A resent article on Masonry in a local Edmonton paper


"BROTHERHOOD - Shining a light on the mysterious Masons."

The Edmonton Journal Saturday, June 4, 1994


DOUGLAS TODD (Vancouver Sun).

Bill Boland has a sturdy face: healthy, friendly and lined with years of
earnest concern. But unfortunately for the Freemasons, his 68-year-old
features are more and more becoming the typical face of what has been
the world's largest secret society.

The once-powerful, all-male Freemasons are threatened by aging
membership, falling numbers and an intense assault from conservative
Christians.

Boland is sick of doing nothing about the decline of the beloved society
he's belonged to for three decades. He's stepping out of Freemasonry's
shadows to fight back against the lies.

Without official permission from his Grand Lodge, he is taking on those
who are labeling the Freemasons a religious cult that practices
witchcraft.

"I'm treading a fine line by speaking up," says Boland, who has reached
the 32nd-degree of Masonry, its second-highest level.

"But the Masons will not stick up for themselves because they think it
would be too divisive. I really don't care how I'm portrayed . . . I
just want the truth to come out."

Hard figures on Masonry's decline are impossible to come by. But it's no
secret, says Boland, young people aren't flocking to Masonry or the
Shriners (which Masons can join after they reach the 32nd degree).

At a recent Shriners' Circus at the Pacific Coliseum, the men in fezzes
were invariably in their early 60s or older.

Boland says much of the reason for the fading allure of Masonry is
escalating attacks from conservative Christians, who call it a rival and
false religion.

Boland knows the attacks intimately. He's a conservative Christian. A
former MacMillan Bloedel forestry executive, he decided in his late 50s
to become a pastor at West Vancouver Baptist Church. , Although many
North American Protestants are Masons, Boland says he and his fellow
Masons endure nothing but misunderstanding and abuse from fellow
Christians for belonging to the society.

Boland has had it with what he considers put-downs, half-truths and
outright falsehoods.

But that's nothing compared to the scars Boland wears closer to his
heart.

It took him four years longer than it should have to obtain ordination
because prominent people at West Vancouver Baptist Church, where he d
worshipped for 24 years, said he couldn't be both a Mason and an
ordained pastor.

Even though letters from the congregation show Boland was widely admired
and respected for his commitment to Christ, people argued he couldn't be
a Christian pastor because Masonry is a competing faith.

The key people opposing his ordination in 1988 at West Vancouver
Baptist, Boland says, were the influential Canadian president of Focus
on the Family, Geoffrey Still, and retired UBC professor Angus Gunn.

Still did not return phone calls. But Gunn said he helped stop Boland's
ordination because any Christian who belongs to a secret society runs
the danger of showing more loyalty to the Masons than his church.

In suit and tie, Boland seems to live up to the praise he's had from the
people at West Vancouver Baptist who called him  reliable, enthusiastic,
sensitive and loving" but who couldn't accept his Masonry.

It was not until 1992 that Boland convinced members of a small east
Vancouver Baptist church, Beulah Garden Christian Fellowship, to elect
him pastor.

Beulah Garden, which ministers to the elderly and the poor, is where
Boland is determined to show his Christian faith, supported by his
Masonic commitment to charity, can make a difference.

As for the charges against Masonry . . . .

Accusations about Masons revering phallic symbols and worshipping
Lucifer are outrageous, he says. He admits gory vows are uttered in some
Masonic ritual, but the language is completely symbolic.

The bloody oaths remain, he says to emphasize that Masons should take
their commitment to God, charity and each other seriously. They flow out
of a tradition of secrecy that goes back to Masonry's origins in the
medieval era, when stonemasons travelled Europe building cathedrals.

They formed into a kind of labor union, inventing secret handshakes and
passwords to prove to prospective employers and each other they were
bonafide stonemasons and not imposters.

As for claims by evangelicals and Catholics that Christians can't be
Masons that Jesus Christ is the only route to salvation  Boland says the
main requirement of any man who joins the Masons is simply that he
believe in a Supreme Being.

Masonry encourages members to vigorously follow their own faith.
Christian Masons should worship the Christian God, while Muslim Masons
would worship Allah, etc.

Along with conducting elaborate ceremonies, Masons teach values such as
tolerance and temperance, build fraternal feelings through social events
and perform charitable work.

Although Masonry clearly has religious elements, Boland says it is not a
religion, nor it is a substitute for religion. It is just a fellowship
of men who care about those in need .

With understatement, Boland smiles and says the Masons are no more
occultish than a University fraternity.  We re just a little more
colorful.

Who are the Masons

An estimated six million Masons still dot the globe, with roughly three
million in the U.S. and 200,000 in Canada. Women who can't join the
Masons, belong to Masonic offshoots such as Job's Daughters and the
Order of the Eastern Star.

Influential Masons have included Sir John A. Macdonald, John
Diefenbaker, William Shakespeare, Voltaire, Mozart, Captain George
Vancouver, Robbie Burns, General Douglas MacArthur, Norman Vincent
Peale, George Washington, Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan and 13 other U.S.
Presidents.


The charges against Masons

Masonry has already been banned in Catholic countries such as Spain and
Poland. And now, in videos, and a flood of books, such as Bob Larson's
The New Book of Cults or John Ankerberg's The Facts on the Masonic
Lodge, evangelicals are claiming Masons:

- Attract innocent Christians who seek social status.

- Practice elaborate rituals that appeal to men who live otherwise
  austere lives.

- Follow a religion rooted in Egyptian paganism.

- Call Lucifer God.

- Show unnatural reverence for male fertility and phallic symbols, such
  as obelisks.

- Vow to tear open their left breast or have their bowels taken out and
  burned to ashes should they reveal Masonic secrets.

- Threaten members who disclose confidences with curses of throat
  slashing and tongue removal.


This file comes courtesy of:

George Helmer
Norwood #90 Grand Lodge of Alberta
SYSOP - Magna Borealis Lux (403) 475-6061