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Masonry and the church, have a love hate relationship. There is no denying this. Although the Masonic order has an unspecific view on religion, per se, many Masons are devout believers of one religion or another. Most Christian Masons are very devout in their faith. There are other religious Masons, including Muslims and Buddhists, for example. The negative view of the Masonic order held by many Christian churches, and in particular, by the Catholic Church. The reason behind it, however, is quite easily explained. The reason most organized religions look with skepticism on the Masonic order has to do with Masonry's strong ties to the fundamental concepts that most of the major world religions are based. The Catholic Church is particularly reluctant to accept this, but in reality, many elements of the Christian, Jewish, and Islamic faiths are derived from Egyptian religious beliefs and philosophies. Masonry, in a way, acknowledges and reflects this, making it potentially dangerous and very unpopular with the church proper. Riddle time: when you pray, the last word you say is Amen. Why do we say it? Ask anyone you know including your pastor, priest, spiritual advisor, whomever and you'll get many answers, but none will be a satisfying answer. Amen is a one-word version of what used to be a method of closing a prayer to an Egyptian god, Amen-Ra. See, the Egyptians believed in order to truly evoke the blessings of God, you had to both know the true name of the god you were praying to (sound familiar?), and you would speak the name of the god you were praying to three times at the end of your prayer. After a thousand years, the invocation was shortened to the word Amen. The church also has a dislike of Masonry because, as a Mason, you are drawn to both the moral understanding of the Bible, and sometimes you are drawn deeply into understanding the historical beginnings of the Bible. There are certain pieces throughout both the Old and New Testament that are directly related to the Masonic order. For example, being raised is very much a Masonic concept. Hmmm...could the Biblical story describing the raising of Lazarus be a Masonic reference? Actually many Masons in fact believe that both Moses and Jesus were practitioners of Masonic concepts. They also believe that Moses practiced of the Egyptian religion as well. According to Albert Pike, author of Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, "Masonry is the universal, eternal, immutable religion such as God planted it in the heart of universal humanity. No creed has ever been long-lived that was not built on this foundation. It is the base and they [individual religions] are the superstructure." This kind of philosophy is seen to undermine the Christian belief and is the principle cause of conflict in conjunction with the Masonic understanding and information regarding the true origins of Christianity. Hutchinson suggested, "The Master Mason represents a man under the Christian doctrine saved from the grave of iniquity and raised to the faith of salvation. As the great
Slide 2: testimonial that we are risen from the state of corruption, we bear the emblem of the Holy Trinity as the insignia of our vows and of the origin of the Master's order." The conventional view is that between 1826 and 1836, there were several incidents that cast a negative light on Freemasonry and spawned an anti-Masonic sentiment. The decade saw a mass exodus of Christians from the Lodge and created a vacuum that was predominantly filled by nonChristians.
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