Christianity and the Secret Teachings of the Masonic Lodge – Program 5

By: Dr. John Ankerberg, Jack Harris, Jim Flannagan, Bill Mankin, Dr. Walter Martin; ©1985

Many leaders in Christian churches are also members of the Masonic Lodge. Is there anything in the Masonic Ritual that conflicts with the Christian faith?

Should Christians be Masons?

Introduction

On this edition of John Ankerberg, we will compare the secret teachings of the Masonic Lodge with Christian belief. You will hear what the Lodge teaches in the first three degrees of Masonry, as well as the higher degrees of the York Rite and the Scottish Rite. Masons are promised in their authoritative Masonic ritual that nothing in the Lodge’s teachings will ever conflict with one’s own religious beliefs. Has Masonry lied to Christians in stating this? Is it really possible for a Christian to embrace the teachings of Freemasonry? Tonight, you will find out.

Invitations for tonight’s program were extended to current leaders, scholars, and Worshipful Masters of the Lodge. But Lodge members declined our invitation to come and be a part of this program – though our invitation remains open. However, you will meet and hear two former Worshipful Masters, Mr. Jim Flannigan and Mr. Jack Harris, explain what they used to believe and teach as leaders of the Lodge.

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Ankerberg: Welcome. I’m talking with Jim Flannigan and Jack Harris, two former Worshipful Masters of the Masonic Lodge. And tonight, I want you to hear their story. Jack, let me start with you. How did you get into the Masonic Lodge? What attracted you? Tell me the story.

Harris: Okay, John. The way that I got into Masonry is that I was a member of a Baptist church. I wasn’t yet a born again Christian but a member of a Baptist church, Southern Baptist. And being part of the men’s Bible class, about three-quarters of that Bible class were Masons. The pastor of the church was a Mason. And the men intrigued me with a mystique of Freemasonry, that they had some hidden things that I could learn about God that I didn’t already know.

So, being intrigued with this, I said, “You know, I think I’d like to be a part of this group. These men are my friends, and if they have something I want, I need that. I’d like to be a part of that.” So I put my application in for the Masonic Lodge and had to wait for about 6 or 8 weeks until they voted on me. And then after that, they sent me a letter and said “Appear at a certain date,” in fact, it was on May 1, 1961, “and you will receive your first degree of Freemasonry.”

So, I went into the lodge room and had to take my clothes off and had to put on this blue outfit and be blindfolded. And as I was going through the Rituals of the first degree and learning all the catechism…and the second degree, they found out that I could memorize the work very well in the catechism class. And I did enjoy memorizing…

Ankerberg: Because you had a lot to memorize, didn’t you?

Harris: A lot to memorize. First degree, second degree…about 180 questions before you can get to the Master Mason degree. And while I was in there, I really enjoyed what I did. I believed, you know, what they were doing, talking about God, we were learning something new. In fact, we were learning things I’d never heard in church. I said, “Hm! This is a little different.” And now, I’m not a Christian at the time. So, I became an officer of the Lodge within about six months after becoming a Master Mason. So after going through the chairs of the Masonic Lodge, which takes seven years from the Junior Steward all the way through to Worshipful Master – seven years of memorizing all their Ritual, word-of-mouth, nothing written down – six years later I became Worshipful Master of a Masonic Lodge, which was 1968 in Baltimore, Maryland. Then I also went to other bodies of Freemasonry…

Ankerberg: You actually had 600 men in your lodge that you presided over. Is that correct?

Harris: That is correct. Six hundred men. And at the time we had a Pentecostal Chaplain which always opened and closed his prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. Well, at the time I was Master he closed his prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. At this one particular meeting, a Past Master stood up and said, “We won’t have any of that here!” Well, in a Blue Lodge parliamentary procedure is normally always followed. So when the Lodge closed I approached this brother, “Why did you object to this?” He said, “Well, look in your Maryland Masonic Manual. It tells you how to close your prayers. And you’re supposed to use no additional endings, just ‘Amen’ or ‘So mote it be.’”

So I approached the Grand Master in 1968 at the time, and I said to the Grand Master, “I’d like to have a Christian flag in the East [and] an Old and New Testament on the altar, and I would also like to have, on top of all of this, I’d like to close my prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. I noticed there were some objections from the Past Masters.” He said, “Well, an Old and New Testament I have no problem with. Christian flag, that’s an impossibility!” I said, “Why?” He said, “Because we have Jews, Christians, Moslems, Buddhists…we have all religions of the world as a part of Freemasonry.” I said, “We do? I didn’t know that!”

And then he said, “Close your prayers in the name of Jesus Christ? So long as no members object, I have no problem with that. But, if one member objects, I must insist that you don’t close your prayers in the name of Jesus Christ. If you do, I will insist on shutting your lodge down and it will cease to exist.” At this point I began to wonder, “Is there a difference between Freemasonry and the teachings of the Bible?” There seemed to be a conflict here from the way I was raised.

Ankerberg: Because up to that point you didn’t think there was.

Harris: I didn’t think there was any conflict. And I enjoyed doing what I was doing. But something was tugging inside that it was wrong.

Ankerberg: Because you still weren’t a Christian at that time.

Harris: I still was not a Christian at the time.

Ankerberg: Even though you went to a church and you were the Worshipful Master of the Lodge.

Harris: That’s right. I had a lot of head knowledge, John, but the heart wasn’t committed to any of the head knowledge.

Ankerberg: So this started you thinking. Then what happened?

Harris: Well, what happened at that time was that one night I was watching a Billy Graham Crusade, I remember, October of 1970. And he was preaching on Hebrews 4:12. Well, it convicted my heart so bad that I knew I was a sinner; I needed Jesus Christ as my Savior. I got on my knees and accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. At that time my first love, other than the Lord Jesus Christ, was His Word. I saturated my mind day and night with the Word of God. And then I said…the Rituals that I had memorized word of mouth were coming back to me, and it’s a total conflict with what I’m reading in the Word of God. What do I do?

Ankerberg: Give me an example.

Harris: An example?

Ankerberg: Give me an example of where you saw conflict when you read the Bible and you compared it to your Masonic teachings.

Harris: When I first came into Masonry they told me that I was “in darkness, seeking spiritual light.” And when I read in John 8:12 where Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness but shall have the light of life.” And as I saw many other passages that said I am a child of light. In the book of Colossians, “He has called me out of darkness” [Col. 1:13]. I thought, “Well, wait a minute! If I’m out of darkness and I’m in Jesus’ light, why am I still in darkness in every degree of Freemasonry until I come to their light?” So this kind of opened my eyes that something is wrong here with Freemasonry.

I then contacted the Grand Lodge of the State of Maryland, debated with them on the issue, and their final word was: “We worship the Supreme Architect of the Universe here. If you want to worship Jesus Christ, you go to your church.” My point was, “Sir, in the light of the first chapter of John, Jesus Christ is the Architect of the Universe but He has a name: it’s Jesus Christ.” He said, “End of argument.” I then decided in order to be true to the Word of God and the Lord Jesus Christ, I must renounce Freemasonry.

Ankerberg: Now, was that a hard decision to make?

Harris: Not after being convicted. No. Because it was a matter of a love for the Lord and now what made it an easy decision, John, is I felt tremendously lied to and deceived by what Masonry taught to me as they said it was truth. And now I find out it wasn’t the truth, it was a lie! Yes. I was very upset.

Ankerberg: When did you realize that the Masonic plan of salvation or the way to get into the Celestial Lodge was not what the Bible said?

Harris: I would say within about a month after I was saved and I started to saturate my mind with the Word of God and reading the book of Romans, the sixth chapter, that said I am dead, buried and resurrected with the person of Jesus Christ [v. 4]. And then when I read John 3:7, “Ye must be born again.” Oh? Must be born again, not brought to light of the teachings of Freemasonry. They never taught me to be born again in Freemasonry.

Ankerberg: Okay. So then, how is it that you got out? Did you just walk away? A lot of guys just stop paying their dues and leave. They don’t tell anybody. Or a lot of people continue to pay their dues; just don’t go to the meetings. What did you do?

Harris: I was angry at the time, so I had to take a little bit of time and calm down and pray about it. And what I did is I wrote two short paragraphs, telling the Lodge… and I wrote to the members of the Lodge, not to any Lodge officer. As long as you write to the members, they must read that in the Lodge of instruction, but if you write to the particular officer of the Lodge, he can read it and then take the letter and throw it away.

Ankerberg: And that’s what you did?

Harris: I wrote a letter saying, “I do not agree with your doctrines. They conflict with the Word of God and I no longer want to be part of the organization of Freemasonry.” Signed it. I’ve never heard a word since then. What I did is, I think it was two or three months later I received a demit from my Blue Lodge.

Ankerberg: What’s a demit?

Harris: A demit means that you are in good standing, your dues have been paid, you’re still a Mason but you no longer wish to belong to that particular Lodge. So you take this showing you’re in good standing to some other Lodge you want to belong to so that they can vote on you to become a member of that Lodge, but you’re still a Mason.

Ankerberg: Jim, Jack here came in, he wasn’t a Christian. Even though people in the church brought him over to the Lodge and he became a member through their friendship. Now, you come from a different perspective altogether. You actually are a Christian; in fact, you are a Pastor of a Christian church. Now, how in the world with all of these things that we’ve been telling the people about in the past few weeks about Masonry, how in the world would a Christian, in fact, the Pastor of the church, how did you get into the Masonic Lodge and when did it dawn on you that these things were in conflict with your Christian faith?

Flannigan: I joined the Lodge in 1969. I was a new Christian and I was part of a church that did not disciple its members. When you joined the church you were just a member. So I had a lot of what I would call “respect” for Masons that I had known, especially in my wife’s family. Just about every male in her family going back to about 30 years before the Revolutionary War was a Mason. I had a lot of respect for these men and I wanted to be part of that and I joined the Lodge. And other than the oaths and obligations which I was a little upset about, I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I didn’t understand the Scriptures closely enough.

Shortly after joining, due to business commitments I couldn’t attend Lodge and I remained relatively inactive for approximately seven years when someone invited me to join the York Rite. And I had found some artifacts left over from some of the members of my wife’s family. So I thought this would be interesting and I joined and immediately got active. In the York Rite we went through in large classes, so as a result of that, when you went through these degrees you were sitting on the sidelines and there was tremendous activity. I never picked up the import of what was going on.

Ankerberg: Alright, let me stop you now. Were you also the Worshipful Master of the Lodge at this time?

Flannigan: No. I wasn’t Master of my Lodge at that point.

Ankerberg: Okay, so you had just gone into the first three degrees of Masonry, passed that, and then somebody said, “Hey, let’s go up the ladder in Masonry. Let’s take the York Rite way.”

Flannigan: Yes.

Ankerberg: And so you went all the way…. How high did you go?

Flannigan: I went up all the way to Commander of the Commandery…

Ankerberg: Okay.

Flannigan: …which was the “Christian” branch. Which I was very delighted with because we read Scriptures there. All our prayers were in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. And there was symbolism in there which I did not quite fully understand.

Ankerberg: Let me also ask you this. Most people don’t understand the words that we’re using right now, but you went up what is called the York Rite versus the Scottish Rite. For the people that have just joined us, the first three degrees of Masonry – the Blue Lodge which is what it’s called – is for everybody that come into the Masonic Lodge. And then after that they can choose whether they want to go up the Scottish Rite way or the degrees of the York Rite. Now, why did you say the York Rite is considered to be the Christian part of the Lodge?

Flannigan: Well, the York Rite consists of three bodies: the Chapter, and then comes the Council, and after that is the Commandery of Knights Templar. It’s a recreation of the old knights who supposedly tried to regain the Holy Land for Christendom. And everything within there was quite colorful with the uniforms, plumed chapeaus, swords and so forth. Everything was done in symbolism. On our uniforms in at least 13 or 14 different places we bore the cross.

Ankerberg: So “Christian” has the connotation of just the Christian Crusades and basically…it really wasn’t based on the Bible or Christian doctrine, it just had the name or the title of “Christian” and you just accepted that and kind of cruised on.

Flannigan: There was a lot of Scripture that was read regarding Christ, but the doctrine was not there in the Commandery.

Ankerberg: Alright. When did things start to bother you here?

Flannigan: Things started to bother me when I read a book a number of years ago, approximately five years ago, where a number of people writing on the New Age movement inculcated Freemasonry into this. And I got rather angry, saying that, “This is not right, to take Freemasonry and just slander it this way!” And I decided that maybe I would do some writing from the Christian Freemason’s standpoint.

Ankerberg: Alright. And you did that. But at that time, tell us again how it is that you became the Worshipful Master, because you must have become the Worshipful Master after you went through the York Rite. How did you get into that and then tell us about how they disturbed you as Worshipful Master.

Flannigan: After I had finished up my, as we call it “chairs,” going through the chairs in the York Rite, a number of fellows asked me if I wanted to go on for what’s called the York Cross of Honor, which is equivalent to the 33^rd degree Scottish Rite Mason.

Ankerberg: As high as you can get.

Flannigan: As high as you can go. And I was told that I’d have to go through the chairs as Worshipful Master. I belonged to a country lodge in Stockton, New Jersey, which is made up of some of the finest men I think I’ve ever met in my life. I do not have one quarrel with any of them or any of the other men in the York Rite. They were as deceived as I was, and many of them are still there. They’re still loyal and faithful. And they don’t understand. But I got into the chairs and it was in my… just as I was going in as Master of the Lodge I was coming under this tremendous conviction from the research that I was doing from Masonic authors. And my father-in-law before he had died left me a book called The History of Freemasonry and Concordant Orders. It’s a very old, very reliable Masonic source. But it’s a book that cuts right to the center, and there I began to see exactly what the essence of Freemasonry was.

Ankerberg: What was the thing that really struck you from reading?

Flannigan: One of the things that struck me the hardest, I guess, was when I read the meaning of the letter “G,” which was not what I had been taught in the Blue Lodge.

Ankerberg: What were you taught? Unscramble it here.

Flannigan: In the Blue Lodge we were taught that the letter “G” stood for God. When I got in to this book I found out that the true meaning was “gnosis” or “Gnosticism,” which was one of the early plagues that hit Christianity and has been in the Church ever since. And when I looked further into that, checking Albert Pike, I saw in there that there is a freedom among Masonic leaders to deceive those below them if they so desire. To lead them by symbols and tell them opposite meanings from what they really mean.

Ankerberg: Let’s run that by the people again. You found out – and it’s true – that those like Albert Pike and other writers in Masonry that are in the higher degrees that have written the Masonic books, they’ve actually said things like what you just mentioned. That it’s okay to deceive the guys in the first three degrees and even some of the other degrees of Masonry, and the real scoop, the real truth, about what you’re doing in the Masonic Lodge is given to those that go up the ladder.

Flannigan: That’s correct.

Ankerberg: Now, you didn’t know that before.

Flannigan: I was not aware of that. No. That meanings change the higher you go.

Ankerberg: Give us an example of from Blue Lodge to the higher degrees. What was the meaning that changed? You said “God,” but what else changed?

Flannigan: Another thing was that I got a tract which explained “Jabulon.” I was shocked on that. I went back to the state Masonic authority in the York Rite and I checked that as quickly as I could. And they admitted that at one point they had issued an order to remove “Jabulon” and just go for the name of Jehovah.

Ankerberg: For the people that have just joined us this week, what is Jabulon?

Flannigan: Jabulon is the name of God in Hebrew, coupled with two of the pagan deities: Baal of the Canaanites and Om of the Egyptians and eventually on into the Hindus.

Ankerberg: What about it?

Flannigan: Well, this is the part of the Grand Omnific Word of the Royal Arch. You must say that. You must say it under an arch held up high with your hands with three members together, and it is blasphemy!

Ankerberg: So what you’re saying is that in the Blue Lodge you’re told things about God. You’re told other things up in Royal Arch, higher degrees. And down in the Blue Lodge you’re told that this will not conflict with your religious belief and, lo and behold, the content for “God” is a completely different name than what the God of the Bible tells you and Christianity. And not only is it different, but it’s blasphemous! Right?

Flannigan: That’s correct.

Ankerberg: You have the mixing of God’s name, true name as revealed in the Bible, with two pagan deities that God of the Bible strictly condemns.

Flannigan: Absolutely.

Ankerberg: And then in the Masonic Lodge in the Royal Arch degree what you’re saying is that you found out you’re supposed to not only claim that and promise that, but you’re supposed to say it and only in the Royal Arch degree.

Flannigan: That’s correct. And the names of those pagan deities were changed slightly so that you wouldn’t recognize them. That bothered me very badly.

Ankerberg: Okay. So what did you do with all this?

Flannigan: Finally, when I put the whole thing together, I decided I had to get out. But, John, I made a mistake. At that moment I didn’t walk out. I still had an obligation to my Lodge and I said I was going to fulfill that obligation. It was a promise to my fellow man. I made a mistake there. I should have stood on Christ and Christ only. Instead, I waited until my year as Master was up and on New Year’s Day of 1985 I mailed a letter not only resigning from the Lodge but from Freemasonry. I quoted Scripture in there and I exhorted my brothers to take a look at it. I haven’t heard a word from them since.

Read Part 6