND THE ONLY WAY TO BE SAVED THROUGH JESUS THE CHRIST? THE LATTER IS ALL THE BIBLE TALKS ABOUT; NOT SOME SECRET SOCIETY THAT ONLY THE INITIATED IN ITS CULTURE CAN UNDERSTAND. IS THE TRUE GOSPEL TAUGHT IN SOME OBSCURE GROUP THAT TEACHES YOU DO NOT TALK ABOUT THE DOCTRINES OF GOD AND ABOUT CHRIST JESUS? I THINK NOT. IT IS QUITE OUTRAGEOUS AND PREPOSTEROUS TO CLAIM SUCH A MYSTIC GROUP IS GIVING TRUE INSIGHT INTO THE DEEPER THINGS OF GOD. BUT IF SATAN CAN GET YOU TO BELIEVE SUCH THINGS, KEEP YOU MENTALLY IN A STRAIGHT JACKET OF BELIEVING SUCH THINGS, HE THEN KNOWS HE CAN DECEIVE YOU INTO NOT STUDYING THE WORD OF GOD IN A DEEP WAY, TO LEARN WHAT THE ETERNAL GOD WANTS YOU TO LEARN AND UNDERSTAND ABOUT HIM AND IN GROWING IN GRACE AND KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST. SATAN IS QUITE HAPPY TO DISTRACT YOU IN ANY WAY HE CAN FROM READING AND STUDYING THE WORD OF GOD, ESPECIALLY WHEN HE CAN TRICK YOU INTO SOMETHING THAT SOUNDS AND LOOKS LIKE IT HAS SOME "SPIRITUAL" FORM. HE GETS EVEN MORE JOY FROM SEEING PEOPLE BELIEVE YOU CAN BE IN GOD'S BOOK OF LIFE, BELIEVING IT MATTERS NOT ABOUT JESUS BEING THERE. HENCE ALL THE RELIGIONS THAT DO NOT HAVE JESUS, LIKE BUDDHISTS, MUSLIM, JEWS, CAN ALL FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE IN MASONIC LODGES, WHEN THEY DO NOT HAVE TO TALK ABOUT HOW YOU ARE SAVED, OR NEVER LED TO ANY SUCH SUBJECT AS HOW TO BE SAVED, FOR THEN TROUBLES WOULD BEGIN IN VOCIFEROUS AND RAUCOUS ARGUMENTS AS THE STRONG CHRISTIAN WHO HAS READ ALL THE WORDS OF CHRIST. YOU WOULD THEN BE SHOUTED DOWN AS NARROW MINDED, A BIGOT, UNLOVING, CAUSING THE GROUP TO BREAK UP IN THE END. SO IT IS A MAN MADE RELIGION WITH MAN MADE RULES, FOLLOWING A WAY THAT SEEMS RIGHT UNTO MEN, BUT END IN DECEPTIONS AND THE WAY OF SPIRITUAL DEATH - Keith Hunt)
And here, ironically, a mystical Freemason and an Evangelical Christian might be closer than was suggested above. They share a common emphasis on the individual's response to and relationship with God, rather than the traditional teaching that God can only be approached through the hierarchy of the Church.
(ONLY BEING ABLE TO APPROACH GOD VIA THROUGH THE HIERARCHY OF THE CHURCH, IS AS BAD AS ANY OTHER FALSE DOCTRINE OF CHRISTIANITY. MYSTICAL FREEMASONRY IS AS BAD AS MYSTICAL RELIGION FROM THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH. BOTH ARE DOOMED FOR UTTER DESTRUCTION WHEN JESUS RETURNS TO BRING THE FREE TEACHING OF TRUE CHRISTIANITY AND THE LAWS, COMMANDMENTS, AND THE WAY OF GOD COVERS THIS EARTH AS THE WATERS COVER THE SEA BEDS - Keith Hunt)
An open-minded Evangelical who is not automatically condemnatory of those who don't share his beliefs, might actually find something both familiar and of great spiritual value within Freemasonry. An Evangelical with a mystical bent might well find the Inner Mysteries at the heart of Freemasonry more acceptable than he thinks.
(WELL I KNOW WHAT I AM TAUGHT IN GOD'S WORD; I AM PATIENT WITH THOSE NOT YET CALLED TO SALVATION ONLY THROUGH CHRIST, THEY ARE SPIRITUALLY BLINDED AND NOT CALLED, THE BLINDNESS IS STILL THERE. BUT THEY WILL BE GIVEN A CHANCE TO HAVE THE BLINDNESS REMOVED, SEE CLEARLY THE ONLY TRUTH ON HOW TO BE SAVED INTO ETERNAL LIFE. A TRUE CHRISTIAN WILL HAVE NO "MYSTICAL BENT" - ALL HE NEEDS IS THE BIBLE, THE HOLY SPIRIT, AND A DEEP LONGING TO HUNGER AND THIRST AFTER RIGHTEOUSNESS, AND HE WILL BE FILLED, SO SAID AND PROMISED JESUS - Keith Hunt)
It should be mentioned again that I am neither a Freemason nor in any way an apologist for Freemasonry. During the research and writing of this chapter it became apparent that many of the popular books opposed to Freemasonry, which claim to be fair, balanced and honest accounts, are riddled not only with misleading arguments but also with factual errors, whether by carelessness or by deliberate deceit. I felt it necessary to try to set the record straight, even though doing so has caused this to become rather a long chapter. Even so, it has barely skimmed the surface of the fallacious arguments propounded by such anti-Masonic authors, and the popular misconceptions reinforced by them.
………………..
AND I HAVE ANSWERED AS WE WENT ALONG WITH THE WRITERS UNBIASED POINTS ABOUT FREEMASONRY…..SO AN EXTRA LONG CHAPTER IT HAS TURNED OUT TO BE.
FREEMASONS HAVE TWO BASIC WAY TO GO….. WELL ACTUALLY THREE WAYS:
FIRST: BECOME TOTALY SECULAR - DROP ALL RITES ETC. AND BECOME A CLUB TO SERVE AND HELP PEOPLE AND CHILDREN, PERIOD.
SECOND: BE SECULAR BUT KEEP RITES - KEEP NEW RITES THAT FOCUS ON NOTHING RELIGIOUS IN ANY WAY TOWARDS CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM, JEWISH, OR ANY OTHER FAITH. MAKE UP NEW RITES AND RITUALS THAT HAVE NO BEARING ON ANY RELIGIONS OF THE WORLD.
THREE: STAY THE SAME, WITH A "WORSHIP GOD" AND LEAVE IT AT THAT.
IF THE FREEMASONS - MASONIC LODGE - DECIDE WITH NUMBER THREE, A CHRISTIAN IN GOOD CONSCIENCE CANNOT PARTICIPATE IN A "WORSHIP GOD" YOUR WAY, WHILE CHRIST IS LEFT OUT. A CHRISTIAN DOING SO WOULD BE GIVING AND SUPPORTING THE ISLAMIC, JEWISH, BUDDHIST, ETC. IDEA AND TEACHING THAT YOU CAN BE SAVED TO ETERNAL LIFE WITHOUT CHRIST…..SUCH AN IDEA IS CONTRARY TO JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF AND ALL THE WRITERS OF THE NEW TESTAMENT.
Keith Hunt