United Grand Lodge of England (Freemasonry)
http://www.ugle.org.uk/library-and-museum/
This is the link for the Grand Lodge of England, as to Freemasonry. I only put this up for the education purpose, I am not a Mason, but I am not one who sees Freemasonry as evil or satanic. It is simply an old school approach toward Humanism. Both British and American great men were Freemasons!
http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/prescott13.html
http://www.grandlodgescotland.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=236&Itemid=158
http://www.6141.org.uk/freemasonry/famous-british-freemasons/
Here is a modern piece about Masons..
http://www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/buta.html
I can’t say that Freemasonry is or is not satanic, but I’m wary of secret societies. Secrecy can provide a cover for evil activities. The presence of good and decent men in Freemasonry doesn’t mean that today’s Freemason leaders aren’t involved in occult activities. This could be true of other secret societies as well. Christianity, by contrast, conducts its meetings generally out in the open. There’s no ascending to higher levels of membership through hidden rituals to learn secrets. The gospel is immediately made known to anyone who inquires about it.
So I’m a bit more hesitant to give Freemasonry the benefit of the doubt.
I can agree somewhat, but anything is what someone makes it, just as the many different Christian ideas that pass as so-called theology, noting the history of gnosticsm for example. We can even see this sadly today in the so-called Christian “emergents”.
Since my grandfather was a Mason, I think I would call the Freemasons more a group of esoteric, or inner initiates to the question of humanism, and the desire to so-called “free” thinking over the mystery of life. And of course this can lead quite in wrong directions, if not in submission to the search for truth! So this is the real issue. Today, it appears Freemasonry is more of a male hang-out, and a club for men, than any real “inner initiates”. And lots of myth certainly!
I think however it is an interesting that the Masons have had so many great, or at least well-known men! And even one Archbishop of Canterbury, Geoffrey Fisher.. 1945-1961.
Btw, just a bit of history concerning the one time Archbishop Geoffrey Fisher…
He presided at the marriage of Princess Elizabeth and later at her coronation in 1953 as Queen Elizabeth II. The event was carried on television for the first time. (The previous coronation, in 1937, had been filmed for newsreel.)
He is remembered for his visit to Pope John XXIII in 1960, the first meeting between an Archbishop of Canterbury and a Pope since the English Reformation, and an ecumenical milestone. This says a lot to my mind! Both appear to have been pastoral men. Fisher was an old school teacher and master, in his early life and priesthood.
Fisher was a committed Freemason. Many Church of England bishops (of his day, also somewhat my grandfathers generation) were also members of Freemasonry. Fisher served as Grand Chaplain in the United Grand Lodge of England.
Just an interesting PS, but Fisher was never technically a parish priest, but a Headmaster. He was an administrator, and sought in his time to revise the CoE’s cannon law, of 1604, which was still in place at that time.