STB-97-08
Music by Brother J. L. F. Mendelssohn.
FUNDAMENTALIST FURY
By: John J. Robinson
Bro. John J. Robinson's last book was A
Pilgrim's Path. In this book Bro. Robinson
responds to numerous religious criticisms of
Freemasonry as well as writing about the
"Evangelist Mentality." We are printing this
STB to help our readers have a response to
some of the misleading, inaccurate, and
oftentimes untrue statements made by the
religious extremists against Freemasonry!
(The title Fundamentalist Fury is from a
chapter title in the book.)
A Pilgrims Path, by John J. Robinson,
was published in 1993 by M. Evans & Co.,
Inc. in New York City. The book is available in many bookstores or can be ordered
through your local bookstore using
ISBN 0-87131 -732-X.
--Editor
Some evangelistic leaders have discovered
an avenue to wealth and power that has been
employed by many leaders for centuries:
Implant in a group of people a blend of fear
and anger, then assure them that you have
both the message and the answers; define
the enemy and point to the path of success
and security. It is effective in leadership by
nationality, by race, and by religious
denomination. To Hitler, the enemy was the
Jews; to the Serbian Eastern Orthodox leaders it is the Muslim Bosnians; to conservatives it is liberals (and vice versa). And so it
goes, as races are stirred up against each
other, as nations split apart along ethnic
lines, and as competition gets fierce among
men who claim to be leading their followers
to the one true pathway to the throne of
God. That competition grew fierce in recent
years as Jimmy Swaggart brought down a
competitive evangelist, whose son got his
revenge by producing photographs that
proved the sexual aberrations of Brother
Swaggart, who by then had blown the whistle on Jim Bakker, They all forgave themselves and attributed their actions to the
influence of Satan, who hates the godly.
That to many fundamentalists the great
enemy is Satan is totally understandable in
concept, but what gets weird are the satanic
manifestations that professional evangelists
sometimes assert in order to stay ahead of
their competition. In the city where I live, a
giant consumer-products company has for
generations used as its trademark a stylized
drawing of the man in the moon. Then one
day a radical fundamentalist decided that
three of the curly hairs in the man's beard
were really sixes. He triumphantly
announced that hidden in the trademark was
666, the Mark of the Beast, as revealed in
the Book of Revelation. And it was hidden
in the moon, itself a symbol with satanic
overtones, since it rules over darkness. The
campaign began with the condemnation of
the trademark and went so far as to call for a
boycott of the company's products. The
insanity was stopped only in the courts.
In Britain, the government stopped using
666 on license plates, since it was credited
with so much evil. One fundamentalist
defended himself from a charge of murder
on the basis that he had been controlled by
the satanic demon in his license plate.
There have been many other fundamentalist revelations of satanic influence--for
example, the allegation that the popular
music style known as "heavy metal" is
satanic in origin, and the ridiculous assertion
that when recordings of rock-and-roll music
are played backward, they reveal direct messages from Satan to the young people listening to those records.
In such an atmosphere, with fanatics looking for satanic influences everywhere, it is
not at all surprising that Freemasonry has
been included in the witch hunt. Unfor-
tunately, in their fierce determination to
"discover" satanic influences and worship
and report them to their followers, the
hunters don't mind at all if they must avoid
the truth, twist the truth, and even yield to
blatant lies in order to support their claims.
Freemasonry offers a fertile ground for their
malicious teachings, because Masons traditionally do not reply to critics. That absence
of response is sometimes cited as "proof"
that the Masons are guilty as charged.
I have had occasion to debate anti-Masonic fundamentalists and have taken
part in call-in shows on self-styled "Christian" radio stations, operated by and for fundamentalists. I have tried to answer the
anti-Masonic allegations of fundamentalist
ministries and have borne abuse for defending Masonry, which callers have identified
as "pagan," "anti-Christian," and "an instru-
ment of the devil." One caller demanded that
I be taken off the air, asking the show host,
"Don't you know that anyone who speaks
favorably of Freemasonry is an agent of
Satan?"
The anti-Masonic material generated by
these leaders provides, not surprisingly, a
steady source of income for them. Pamphlets, books, audiotapes, and even videotapes (in one case a reenactment of the
Masonic ceremony of the third degree) are
all available at a price. Such publications
drive anti-Masonic propaganda into the
minds of devout followers, who believe that
what they are told by ordained evangelists
must be so--to the extent that they become
upset, and even angry, when they hear the
truth.
These are the condemnations most frequently heard or read:
ALLEGATION:
"You can't have one God for all religions."
Freemasonry isn't trying to have one God
for everyone, but rather is seeking a means
by which all men who believe in a monotheistic God can join together. "God" in the
Masonic sense refers to God as perceived
and worshipped by the individual Mason.
No man is asked to alter his beliefs to meet
some Masonic standard, and that is entirely
appropriate for a fraternal body that has no
desire to be a separate religion.
The Masonic approach is much the same
as the approach of the U.S. government and
the Founding Fathers. The Declaration of
Independence justifies the actions of the revolutionaries, who want "the separate and
equal station to which the Laws of Nature
and of Nature's God entitle them." A century
and a half after the new country was established, the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag
called for a belief in "one nation under
God." This was clearly a reference to God as
perceived by each individual citizen, since
there was no state religion and no legal definition of one perception of God to the
exclusion of all others.
Perhaps "clearly" is too strong a term. In
a debate with a fundamentalist, I proposed a
hypothetical federal courtroom in which the
plaintiff is Christian, the defendant is Muslim, and the presiding judge is Jewish.
Every federal court is opened with the
words "May God bless the United States of
America and this honorable court." Each of
the parties in the room is satisfied that his
God has been asked to bless the proceedings
and the attempt to discover the truth. My
question to the evangelist was, "Tell me,
which God is the court official asking to
bless the court?" His reply was, "The God
of Jesus Christ, of course. No other God has
a right to be in the United States." So much
for freedom of religion.
ALLEGATION:
Freemasons call all members "brother,"
but Scripture teaches us that there is no
brotherhood except in Christ. That's why
Masonry is anti-Christian.
There is no winning (or losing) this argument, because it depends solely upon the
interpretations of the speaker. My own reactions to Jesus Christ speaking of "my
brethren" is that he was speaking of all
mankind. It had never occurred to me that
there were strong restrictions on the message "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one
of the least of these my brethren, ye have
done it unto me," especially considering that
when the words were said, there were just a
handful of men who might be called Christians. Men have argued, written, and pontificated for almost two thousand years on the
meanings of each sentence in the New Testament, and it is clear that the argument still
goes on. I can only hope that most people
will agree that we must find a way for all
men around the world to live in brotherhood
or we can never have peace and security.
Masonry has made a strong contribution to
that goal, but in doing so has had to bear the
brunt of fiery-eyed attacks that say, "A true
Christian cannot ever be in brotherhood with
a Muslim, a Jew, a Mormon, a Unitarian,
Christian Scientist, or a Roman Catholic
Jesus forbids it!"
ALLEGATION:
Fmmasonry promises that good works
will earn salvation, which is a lie. Salvation
is available only to the man who accepts
Jesus Christ as his personal savior, and
good works have nothing to do with it.
This strongest and most frequent assertion
is wrong on two counts. First, Freemasonry
does not offer salvation on any basis. Each
man must find that within his own faith, to
salvation is the highest personal goal of all
religion, and Freemasonry is certainly no
religion. What Freemasonry does convey in
lodge lectures is that Masonry offers a man
the opportunity to engage in the good works
which are required from every believer in
every moral religion.
"But good works play absolutely no role
in salvation," cries the radical fundamentalist. To which I answer that most of the
Masons I have met, almost all of whom are
Christians, accept a moral code repeatedly
defined in the Scripture, a code that requires
sympathy, kindness, and charitable good
works. They believe that faith in Jesus
Christ as the Son of God is all-consuming
and that it lives in the mind and heart, not
just in the mouth, and so in the deeds as
well as words. To live otherwise is to make
mockeries of the Sermon on the Mount and
the parable of the Good Samaritan and renders the teachings of the Ten Commandments meaningless and unnecessary.
All that is not going to convince a radical
fundamentalist of anything, but rather will
cause him to search his Bible for quotations,
usually taken out of context, to support his
position. Since any argument seems to
require scriptural citation, I offer these from
the Epistle of James (italics mine):
"What doth it profit, my brethren, though
a man say he hath faith, and have not
works? Can faith save him?" (2:14)
"Even so faith, if it hath not works, is
dead." (2:17)
"But wilt thou know, O vain man, that
faith without works is dead?" (2:30)
"Ye see then how that by works a man is
justified, and not byfaith only." (2:24)
"For as the body without the spirit is
dead, sofaith without works is dead also."
(2:26)
And finally, from The First Epistle of
John:
"But whoso hath this world's good, and
seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up
his bowels of compassion from him, how
dwelleth the love of God in him? My little
children, let us not love in word, neither in
tongue; but in deed and in truth." (3:17-18)
"He that saith, I know him, and keepeth
not his commandments, is a liar, and the
truth is not in him." (2:4)
In essence, what Freemasonry tells a new
member is that he should attend and support his
own house of worship. When the time comes
that his faith and his compassionate humanity
prompt him to seek the most effective ways to
help those in need, he can join in charitable
work with his Masonic brothers who are similarly dedicated.
THE SHORT TALK BULLETIN
Published monthly by the Masonic Service Association of North America, 8120 Fenton Street, Silver
Spnng, Maryland 20910-4785. Tel: (301) 588-4010.
under the auspices of its member Grand Jurisdictions.
Masonic publications are invited to reproduce,
extract, copy or reprint the contents of this Bulletin, providing that the source be indicated and that M.S.A. be
provided with courtesy copies of the reprinted materials.
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