The Gods of the Lodge

by Reginald Haupt Jr

  Freemasonry, as we know it today, began in 1717. We are nearing the end of the third century of the movement, and it would appear that the prophecy is accurate in regards to the world knowing “it as it is.” Whether the remaining portions are correct, appears doubtful. From the reaction of organized denominations within Christendom after the turn of the century, the future looks bleak for Masonry.

  At this writing Masonry membership in the United States is approximately 5,000,000. In the world it is close to 10,000,000. Measuring this to the world’s major religions, it ranks far below the Roman Catholics, Moslems, Buddhists and Christianity. However, when measured with the denominations within Christendom, it would rank only behind the Southern Baptists. If you subtract the Masons that are counted within the Southern Baptist, because there are at least 3,000,000 Baptist Masons, and conclude that one cannot be both, because they are incompatible, then Freemasonry as a religion is number one, at least in this country.

  Since the turn of the century, scores of denominations have outlawed Masonry. For every Mason there are ten Christians who cannot join the lodge without turning their backs on their Church. Those denominations which allow lodge affiliation are the United Methodist, Episcopal, Presbyterian, United Church of Christ and the Southern Baptist (not as a denomination, however). Strangely enough, these denominations, with the exception of the Southern Baptists, have declined in membership in the past three decades, while those that have opposed Freemasonry have dramatically increased. Those that have openly opposed membership in Masonry are: the Assembly of God, Church of God, Church of the Nazarene, and most Pentecostal and fundamentalist churches. The strongest and the most vocal have been the different divisions of the Lutherans, and the Greek Orthodox Church of Greece.

  In essentials, Protestants and Orthodox criticize the Masons for the same reasons the Catholics do. They accuse the lodge of advocating salvation by good works rather than the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. They object to the mutilated and distorted texts of the Bible used in the lodge services, and the removal of deletion of the name of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, they protest the oaths that yoke a believer to an unbeliever in direct disobedience to the word of God.

  The Model Constitution for congregations of the American Lutheran Church (2,400,000) includes the following statement under a section entitled “Conflicting Loyalties:”

  “This congregation rejects all fellowship with organizations, secret or open, which are avowedly religious or which practice forms of religion without confessing faith in the Triune God and in Jesus Christ as the eternal Son of God incarnate to be our only Savior from sin, and thus teach salvation by works.”

  The Lutheran Church of America (2,912,081) followed suit as did the Association of Evangelical Lutheran churches. These Lutheran bodies reflect the hostilities of Lutheranism toward Masonry and placed them in the forefront of the Christian movement against lodge membership.

  The Pentecostal, Holiness and fundamentalist denominations are led by the Assemblies of God. Since 1957 the Assemblies have grown fourfold and now report over 2,200,000 members, making it the largest Pentecostal church in America. The position of the Assemblies of God is stated in Article VIII of the bylaws:

  “Section 4. Membership in Secret Orders.

  “Ours is a last-day message in preparation for the coming of the Lord (Matthew 24:14), leaving us no alternative but wholehearted devotion to the cause of spreading the gospel (Luke 9:62), and it is well known that the various secret orders require much valuable time and interest, thus diverting the servant of the Lord out of the way (Ephesians 5:16).

  “The nature of such organizations demands secrecy (John 18:20; Acts 26:26) reinforced by religious oaths (Matthew 5:34) and strong attachment to binding obligations to persons who are for the most part unregenerated (2 Corinthians 6: 14). The spirit, philosophy, and general influence of such secret orders aim at the improvement of the natural man only (1 Corinthians 2:14; Colossians 2:8), thus wrongly channeling by incorrect interpretation important spiritual truths (2 Peter 3: 16).

  “Confidence in these secret orders and their teachings has always tended toward embracing of a false hope of salvation through good works and improved moral service (Ephesians 2:8, 19).

  “In consideration of the foregoing, all ministers affiliated with us should refrain from identifying themselves with any of the secret orders which we recognize as essentially of the world, worldly, and we advise any who may have identified. themselves with such orders to sever their connections therewith (2 Corinthians 6: 17). Furthermore, our ministers are requested to use their good influence among our lay members to dissuade them from such fraternal affiliations (1 Timothy 4:12; 2 Timothy 2:24-26).”

  Smaller Pentecostal bodies also deny that a church member can be a member of the lodge and at the same time a member of the church. The Pentecostal Holiness Church gives the following guidelines in its 1985 “Church Manual:”

  “No member shall hold active membership in, or fellowship with, organizations whose objectives and activities are not in harmony with Scriptures, or which require oath-bound allegiance which infringes upon a member’s total allegiance to God (2 Corinthians 6: 14-17; Ephesians 5:11) (Section VI, General Rules 6).”

  The Articles of Faith of the United Pentecostal Church International presents this position:

  “According to the word of God, we firmly believe and hold that the people of God shall have no connection whatever with secret societies or any other organization or body wherein there is fellowship with unbelievers, bound by an oath (James 5:12,2 Corinthians 6:14-18) (1986 Manual, p. 25).”

  In 1908 the Church of the Nazarene took a strong stand against lodge membership and hasn’t wavered since. Its first Church Manual stated:

  “We insist that our people abstain from membership in, or fellowship with, worldly, secret, or other oath-bound lodges and fraternities, inasmuch as the spirit and tendency of these societies are contrary to the principles of our holy religion.”

  The Christian Reform Church in its declaration of 1974 named Masonry and said:

  “There is an irreconcilable conflict between the teachings and practices of the lodge and biblical Christianity, and therefore simultaneous membership in the lodge and the Church of Jesus Christ is incompatible and contrary to Scripture.”

  The Orthodox Presbyterian Church published a booklet entitled Christ or the Lodge? and declared:

  “The committee finds that the evidence presented concerning the religion of Masonry permits but on conclusion. Although a number of objections commonly brought against Masonry seem to the committee not to be weighty, yet it is driven to the conclusion that Masonry is a religious institution and as such is definitely anti-Christian.

  “Far be it from the committee to assert that there are no Christians among the members of the Masonic fraternity. Just as a great many who trust for eternal life solely on the merits of Christ continue as members of Churches who have denied the faith, so undoubtedly many sincere Christians, uninformed, or even misinformed, concerning the true character of Freemasonry, hold membership in it without compunction of conscience. But that in no way alters the fact that membership in the Masonic fraternity is inconsistent with Christianity (pp. 23-33).”

  The growing opposition to the lodge did not go unnoticed by the Masonic writers, and in particular the “father of Scottish Rite,” Albert Pike. His views of Protestantism was not unlike his opinion and distaste for Catholicism.

  “Catholicism was a vital truth in its earliest ages, but it became obsolete, and Protestantism arose, flourished, and deteriorated. The doctrines of Zoroaster were the best which the ancient Persians were fitted to receive; those of Confucius were fitted for the Chinese; those of Mohammed for the idolatrous Arabs of his age. Each was Truth for the time. Each was a gospel, preached by a Reformer; and if any men are so little fortunate as to remain content therewith, when others have attained a higher truth, it is their misfortune and not their fault. They are to be pitied for it, a
nd not persecuted” (Pike, p. 38).

  Other Masonic writers have been more realistic and suggest that there is a problem. In “The Philaletbes,” a journal devoted to Masonic research, its editor, Jerry Marsengill, discussed the spread of anti-lodge sentiment within the Church. The article was entitled “The Power of Positive Hating” and appeared in the August 1985 issue beginning at page 17. Marsengill wrote:

  “The mainline churches are rapidly losing members. The only churches which show a strong, continual growth pattern are the evangelical, charismatic, Pentecostal churches... Many of these Pentecostal churches are opposed to Freemasonry and to other fraternal organizations.

  “...Not that the Masons have been entirely blameless in confronting these churches. Each time some Freemason states ‘The lodge is church enough for me,’ each time some Mason performing a Masonic funeral infringes on the prerogatives of the church, more fuel is added to the fire.”

  Although the United Methodist Church in America raises no objection to Masonry, its counterpart in England has. In citing that both the Church of England and the Baptist Church in Britain have questioned whether their members should be Freemasons, the British Methodist reported:

  “Freemasons are required to believe in a Supreme Being, sometimes called the Great Architect of the Universe. At various points in Masonic rituals, prayer is offered to this Being. Freemasonry claims to draw together those of different religions and Freemasons are required to respect one another’s religious beliefs, and this is reflected in the prayers offered. However, the worship included in Masonic ritual seems to be an attenuated form unsatisfactory in any religious tradition. Christians must be concerned that the Supreme Being is not equated by all with God as Christians acknowledge Him, and in Craft and Royal Arch Freemasonry is never offered in the name of Jesus Christ... Our guidance to the Methodist people is that Methodist should not become Freemasons.”

  The “Book of Discipline” of the Free Methodist Church states that the Church insists that “those who are members of our church refrain from membership in all secret societies and that those who unite with the church resign from active membership in any lodge or secret order previously joined.” The Free Methodist statement declares that these secret societies are “unitarian, not Christian; the religion is moralistic, not redemptive; and the ends are humanistic, not evangelical” (Acts 4:12).

  Silent on this issue has been the Southern Baptist. However, the Southern Baptist Convention does not legislate for local congregations on any matters, including membership in the Masons. Consequently, most Baptist feel free to join Masonic lodges and have received no commentary of whether it is good or bad. The results have been that the Baptist is the fertile hunting ground for the Masonic movement, and make up the majority of its membership in the United States.

  On the other hand, smaller Baptist groups have gone on the record as opposing lodge membership. The Baptist Bible Fellowship has approximately 1,500,000 members and they keep it no secret that its pastors and lay workers are against it.

  Perhaps the most informative statement on Masonry made by a major denomination other than by the Roman Catholic Church is the unanimous report of the Bishops of the Church of Greece meeting in 1933.

  “Freemasonry is not simply a philanthropic union or a philosophical school, but constitutes a mystagogical system which reminds us of the ancient heathen mystery—religions and cults—from which it descends and is their continuation and regeneration. This is not only admitted by prominent teachers in the lodges, but they declare it with pride, affirming literally: ‘Freemasonry is the only survival of the ancient mysteries and can be called the guardian of them;’ ‘Freemasonry is a direct offspring of the Egyptian mysteries;’ ‘the humble workshop of the Masonic lodge is nothing else than the caves and darkness of the cedars of India and the unknown depths of the Pyramids and the crypts of the magnificent temples of Isis;’ ‘the Greek mysteries of Freemasonry, having passed along the luminous roads of knowledge under the mysteriarchs Prometheus” Dionysius and Orpheus, formulated the eternal laws of the Universe.’

  “Such a link between Freemasonry and the ancient idolatrous mysteries is also manifested by all that is enacted and performed at the initiations. As in the rites of the ancient idolatrous mysteries, the drama of the labors and death of the mystery god was repeated, and the imitative repetition of this drama the initiate dies together with the patron of the mystery religion, who was always a mythical person symbolizing the Sun of nature which dies in winter and is regenerated in spring, so it is also, in the initiation of the third degree, of the patron of Freemasonry Hiram and a kind of repetition of his death, in which the initiate suffers with him, struck by the same instruments and on the same parts of the body as Hiram. According to the confession of a prominent teacher of Freemasonry Hiram is ‘an Osiris, as Mithra and as Bacchus, one of the personifications of the Sun.’

  “Thus Freemasonry is, as granted, a mystery-religion, quite different, separate, and alien to the Christian faith. This is shown without any doubt by the fact that it possesses its own temples with altars, which are characterized by prominent teachers as ‘workshops which cannot have less history and holiness than the Church’ and as temples of virtue and wisdom where the Supreme Being is worshipped and the truth is taught. It possesses its own religious ceremonies...its own initiations, its own ceremonial ritual, its own hierarchical order and a definite discipline...

  “It is true that it may seem at first that Freemasonry can be reconciled with every other religion, because it is not interested directly in the religion to which its initiates belong. This is, however, explained by its syncretistic character and proves that in this point also it is an offspring and continuation of ancient idolatrous mysteries which accepted for initiation worshippers of all gods. But as the mystery religions, in spite of the apparent spirit of tolerance and acceptance of foreign gods, leads to a syncretism which undermined and gradually shook confidence in other religion, thus Freemasonry today, which seeks to embrace in itself gradually all mankind and which promises to give moral perfection and knowledge of truth, is lifting itself to the position of a kind of super-religion, looking on all religions [without excepting Christianity] as inferior to itself. Thus it develops in its initiates the idea that only in Masonic lodges is performed the shaping and the smoothing of the unsmoothed and unhewn stone. And the fact alone that Freemasonry creates a brotherhood excluding all other brotherhoods outside it [which are considered by Freemasonry as ‘uninstructed’ even when they are Christian] proves clearly its pretensions to be a super-religion. This means that by Masonic initiation a Christian becomes a brother of the Muslim, the Buddhist, or any kind of rationalist, while the Christian not initiated in Freemasonry becomes to him an outsider.

  “On the other hand, Freemasonry is prominently exalting knowledge and in helping free research as ‘putting no limit in the search of truth’ [according to its rituals and constitution], and more than this by adopting the so-called natural ethic, shows itself in this sense to be in sharp contradiction with the Christian religion. For the Christian religion exalts faith above all, confining human reason to the limits traced by Divine Revelation and leading to holiness through the supernatural action of grace. In other words, while Christianity, as a religion of Revelation, possessing its rational and super-rational dogmas and truths, asks for faith first, and grounds its moral structure on supernatural Divine Grace, Freemasonry has only natural truth and brings to the knowledge of its initiates free thinking and investigation through reason only. It bases its moral structure only on the national forces of man, and has only natural aims.

  “Thus, the incompatible contradiction between Christianity and Freemasonry is quite clear. It is natural that various churches of other denominations have taken a stand against Freemasonry. Not only has the Western Church branded for its own reasons the Masonic movement/by numerous Papal encyclicals, but Lutheran, Methodist and Presbyterian communities have also declared it to be incompatible wi
th Christianity. Much more has the Orthodox Catholic Church, maintaining in its integrity the treasure of Christian faith, proclaimed against it every time that the question of Freemasonry has been raised. Recently, the Inter-Orthodox Commission which met on Mount Athos and in which the representatives of all the Autocephalous Orthodox Churches took part, has characterized Freemasonry as a ‘false and anti-Christian system.’”

  Archbishop Chrysostom of Athens, president of the Assembly of Bishops, concluded:

  “Freemasonry cannot be at all compatible with Christianity, as far as it is a secret organization, acting and teaching in mystery and secret and deifying rationalism. Freemasonry accepts as its members not only Christians, but also Jews and Muslims. Consequently, clergymen cannot be permitted to take part in this association. I consider as worthy of degradation every clergyman who does so. It is necessary to urge upon all who entered it without due thought and without examining what Freemasonry is, to sever all connection with it, for Christianity alone is the religion which teaches absolute truth and fulfills the religious and moral needs of men. Unanimously and with one voice all the Bishops of the Church of Greece have approved what was said, and we declare that all the faithful children of the church must stand apart from Freemasonry.