I started reading Robert Lomas’s book Turning the Hiram Key last week. This book is Lomas’s attempt to chronicle his personal journey into Freemasonry as he delves into how the rituals of the Craft have affected him.

Lomas begins the story of his journey with his first exposure to Freemasonry and his subsequent desire to join the fraternity. When he gets to the point of talking about submitting his petition to join the Lodge, he recounts this verbal exchange with the man to whom he was about to hand his letter of application:

“Before you can hand that in, I need to talk to you about an important question. You’ll have to come for an interview and answer it before we’ll decide if you’ll be allowed to join.”

“What’s that?”

“When you come for interview you’ll be asked if you believe in a supreme being.”

“Do you mean do I belong to a church?”

“No, that’s not necessary,” he said. “But you must accept that there is such a thing as a supreme being.”

“Can I think about my answer?”

Those who are totally ignorant about Freemasonry may not realize that one of the central tenets is belief in God. But much to the dismay of fundamentalist Christians here in the US, Freemasonry doesn’t care which God. Therefore, membership is open to all men who profess a belief in God, be it the Triune God of Christianity, the God of the Torah for Jews, Allah for the Muslims, or virtually any other deity of a recognized religion. Therefore, a little alarm bell sounded in the back of my mind when I read Lomas’s response to the first question that is asked of anyone seeking to join Freemasonry: Do you believe in God?

“Can I think about my answer?”

What’s there to think about? Either you do or you don’t. But not for Robert Lomas. I’ll let him explain:

By trade I am a scientist, and I found this question difficult to answer. It is ambiguous–with hindsight, I suspect deliberately so. I ended up doing considerable research before deciding how to answer, and I began by looking at the meanings of the words used. …

Often the term “supreme being” is taken as a synonym for God. But the dictionary possibilities are wider. You could legitimately join [Freemasonry] if you believe in a deity who, though limited in power, is made of a rich cream sauce; this hypothetical supreme being might be called “the custard god.” … But a custard god is too weird for a scientist to accept, and anyway my wife keeps me on a diet. But, luckily, “supreme being” can also mean the greatest nature or essence of existence that can be imagined; to me this is the “Laws of Physics.”

I actually had to put the book down after I read that paragraph. The little alarm bell was now a resounding gong as I realized what sort of prevarication this man was willing to go to in order to become a Mason:

If I wanted to become a Freemason the first peculiar question I had to face up to was, did I believe that there was an order underlying the behavior of the universe?

Do you see what Lomas has done? In order to be able to answer the question in the affirmative, he had to redefine the term “supreme being.” Again, I’ll let Lomas’s words explain:

Thinking my position through, I had no doubt. I could answer a truthful “yes” to the admission question. And I did not have to compromise my scientific beliefs. This, then is my definition of “supreme being”–my scientist’s creed if you like:

I believe in a number of immutable laws that apply throughout the whole of creation. These relate to the way matter behaves and are often called the Laws of Physics. They include such well-known relationships as the conservation of energy and mass and their interchangeability, the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Fermi-Dirac statistics and the laws of thermodynamics. I believe that matter is made up of twelve fundamental particles, six quarks and six leptons. There are four forces, strong, weak, electromagnetic and gravitational. I also believe that forces are mediated by the exchange of particles. I accept the existence of twelve force-carrying particles and think there might also be a thirteenth, the graviton, but I’m not sure about that.

Can any man, if he is being honest with himself, actually think that by requiring a belief in a Supreme Being, Freemasonry expects or accepts a deity you made up yourself (”the custard god”), or the abstract and impersonal “Laws of Physics”? When the Lodge is opened with prayer to the Great Architect of the Universe, can any man in good conscience believe that he is seeking the blessings and wisdom of the Laws of Physics? When faced with the trials and tribulations that life throws at us, how much comfort do prayers to the Laws of Physics bring to a troubled and weary traveler?

These questions may seem facetious, but I assure you they are not. They reveal the heart of the matter at issue when a prospective candidate is asked “Do you believe in a Supreme Being?” If you allow the person being asked to create his own god so that he may answer in the affirmative, the answer becomes meaningless and an exercise in sophistry. Would Mr. Lomas find it acceptable if he asked me if I believed in the Laws of Physics, if I answered “Yes, so long as I can make up my own Laws of Physics”? I doubt it.

The Lodge had its regular meeting last night and I was elected to receive the second degree.  The date set for my passing to the degree of Fellow Craft is August 28, 2008.

In the meantime, the memory work continues.  The Master of the Lodge, who is my coach, tells me I’m making good progress and he’s confident I will do fine on the 28th when I have to recite from memory a large chunk of the Entered Apprentice degree in open Lodge in order to pass to the Fellow Craft degree.

We met last evening for a memory work session before the start of the regular lodge meeting.  There were several brothers there early and a few of them had fun peppering me with questions to see how much I had learned of the Entered Apprentice degree.  I think I acquitted myself well.

There have been literally thousands of books written on the subject of Freemasonry, from well-researched scholarly tomes, to the most off the wall and amateurish conspiracy theories. Once I made the decision to become a part of “the world’s oldest secret society,” I spent a great deal of time delving into the history of Freemasonry and have to date read at least a half dozen books on the subject.

First, let me say that I have never bought the idea that modern Freemasonry evolved from medieval stonemasons. I grew up in a family that had several Masons in it, so I remember hearing this particular “history lesson” of the origins of the Craft at various times throughout my childhood whenever I or someone would spot an uncle’s Masonic ring and ask “What is that?” Something about this explanation for the origins of Freemasonry just didn’t seem cogent to me. And as my research has revealed, my “hunch” that there was more to the story than ancient stonemasons was probably right.

In a nutshell, here are some of the conclusions I’ve reached regarding the history and origins of the Freemasons:

1. Freemasonry more than likely originated with fugitive Knights Templar, who fled to Scotland from Europe and England in 1307 when the Pope ordered the arrest of all Templars on the charge of heresy.
2. In an effort to continue their Brotherhood “underground,” the fugitive Templars met covertly as “masons,” eventually adopting the working tools of the stonemasons and developing elaborate symbology based on these tools to teach and memorialize spiritual and moral lessons.
3. Being devote Roman Catholics, when the Templars were in effect cut off from God by being excommunicated by the Pope, they developed their own rituals which may have been derived from Jewish rituals they were exposed to in Jerusalem.
4. The Templars/Masons recognized a fundamental theological truth that would eventually be fleshed out in the Protestant Reformation 250 years after they were condemned as heretics, namely, that every man himself is ultimately responsible for his own relationship to God, and no intermediary in the form of an earthly priest is needed. This would have been rank heresy to medieval Roman Catholicism.
5. The Templars were French speaking, which can account for some of the oddities of Masonic vocabulary. For example, the Templars referred to each other as frére, “brother.” Once they went undercover as masons, a “brother Templar” would be called frére Maçon. Over the centuries, as Masonry evolved in the English speaking lands of Scotland and England, frére Maçon became Anglicized into “Freer Mason” and finally “Free Mason.”
6. By the early 18th century, with the Reformation having changed the theological landscape forever, the necessity for the Templar/Masons to remain underground in fear of their lives had passed. Freemasonry becomes “public” with the formation of Grand Lodges in England and Scotland.
7. Freemasonry’s ultimate triumph comes with the founding of the US, and its government based on a worldview that had evolved over the past three centuries in the underground Lodges of Freemasons.

The memory work continues, and my journey so far as an Entered Apprentice is as a catechumin.  My coach tells me that I’m making good progress.

One precept that my Latin teacher in college hammered home was repetitio mater memoriae, “repition is the mother of memory.” Having nothing in writing to study means I have to remember the very questions I need to ask myself if I want to “study” on my own when I’m not working the material with my coach.  Amazingly, I’ve found that I can do it.  Since my first session with my coach last Friday I have been going over the catechsim in my mind off and on several times a day.  Today was the first time I’ve worked with my coach since then and I was able to repeat the material we went over last week with only one mistake.

The material we covered today was a bit more complex, so we didn’t cover quite as much as last time.  We are going to meet again tomorrow. Also, there is someone being intiated as an Entered Apprentice at a neighboring lodge on Thursday evening, and my coach and I are going.  As an Entered Apprentice I can only attend a lodge that is open in the First Degree, which basically means I can only attend the initiation of another Entered Apprentice.  I’m looking forward to being a part of someone else’s inititiation while my own is still fresh in my mind.

I ran into a man today, a perfect stranger, while we were both waiting in line. I had prepared for the wait and had John J. Robinson’s book Born In Blood with me to read. The man asked me about it, and I gave him a brief synopsis of what I’d gathered from the book thus far. He then proceeded to tell me that his “problem” with Freemasonry was that you only have to believe in “a god” to be a member, and if you are a Christian you believe in “the God.” I didn’t tell him I was a fresh initiate into Masonry. I just nodded my head and let him continue: “The very first oath they make you take, you have to deny Christ,” he said. I looked surprised. “Yeah, they lead you in blindfolded and half naked and you have to say you’re a poor candidate and then they ask what you are seeking and you say ‘more light’. But a Christian doesn’t need more light.”

It is said that there are three things that every Freemason contends with: Ignorance, Tyranny, and Fanaticism. This poor fellow was imbued with his fair share of at least one and possibly two of these. I never did tell him I was a “new” Mason. I didn’t tell him how wrong he was in his narrative of what a candidate is asked and swears to. Maybe I should have. But I’ve dealt with people like him many, many times and they are usually much happier if they don’t have to be burdened with the facts.

Can a Christian be a Freemason? The obvious answer to that questions is “yes.” Usually what people who ask it really mean is “Should a Christian be a Freemason?”

I am a Christian. Most people who know enough about Christianity to be able to discern the difference would label me as a “conservative” Christian. If at any point in my journey into Freemasonry I am faced with ritual, doctrine, teaching, or whatever that would cause me to deny Christ or the fundamental tenets of orthodox Christianity, then my “journey” would end right then and there. From what I know of Freemasonry at this stage of my trek, however, I don’t think that will ever happen.