Comments and Questions

101 Throughout their work, the Group appreciated that they were expected to produce a document which could form the basis of a fair and informed debate in the General Synod on a particular aspect of Freemasonry in this country. The Group itself was appointed with that in mind. Two who were deliberately included were Freemasons themselves, but the remaining five were equally deliberately chosen not as either "for" or "against" the Craft but as representing a range of churchmanship and skills.

102 Since inclusion of Freemasons has been criticised by some who wrote to the Group’s Secretary it is worth emphasising that, far from it being intended that this should weight the Group’s final paper, it was a conscious attempt to ensure that it was not open to the immediate objection that "not one of them knew what they were talking about" —a stricture very commonly made by Freemasons on the comments of non-Masons on the Craft and most recently on the Methodist Report considered by the Methodist Conference in 1985.

103 The Group were also sensible of the fact that there are many members of the Church of England who are practising Freemasons and see no conflict between their membership of the two bodies. A few of them are so uncritical of Freemasonry as to write protesting against the decision of the General Synod even to embark on the present exercise. On the other hand, it is simply foolish to ignore both the fact that there is currently a wave of anxiety among Christians of different denominations regarding the very question to which the Group have directed their attention, and the fact that the Group itself has received evidence confirming what was already generally known — that some Christians, themselves once Freemasons, have left the Craft precisely because they perceived their membership of it as being in conflict with their Christian witness and belief.

104 From the evidence we have received it is clear that some Christians have found the impact of Masonic rituals disturbing and a few perceive them as positively evil. The dramatic impact of the rituals has had a "psychic" effect (cf. Appendix X).

105 The evidence the Group has received, however, points to the fact that there is, and has been for many years, an element of self-criticism among Freemasons themselves which, largely due to an inbuilt and somewhat excessive disposition to "privacy" about their organisation, has not been given very wide publicity.

106 As has already been noted, such secrecy as the Craft may have originally aspired to was historically short-lived (cf. para. 22) and is in the present day virtually non-existent. Freemasons themselves prefer to use the word privacy and regard themselves as best described as a private society. Nevertheless, every one of the Craft Rituals and the Rituals of the Holy Royal Arch on the Admission, Passing, Raising or Installation refers time and again to ‘secrets’; ‘secrets’ which the candidate pledges himself never to reveal or ‘unduly obtain’ (Emulation Ritual, p.lO3); ‘secrets’ the full nature of which is not disclosed until after the candidate has pledged himself to silence by either placing his hand on or kissing the Bible or the Sacred Book of his Faith.

107 It is abundantly clear that many accept this procedure merely as a necessary requirement of membership of a society which they are anxious to join and whose fellowship they look forward to enjoying. Some will attach little importance to the query which has often been raised (cf. para. 56) but the question surely remains: Is it acceptable for a Christian to swear by solemn oath never to reveal ‘secrets’ the full nature of which is not disclosed to him until after he has pledged himself to lifelong silence — even though he will have been assured in advance that he will be asked to undertake ‘nothing incompatible with your civil, moral, or religious duties’? (Emulation Ritual, p.74).

108 There also remains the additional question inherent in the teaching of Masonic ritual and the use to which it is to be put: the development of moral habits of mind and conduct of such kind as to benefit not only the community but the man himself by so moulding his character as to enable him to triumph over death and ‘ascend to those immortal mansions whence all goodness emanates’ (Emulation Ritual, p.139).

109 What Masonic rituals clearly imply is that Freemasonry is a way to live and die and the way to be in a right relationship with God. Since the virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity are acknowledged Christian virtues, how can Christians take exception to an organisation which very strongly urges their practice? Critics dwell on the absence of any reference to the uniqueness of the death and of the resurrection of Christ which alone secure our "right relationship with God" and the indwelling power of the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, modern Masonry has never pretended to be a Christian organisation; nor, so far as can be deduced from its rituals, does it make any comment on the teaching of Christianity or any religion other than to assert that its secrets are not incompatible with an individual’s religious duties. The very basis of the claim that Freemasonry is a ‘support’ of religion, not a religion itself, is the fact that it is open to members of any religion, and is concerned with spiritual values and right conduct, which it conveys and instills in its members by the ritual dramas at the meetings of the Lodge, during which discussion and debate of religion are excluded as a matter of policy. Nevertheless, with no reference to the grace of God in Jesus Christ, the charge remains that the teaching of the ritual is Pelagian (see para. 100).

110 The Working Group are at one in rejecting the assertion that the rituals of the Craft contain no element of worship (cf. para. 68). As would be expected, there was considerable discussion and diversity of view on the implications of the qualification for its membership and the character of its rituals. Historically, Craft Masonry represents typical eighteenth-century Deism. Must this be taken, in the later twentieth century, to represent a slur or slight on Christianity? The conviction, echoed in the Group itself, that this is indeed the case was expressed with some force in submissions to the Working Group:

If the unique claims of Christianity are to be taken seriously how can a man claiming to be a Christian belong to a Deist organisation in which there is a free and easy acceptance of any religion — Hindu, Sikh, Muslim, Jew et al.

— whose God(s) are their own and wholly alien to the God of the New Testament?

Has the Christian not a clear duty and an overwhelming responsibility continually to witness to the higher claims of Christianity?

111 Such arguments form a conspicuous part of the reasoning behind the continued prohibition on membership of Freemasonry placed by the Roman Catholic Church on its adherents.

112 These questions need to be considered in the context of contemporary interest in and experiment with inter-faith services. Only last year, the Bishop of Rome himself was in Assisi praying for peace alongside Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, and medicine men of North American Indian tribes. When he listened attentively to their prayers was he joining in them or unobtrusively dissociating himself from what was going on? Was the whole affair, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury was himself prominent, just an exhibition of spiritual sleight-of-hand or ecclesiastical hypocrisy?

113 In the course of the Working Group’s discussion, the question was raised as to whether there is a critical difference between "one-off’ or occasional inter-faith services and the rituals regularly associated with the formal meetings of a Lodge. The Group came to the view that in either case theological indifferentism was a distinct possibility and, some would say, even a probability.

114 Among the evidence received by the Group were letters from Freemasons, indicating an alternative view of the consequences of Lodge meetings; that the social relationships established by meeting in Lodge actually made it possible outside its formal business to discuss and explain the peculiar claims of Christianity over any other religion. One (clerical) Freemason in fact referred to bringing men to be confirmed in the Church of England as a result of meeting them as members of his Lodge.

115 Members of General Synod will need to take such testimony into account when they consider the effects of Freemasonry on its present and past members, just as they will have to reflect on the evidence referred to in paras. 104 and 105.

116 They will also have to give careful consideration to two other, not unrelated, criticisms of the Craft. First, that if Freemasonry knows of a way of establishing a right relationship with God, then it has a moral obligation to share this knowledge with all others. Second, that if it can reveal, in the ritual of the Holy Royal Arch, the true name of God, then it should certainly not conceal this name from others. The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ is not the property of an exclusive, all-male organisation; he is revealed for all.

117 With regard to the first criticism, it has to be recognised that the Craft claims to a peculiar but not exclusive knowledge. This however does not really answer the objection that whatever knowledge it has which might help in our earthly pilgrimage, it should, by Christian standards, be willingly shared with all.

118 More important — some members of the Working Group would judge far more important — is the criticism brought against the Holy Royal Arch not merely relating to the vexed problem of words and letters inscribed on the top of the altar but regarding the requirements of members of Holy Royal Arch Chapters that the name of God revealed in the course of the ritual is in no circumstances to be revealed to or even pronounced in the company of those not members of a Chapter.

119 The Working Group recognise the present concern of Grand Chapter to re-interpret the composite word on the triangle. Nevertheless it does not seem at all likely or indeed possible that attempts at reinterpretation can possibly meet the fundamental objection to the Ritual of the Holy Royal Arch; that it professes to reveal the ‘true name of God’, a name which, on their most solemn oath, members are pledged not to disclose to others. How can such a pledge be honoured by Christians?

120 Members of General Synod, among whom there will almost certainly be other members of the Craft in addition to the two who are members of the present Working Group, will be advised to read and reflect upon recently published histories of the emergence of the United Grand Lodge. They will find that the inclusion of the Holy Royal Arch as an element of modern Craft Masonry was a matter of dispute in the early nineteenth century and they may wonder whether its acceptance has altogether added to the credibility of Craft Masonry in the late twentieth century.

121 Compared with such fundamental matters, the much publicised issue of the nature of what are now known officially as the ‘traditional’ oaths, seems less important. The Working Group were advised from the outset that the United Grand Lodge was proposing to withdraw them from the rituals over which it had control and later that the Grand Chapter of the Holy Royal Arch was proposing to make similar modifications in its own ritual (which both have recently done). As has already been noted (cf. para. 52) they are still referred to in detail elsewhere in the rituals of the three Craft Degrees.