The Relationship Between Ecumenism and Freemasonry
Freemasonry is the largest international secret society in the world, with more than 6 million members.
It is an all-male organization whose principles are explained as “brotherly love, relief and truth.”
“What makes Masonry so influential is the fact that of its many millions of members so many occupy leadership positions around the world. In our own country there is nearly always a significant percentage of Masons on the White House staff and in the Cabinet, Senate, Congress, Supreme Court, and Pentagon, as well as in top business management.” (Dave Hunt, Global Peace and the Rise of the Antichrist, pp. 158-59.)
There Are Many Paths to God
Freemasonry promotes the ecumenical idea that there are many ways to God in contrast to what Jesus said,
“I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me..” (John 14:6).
I believe Freemasonry secretly fosters ecumenism and quietly prepares its members to accept and be part of the coming new world order.
In Carl Claudy’s book, “Introduction to Freemasonry” (1931), he writes, “In his private petitions a man may petition God or Jehovah, Allah or Buddha, Mohammed or Jesus; he may call upon the God of Israel or the Great First Cause. In the Masonic Lodge he hears petition to the Great architect of the Universes, finding his own deity under that name. A hundred paths may wind upward around a mountain; at the top they meet.”
This tolerance of all religions is further clarified, “Masonry does not specify any God of any creed; she requires merely that you believe in some Deity, give him what name you will … any god will do …”
Albert Pike, former Supreme Pontiff of Universal Freemasonry, likewise exults: “Masonry [is that religion] around whose altars the Christian, the Hebrew, the Moselm, the Brahman [Hindu], the followers of Confucius and Zoroaster, can assemble as brethren and unite in prayer…” (Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (Charleston, SC, The Supreme Council of the 33rd Degree for the Southern Jurisdiction of the United Stated, 1906), pg. 226.)
Consider this quote from a more contemporary Masonic thinking, taken from the current manual of instruction used by Masons in the state of Kentucky (Kentucky Monitor by Henry Pirtle, pg. 95): “Masonry makes no profession of Christianity … but looks forward to the time when the labor of our ancient brethren shall be symbolized by the erection of a spiritual temple … in which there shall be but one altar and one worship; one common altar of Masonry on which the Veda, Shastras, Sade, Zend-Avesta, Koran, and Holy Bible shall lie untouched by sacrilegious hands, and at whose shrine the Hindoo, the Persian, the Assyrian, The Chaldean, The Egyptian, the Chinese, The Mohammedan, the Jew, and the Christian may kneel and with one united voice celebrate the praises of the Supreme Architech of the Universe.” Now, that sounds like an ecumenical one-world religion to me.
“Masonry is a search after Light. That search leads us directly back as you can see, to the Kabalah. In that ancient and little understood medley of absurdity and philosophy, the Initiate will find the source of many doctrines…” (Albert Pike, Morals and Dogma, p.741)
“The true Mason is not creedbound. He realizes with the divine illumination of his lodge that as a Mason his religion must be universal: Christ, Buddha or Mohammed, the name means little, for he recognizes only the light and not the bearer. He worships at every shrine, bows before every altar, whether in temple, mosque or cathedral, realizing with his truer understanding the oneness of all spiritual truth.” (Manly Palmer Hall, The Lost Keys of Freemasonry, p.65.)
Masonry clearly teaches salvation through all religions, whereas the Bible teaches there is salvation in only one name under Heaven – the name of Jesus (Acts 4:12). Masonry focuses on “The Great Architect of the Universe” who can be defined any way the worshiper wants to define him. (Dr. David R. Reagan, “Should A Christian Be A Mason?,” Bible Prophecy Insights, No. 25, November 1992.)
Modern Christian Ecumenical Movements
Even a cursory review of what has taken place in the Church during the last 25 years will reveal a fierce undermining of the faith. Precisely as the Bible warns, today’s most effective enemies of Christ are those who claim to be Christians and call mankind not just to any old false religion but to a counterfeit Christianity.
Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition; Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God. – 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4
Modern Non-Christian Ecumenical Movements
Growing alongside the Christian ecumenical movement are those non-Christian movements with basically the same message: uniting the world into a one world religion that is inclusive of all beliefs.