Free-Masonry and the Founding Fathers...

Well that is just the the thing. You can't be a Christian without being saved. Those quotes only seem to point out the evil done through the ages by "the church" (and by this I mean the various organizations who considered themselves to be the purveyors of religion). We can't really argue that quite a bit of bad stuff has gone on in the name of Christianity.

I think we'll have to dig deeper to determine if the FF were Christians, were Christians in name only, or were simply confused. I daresay the reality then was much like the reality today: it was a mix of all three with a few athiests thrown in for good measure.

 

Few of them were church members. What was in their hearts we'll never know! Their statements seem to indicate that many of them were not believers in the Bible. For them, the Supreme Being usually so vaguely referred to seems to have been The Great Watchmaker.

 

The point of my post is not to attack freemasonry (although in fact I don't care for it. Just too much pagan symbolism and imagery. Way more pagan than Christian.).

On George Washington, of course you can find support for either position. Some of it is flat out fabricated, but it is there. If you want to prove your position please do some research. "Research" does not really mean going to a Christian website that is trying to 'prove' this is a Christian country, it means going to the Library of Congress and obtaining transcripts of original documents. All we can say about GW is that he consistently created the impression that he was NOT a Christian, and there is very little evidence that he was.

 

Depends I think on what the term "Christian" is supposed to mean in the mind of the speaker you quoted.

By Christian did he mean the same as the word connotes to most of the world today ? One who behaves in a civil, charitable way, kisses the ladies' hands, gentleman's gentleman, patriotic, religious, church going, pray-before-meals, kind ?

Or did he actually mean one who belonged to Christ, who looked to Christ, whose hope is Christ and is in Christ ?

 

Actually it is a false statement. A mason can be a muslim, hindu or any religion that believes in a "supreme" being, even a satanist if they believe satan is a supreme being. All the above can and do join the masons, I was one for better than 10 years and know what I am saying to be fact. All that is required when they take the oath is to affirm belief in a supreme being. The oaths can and have been taken on the different "bibles" of those particular faiths.

I don't know who Charles Brockwell is, but he clearly doesn't have a clue what he is saying. Masonry has never been a "christian" organisation. I have several books of the order and Christian isn't a word you will find in them to describe any requirements to be one.

 

Okay, I'll tell you what I heard, and you please I hope will give me more complete information, whether confirmation or denial. I heard that Freemasonry is basically dualistic. That when you get to the 32nd degree they tell you that the Great Architect of the Universe (which is how they refer to their notion of a Supreme Being) is in fact the entity that Christians call Satan.

 

When I was in I was only a 3rd degree. I can't speculate what the 32nds teach. I don't think they would call satan the GAOTU though. Why I say that is that I know some 32nds, and if that was true they would drop out. I definitely don't think it is a satanistic organisation though, there are known satanist that belong, as well as hindu, muslims, mormons and other religions. What they do use is allagory in their teachings, they teach the "brotherhood of man, fatherhood of god"(I use small case "g" because I don't think they teach the true God.) "brotherhood of man, fatherhood of god" being, "we all worship the same god, we just go different routes to get there." The website I posted www.emfj.org is a great resource for the Christian to learn about masonry. They also can answer some of your questions about the founding fathers also. They have a forum for you to ask questions. I do agree with one of the posters above, the masons claim George Washington was a mason, and he was but, it is documented that he very rarely went to any meetings. I presume it was with him like it is with some politicians today, a good stepping stone to mix and mingle with people. Ben Franklin was one also. 8-9 signers of the Declaration of Independence were masons, though I don't know what their names are. That is probably easy to find out on the net. I have family and friends that belong. Some are Christians and even Preachers. I just found too much at odds with Christianity for me to remain. I think to most at the basic level it is just a "good ole' boys" club. I think at the lower levels the men are just blinded to the facts. Whether by unwillingness to learn, or just afraid to face the truth. A good friend of mine says it best. "You can't be an "informed" mason and a "good" Christian at the same time." Though I think you can be a Christian and unimformed mason. Most people like me, once a mason, very often don't go to the meetings. They are masons by name only and wear the rings and stuff just to show that they are masons. They reap the benefits of being a mason, i.e. A police officer that is a mason stops them and sees the little badge they place on the rear of their car and shakes their hand, gives them a "stiff" warning and a wink and says "be careful and be on your way." No ticket. A problem I had was the opening prayer. When you join in corperate prayer with the satanists and different religions, which god are you praying too?

 

There was a PBS special on freemasonry a few years back, and I wish I could remember the name of it. It would be worth hunting for. It was basically about the history of it. At the time of the U.S. Revolutionary War it was basically Deist, to be sure, and they saw themselves as a new democratic social structure to replace the function of aristocratic connections in England. IOW, the democratic "in-group" was the freemasons, instead of the nobility, and those were seen as the connections that counted in American colonial society. At that point they basically worshipped democracy personified.

I am rewriting this on the basis of more information, see below. At any rate, what got them into trouble with churches and elsewhere was when a freemason vowed to reveal all the secrets He was a new convert to Christianity and a well respected man in his community, but he had left freemasonry at the time of his conversion. His name was William Morgan. Basically freemasons acted in concert throughout New York State, even placing ads in the papers, to kidnap him and took him over the border into Canada and tortured him to death, dumping his body in one of the Great Lakes. This was such a scandal that everyone began speculating on what the secrets were that he was going to reveal. This is when the reputation of freemasonry as "the True Church of Satan" started. It was in 1826. I can't remember what sort of secret books, etc., were leaked, but they were very shocking. I remember a picture portraying Satan as a great ram with all the masonic symbols. Freemasonry almost died out in the U.S. as a result, and when it was revived in the late 1800s it was in the guise of a charitable organization.

Edit: I found an article dealing with some of this. It has a info on George Washington's ties to freemasonry; at the end of his life he issued a warning about "secret societies." Can't vouch for the site (it may be a bit crackpot) and I have not even read the article entirely yet, but this is in summary the same story that was on PBS:

http://www.the7thfire.com/new_world_order/illuminati/freemasons_kidnapped_murdered_Morgan.htm

 

Years ago I saw a series about masons on John Ankerberg, the guest was an ex mason, don't know his name, but he was soemthing high up before he was saved and left the masons because it didn't work with christianity.

http://www.ankerberg.com/Articles/apologetics/AP0401W4.htm

http://www.emfj.org/

http://www.apologeticsindex.org/f16.html

 

"America" (meaning the U.S.A.) was never a "Christian country." The founding fathers were more uniformly freemason than they were Christian.

 

The guy I saw on John Ankerberg said they will use any 'holy' book, it depends on the area, if they are in a predominately muslim area then they use the koran, and so.

 

i quite agree

 

==The United States is not, and never has been, a Christian country. There are two reasons I say this:

1. The Bible, the New Testament, does not know anything of a Christian country. In the New Testament a Christian is a person who has repented of his/her sins and turned to Jesus as Savior and Lord. A nation cannot do this and, therefore, cannot be Christian. A nation may have a large number of Christians, or professing Christians, in its population but that does not make the nation a Christian nation.

2. American History shows that many in this country have, from colonial times, engaged in very unChristian behavior. The most extreme example of this unchristian behavior is slavery. During the Revolution some Christians claimed, and some still do, that Revolution itself was unChristian. They based this on Romans 13. John MacArthur agrees with this position in his book "Why Government Can't Save You". He states that if America has been blessed by God it has been inspite of its rebellion and not because of it. I'm not sure I totally agree but I do agree that the Loyalist's Biblical arguments seem much stronger than the Patriot's Biblical arguments.

As for freemasonry, it is my view that their membership in that organization is problematic. Personally I am not of the view that all/many of the founders of America were true Christians. Yes many were nominal Christians but they did not seem to have (a) orthodox beliefs, or (b) a relationship with the Lord.

 

None of that proves the idea that the Bible supports the notion of a Christian nation. 1Peter 2:9 is talking about the church and not a political state.