Newsgroups: talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: Freemasons and Christians: How Compatable Are They?
References: <1992Sep16.101738.16471@hsr.no> <80266@ut-emx.uucp>

tbutterf@ut-emx.uucp (Jeff Butterfield) writes:

>A friend of mine is hooking up with the local Masonic lodge and has been
>suggesting it to me as well.  Before I nose around I am curious about a
>few things:

>[1] What is Masonry...is it a religion?
>[2] How compatible are Masonry and Christianity??
>[3] There is talk of blood oaths and similar activities??
>     Are these stories true??  Is it all in fun or serious??

This is a frequently discussed question, and tends to lead to months
of discussion.  As far as I can tell from the outside, based on
what Masons say, books written for Masons describing Masonry, etc,

(1) Masonry is not exactly a religion.  It requires members to believe
in a Supreme Being, and some of its ceremonies appear to refer to him
and use symbolism that is religious.  I think when Masons say it is
not a religion they mean (a) that it does not perform all of the
functions you'd expect of a Church, etc., so that members should also
belong to a church or other religious organization, and (b) that it is
compatible with a wide variety of religions, so it does not have
specific doctrinal stances.  However there do seem to be definite
religious overtones.

(2) Some conservative Christians consider it incompatible.  Others
consider it compatible.  The problems seem to be (a) that while it is
not overtly a religion, it does have ceremonies with some religious
overtones, and those ceremonies are not exclusively Christian.  Many
Christians believe that all of their religious activities should be
explicitly Christian.  Whether the Masonic activities are sufficiently
religious to violate this is a matter of judgement, on which good
Christians are divided (b) It fosters an acceptance of men of good
will belong to all religions.  Many Christians believe that this is
done in a way that suggests that non-Christian religions are equally
acceptable, a position that many (most?) Christians do not agree with.
Again, this is a matter of judgement, which has good Christians on
both sides.

(3) When dealing with secret societies, it is hard to be absolutely
certain that we know all their secrets.  There are solemn oaths
involved in Masonry.  However a number of apparently Godly persons
assure us that Masons claim no authority to enforce these oaths if
someone violates them.  That is, any penalties that are mentioned are
to be taken symbolically or morally -- Masons do not have hit squads
that kill people who violate their oaths.  The mix of fun and
seriousness differs with the branch of Masonry.  There are serious
philosophical/speculative aspects to Masonry, but different people
take these with varying degrees of seriousness.

For more information, you might want to refer to a companion document,
in the subdirectory "others", called "masonry".  It has a copy of the
Bull (official statement by the Roman Catholic Pope) condemning
Masonry, a defense of Masonry by a Disciples of Christ minister, and
details on the Bavarian Illuminati (who are not Masons, but are often
confused with them).