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Constitutional Musings: Note 7
Secret Societies, Masons
From time to time the Office of the General
Assembly is asked if the Assembly has stated a position on secret
societies: whether they are cults or heretical; whether
a person is permitted to be minister or an elder while being a
member of a secret society.
There is no reference to General Assembly
actions relating to Secret Societies or to the Masons in more
than seventy years. It took some digging to find but the most
recent action is from the United Presbyterian Church in North
America, Article XXXV of The Confessional Statement,
adopted in 1925:
Of Church Fellowship
We believe that all who have
accepted Christ as their Redeemer should unite themselves
with some branch of the visible Church, in order to share
in the privileges and responsibilities of its members and
confess Christ before men; that under Christ they should yield
the Church their supreme loyalty, honoring its ordinances
and seeking its welfare in season and out of season; and that
with this they should forsake all associations, whether secret
or open, that they find prejudicial to their Church allegiance
and a hindrance to the fulfillment of Christian duties. (Digest,
1942 page 16)
In 1927 the UPCNA General Assembly replied to
a memorial from one of the presbyteries that this means “the
matter of membership in all associations is left to the individual
conscience.”
In Alexander's PCUS Digest, published
in1910, at page 37 there is a note to the General Assembly minutes,
1904 page 42: “The Assembly records its hearty commendation
of the brave stand taken by the majority in the Synod of Brazil
in refusing to make membership in the Order of Free Masons a
bar to communion in the Church.”
From 1860 to 1899 the UPCNA adopted eight
or nine different actions interpreting the United Presbyterian
Testimony to require that members of the Church not associate
themselves with secret societies (Digest 1942, pp 436-441).
In Baird's Digest, published in1856
at Philadelphia (the Old School publisher), it is reported on
page 792 that there was discussion, referral to committee and
report on the subject of Free Masonry in 1821: “After
discussion of considerable length, the previous question having
been called for, was taken, and determined in the negative;
and the subject was indefinitely postponed.” (1821, pp
10, 13, 15) When the Minutes cited were checked it was
found that in all three places it is not reported what the Synod
of Pittsburgh asked, only that it was defeated.
A related question is whether secret society
rituals are permitted in connection with funerals in the church
or when conducted elsewhere by Presbyterian ministers.
The short reply to the question is that the
instruction given in W-4.10005, “The service shall be
complete in itself, and any fraternal, civic, or military rites
should be conducted separately.” uses both the mandatory
“shall” and the permissive “should.”
So the question appears to be left to the discretion of the
pastor. The office of Theology and Worship has advised that
“the strong leading of W-4.1005 is that fraternal, civic,
or military rites be separated in time and place from the church's
witness to the resurrection. Thus, the pastor is not left to
his/her own devices, and the congregation and its members should
understand the clear intention of the Directory for Worship.”
C. Fred Jenkins
September 2, 1999
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