The very word 'secrecy' is repugnant in a free and open society; and we are as a people inherently and historically opposed to secret societies, to secret oaths and to secret proceedings. We decided long ago that the dangers of excessive and unwarranted concealment of pertinent facts far outweighed the dangers, which are cited to justify it.

President John F. Kennedy
Address to Newspaper Publishers
April 27, 1961

http://www.freemasonrywatch.org/tracingboard.html

Q. Does the Masonic organization have specified goals for influencing or controlling various Christian churches? How does the influence of Freemasons corrupt Christianity?

A. You have asked some very good questions. Masonry does not directly tell its members to go out and influence, or control, churches. What it does do is to encourage its members to attend churches.

The practical effect is much more far reaching. Many churches are literally controlled by Masons. Many, many Southern Baptist Churches are controlled by deacons who are masons. The majority of pastors are willing to settle for a nice comfortable job. Seldom do they take a stand for truth at any substantial cost. I am not saying that all pastors are like this, but more than half are.

The basic problem between Freemasonry and Christianity is that Christianity holds that Jesus is everything, while Masonry teaches that He is nothing. Freemasonry has a plan of salvation which is based on imitation of their savior, "Hiram Abiff".

A Christian Activist

In the book, Ecumenism, written by a Freemason in 1908, it says "the goal is no longer the destruction of the Church but rather to make use of it by infiltrating it."

Bishop Graber
St. Athanasius, pg. 64-65

In 2002, we became aware of a website belonging to a Knights of Columbus chapter in California. Their Webmaster goes to some length to disparage Freemasonry using the old chestnuts including the Papal Encycals from 1738. It's too bad that there are bigots everywhere and that one person can so poison the well. Fortunately, such hatred does NOT appear on the national organization's website and there are many instances of Knights of Columbus members and Masons working together for the betterment of all mankind. In 2004, we noted that the intolerance and bigotry of Council #1271 of San Luis Obispo at their site formerly titled knightline.org was not only gone but the site's name was up for sale as well. Good riddance to that kind of pedantic hatred!

Edward L. King
Anti-Masonry: Points of View
www.masonicinfo.com

The Thrice Puissant Grand Master points to the papal tiara and declares:

"This represents the tiara of the cruel and cowardly Pontiff. It is therefore the crown of an imposter... that we trample it under our feet."

He asks if the candidate is willing to do this, and then all trample on the pope's crown, brandishing poniards and shouting "Down with Imposture!" Did we understand Pike correctly when he said that men of all races and creeds may take the Scottish-rite degrees without compromising their beliefs? We feel justified in doubting the faith of any Catholic who would insult the emblem of the pope's authority in a lodge ritual. Earlier in the 30th-degree ritual, the prospective Knights Kadosh are counseled,

"And, finally, keep aloof from uniting yourself with any sectional, political, or sectarian religious organization whose principals can in any way bias your mind or judgment, or in the slightest degree trammel with obligations the vows you have just made."

This leaves no question of first loyalty, Church or Scottish rite, should claim a man's first loyalty. President Charles A. Blanchard of Wheaton College pointed out,

"Not less than five or six times in the dreary monotony of this degree is the candidate given to understand that Christianity is a narrow, fanatical, intolerant system, while Masonry is a broad, comprehensive, generous one, and that if he is a good Mason he must not be a Christian."

This blasphemy is delivered by the Advocate in the working of the 31st degree:

"We revolt against the law, by which the crooked limbs and diseased organism of the child are the fruits of the fathers vices. We even think that a God, omnipotent and omniscient, ought to have permitted no pain, no poverty, no servitude. Our ideal of justice is more lofty than the actualities of God."

A recital of the lessons of the preceding thirty-one degrees begins the initiation ceremony of the 32nd degree. The candidates are told that "Masonry will eventually rule the world", and they pray for the "universal dominion of the true principals of Masonry."

William J. Whalen
Christianity and American Freemasonry
Ignatius Press 1958, 1987, 1998

William Whalen is a nationally known expert on comparitive religion, an author of 15 books and numerous magazine articles, and a retired Professor of Journalism of 42 years at Purdue University.

 

"If the bible was the holy book of the Christian enlightenment, then the Encyclopedia was the inspiration of the Enlightenment. Here was a compendium of human knowledge dealing with arts, sciences mechanics and philosophy which swelled to some 36 volumes by 1780. Begun by the Atheist Diderot in 1751, the Encyclopedia bore the imprints of Voltaire, Montesque, Rousseau, Buffon, Turgot and others. Gracing the title page of Diderot's compendium in the first edition was a drawing of Lucifer, symbol of light and rebellion, standing beside the masonic symbols of square and compass.

The Enlightenment mirrored the Christian religion. Reason became its revelation, nature its god. If the Enlightenment did not abolish the myth of god, it reduced god to a sort of absentee deity, a caretaker to the universe who was nevertheless subject to the laws of nature. Deism arose from the same fertile soil of the Enlightenment as had Atheism, and no doubt many deists were actually Atheists. The deistic god was symbolized in the masonic lodges as the "Great Architect of the Universe", certainly not the god of the Christian superstition."

American Athiests
The Enlightenment, Freemasonry, and The Illuminati
www.atheists.org

Jim Shaw, the demitted 33rd degree Freemason, who resigned from Masonry after becoming a Christian wrote in his book The Deadly Deception: "there is underlying all Masonic thinking and writing, an attitude and spirit of elitism which says, "Masonry is not for everyone, just for the select few." At the same time Masonry teaches it is the only true religion and that all other religions are but corrupted and perverted forms of Masonry.

Comment-This elitism is Gnostic

 

Secret societies have been in existence at least since the date of the earliest known writings. Some have served utilitarian ends, others speculative; some have been visible, others invisible, except to government information services, which have always been aware of their existence. Each has based its existence on a secret, the secret of its mystery, purpose, direction, ritual or, more generally, its organization. Ultimately, what has at all times and in all places distinguished secret societies from other associations is that the former are organized in a manner parallel to, but often above, official forms of government, whatever those forms may be.

The Canadian Encyclopedia
www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com

'Defender of the Faith'...

 

"The triumph of the Galilean", said the president of the Grand Orient, Senator Delpech, on 20 September, 1902, "has lasted twenty centuries. But now he dies in his turn. The mysterious voice, announcing (to Julian the Apostate) the death of Pan, to-day announces the death of the impostor God who promised an era of justice and peace to those who believe in him. The illusion has lasted a long time. The mendacious God is now disappearing in his turn; he passes away to join in the dust of ages the divinities of India, Egypt, Greece, and Rome, who saw so many creatures prostrate before their altars. Bro. Masons, we rejoice to state that we are not without our share in this overthrow of the false prophets. The Romish Church, founded on the Galilean myth, began to decay rapidly from the very day on which the Masonic Association was established".

Compte-rendu Gr. Or. de France, 1902, pg. 381
Catholic Encyclopedia - Masonry (Freemasonry)
www.newadvent.org

Freemasons Ford, Rumsfeld, and Cheney: 'A column of mutual support'
'The whole philosophy of the Masonic fraternity is to be a leader in your community'...

"Freemasonry, says the 'Keystone' of Philadelphia has no right to be popular. It is a secret society. It is for the few, not the many, for the select, not for the masses."

The Freemason's Chronicle 1885, Vol I, Pg. 259
Catholic Encyclopedia - Masonry (Freemasonry)
www.newadvent.org

 

Masonry ought forever to be abolished. It is wrong - essentially wrong - a seed of evil, which can never produce any good.

President John Quincy Adams
Letters on the Masonic Institution
T.R. Marvin Press, Boston, 1847