A Twisted Crown of Thorns ®

We have always lived relatively sophisticated societies (unless of course you believe we evolved from some premeval soup left by some circumstantial science experiment bang). Yet even in the visible community there are many invisible associations and friendships and fraternities. Some overtly maintain the calm innocence of  a sunday school toddlers group and others covertly subtle and far from innocent.

Syncretism is the word for the day. This is the attempted blending of irreconcilable principles. Needless to say religious syncretism is the attempt to harmonise the true religion with any of the many false religions of the world. This is the basis upon which many secret organizatons such as the Order of Freemasons (also called Masonic Lodge). And this brings us to the essence of the First Commandment and what the very commandment warns us about. In Freemasonry, we find the adage that it is the one natural religion in which all men agree. Easy catch phrase, isn’t it? A Muslim, Hindhu, Mormon, Atheist can sit together with a Christian and in that fellowship “pray” to the Great Architect of the Universe. This is possible says Freemasonry because men of all faiths worship the same deity only in different forms. Thus “in no way conflicts with any other religion, unless that religion holds that no one outside its portals can be saved” (J.S.M Ward, Freemasonry: Its aims and ideals, p. 187)

Freemasonry says that all “gods” are equal. But what does the Bible say? The Bible strongly denies this:

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus 1 Tim 2:5

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. John 14:6

No one who denies the Son has the Father. Whoever confesses the Son has the Father also. 1 John 2:23

Isn’t it for this same reason that the Christian is told not to have religious fellowship with any person who may not professes faith in Jesus Christ (2 John 10)? Where then does this leave a pandering Christian who wants to join a fraternity or become a member of any organisation such as the Order of Freemasons?

Sometimes we find Christians who do not understand that they are not to engage in religious syncretism. But our duty is not to be determined by man’s confused state of mind. It is to be determined by God’s revelation in Scripture, and that alone.