A brother forwarded this to me. What you have below is a teaser video to a longer telecast that is appearing on various broadcasting outlets including Direct TV, where it appeared on the NRB (National Religious Broadcasters) network, channel 378.
The video is by Dr. Ron Carlson, posted in June of 2008; essentially make the argument that a Christian cannot be a Mason using biblical citation for his particular point of view.
This isn’t unique, rather just one of a long list of religious leaders using the pulpit to rail against the lodge as a part of their own personal ministry. Other such luminaries include Jack Chick Ministries, Ephesians 5:11, Order of former Freemasons, and many many more.
In fact, there are so many more, if you know of one, drop their name in the comments below and I’ll add it to the list.
One thing I can say is that Carlson has man of his facts mixed up, but he washes them with his particular logic. Listen for the story about the church he convinced to jack hammer off the corner stone. Its sad, really, like listening to echoes of forgotten history.
Without getting to deep into the philosophical, spiritual maybe, question (we’ve done that before in Can a Christian be a Freemason?) if a man can or cannot not be a Freemason AND a Christian, the better question to answer I’ve been leaning toward is who is it that can cast judgment or others – people or groups to evaluate such things.
The crux of Carlson’s argument is the incompatibility of Christian faith and being a Mason which, essentially, puts the syncretic religious view of masonry over the authority of Jesus. That the teachings of one subvert the teachings of the others?
What do you think? Are the two compatible? Are they compatible when you look at it from Carlson’s, and those like his, point of view?
More on Anti-Masonry.
It’s sad because Freemasonry doesn’t denounce religion .People that have lived the dark for so long can’t see anything else,their mind is made up.
There are some Masonic orders and many higher degrees that are only open for Christians. That is the other extreme.
Hence, there are two extremes: one end saying that Christians cannot be masons and other end saying that Masons (or members of their Masonic orders) can be only Christians.
I prefer the mainstream Masonry’s more open-minded view that spreads the Masonic symbolism to wider audience.
I have been to churches which believed that listening to non-christian music was sinful because the bible says “So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.” The premise of the argument being, anything you do outside of giving glory to God is sin. So, that really narrows down your options a bit as you can imagine. Such Biblical rhetoric is, in my opinion, the reason why Masonry is so valuable. It teaches tolerance for other ideas, philosophies and religions. Instead of focusing on differences, it focuses on what all have in common, desire to seek truth and personal growth. But if someone want’s to interpret his bible so dogmatically, then I suppose he is right. However, for people like that I have one bible verse to show how absurd that idea is…”Does not nature itself teach you that if a man wears long hair it is a disgrace for him”. Poor Jesus.
I’m not buying it, and by that I mean his CD that he shamelessly plugged during that whole video. hahaha, but all joking aside… that didn’t make me want to quit Lodge, it made me want to take my degrees again.
its so funny and kind of interesting , there is no word about human being and enlightenment , what if you’re not Christian ? enough of killing brothers in the name of God
Learn the brotherly love from Masons . God bless all true God believers
Muslim Christian Buddhist any religion , we all are same, simply brothers.
We killed and crate pain based on same prinsiples as he is mentioning , so being Mason is much honorable than killing your own brothers for their believe or religion .
Just remember dear sir , when they believe earth was the center of universe , maybe you still believe it is .
God bless my brothers with any believes
Thanks God still we have history books .
Another sad example of the power of words. I’m thankful my wife and children were not there. I shiver at the” thought” of the doubt and mistrust it may have invoked within my family. My heart goes out to the families that were not so lucky. I believe his time would’ve been better spent teaching the TEN COMMANDMENTS
I wish I had the entire CD to watch; I was expecting more cogent arguments from the introductory, but didn’t find them.
He very carefully leaves out certain things, and very carefully emphasizes other things, like the penalties of our obligations. Obviously, that’s what anyone would do if they wanted to sensationalize masonry, and is a time honored tradition of leading an audience down a false path. It’s akin to a pastor who pulls a verse from the Old Testament, out of context, and draws from it an hour-long homily invented from, well, nothing but his own imagination and prejudices.
I realize I’m no doubt biased. However, in my time in Freemasonry, I’ve only ever heard of one man who demitted due to a perceived conflict with his religion, brought to a head by an overzealous (and new) pastor of his church. In this intro, there are many examples of such folk. I wish I had the newspaper clipping, for instance, of the church elders “blowing up” a masonic cornerstone from their church that he references. There’s much of this I just find difficult to believe (regarding the number of people that he claims to have led from Masonry’s dire influences). A 73 year-old PM standing up to denounce, in public, the current WM of a local lodge during a church service? I just don’t see that happening.
Perhaps the entire CD has more compelling material (or any material at all), but based on this intro, this is just an example of someone with a clever business model — he’s found a niche where he can apparently thrive, that being spreading anti-Masonic propaganda. See. He’s already sucked me in. I actually considered buying the CD to hear the “real evidence.”
Fraternally yours.
The same as all charlatans, he uses words and images out of context. Any brother swayed by this nonsense was not paying attention, and shame on the lodges for not requiring more knowledge of the brothers. It’s great what you can do when you apply modern American English grammar to customs and rituals that are centuries old.
I waited and waited, but he never yelled “The Power of Christ Compels You!”. Very disappointing. Well after a thorough search I could not find a single site with a story about a “Very Famous Church in Georgia” removing it’s cornerstone, more importantly why remove it when you can just chisel away the so called offensive symbol. Either way he definitely knows when to leave facts out and how to over emphasize half truths. A very arrogant man indeed.
He attempts to justify his ‘knowledge’ by stating that he has researched Masonry for over 30 years. Two minutes into his speech, I turned it off. Anyone who is speaking publicly about any topic NEEDS to be an authority on said topic. Non-Masons should NOT be speaking of our fraternity. End of story.
1. he omits the bit about the blood oath being on penalty of breaking your word. Are Christians not allowed to swear on the bible in court? The Christian celebration of Easter is similar to pagan ones so should according to this logic X-mas and other feast days should be abolished.
2. WM is a title. Does he object to being called doctor? We can call a judge “Your Honour” without being accused of insulting Jesus as King. “Your Majesty” and other titles are a common practice
3. Light is desired in it’s absence.
Together all his stated accusations and implied imagery are an attack on our order but rather than attack him for it we should work on our craft.
Actually he started by saying we are an exclusive club and outsiders can only be invited by Masons but Masons aren’t supposed to recruit. a bit of a catch 22. However his note of our numbers in the states sound accurate. The thing is though that a drop from 2 million from 4 million sounds bad but let’s ask China about population. I mean more members is not the only goal one could have.
Growing and having a larger congregation sounds noble for a church but thee is no prize for releasing souls. I mean if God has 10, 000 000 and Satan 2, 000 000 it is not like they are poker chips. We naturally feel bigger is better but Freemasons should build harmoniousness lodges that are sustainable and refuse to lower our standards to simply recruit.
Here is a great talk on making good men better.
http://www.grandlodgemontana.org/forms/TWJacksonJune262009.pdf
and the audio:
http://www.grandlodgemontana.org/TomJackson2009.mp3
i like free mason