Freemasons

Okay, this one is for Daddy, but Mama will have to read it for him. Glad to hear the eye surgery went well, by the way.

Christianity Today -- an evangelical magazine -- reports that a church in Elgin, Illinois is having problems because they bought a building that used to belong to the Masons and the walls have Masonic symbols. Because of the historical significance of the building, they are not being allowed to take down the symbols, which they considered anti-Christian. If you want to read the whole article, click here.

Mama and Daddy may remember that the Monastery at Marylake where I entered the Carmelites had been a Masonic country club at one time, and in the chapel there were two large candlesticks with Masonic symbols on them. The Carmelites just stuck candles in them and kept on praying.

What really struck me about the article, though, was this: "It's hard to believe that Freemasons and similar secret societies were one of the top three social ills targeted by evangelicals of the mid-1800s, along with slavery and alcohol. In 1868, several prominent evangelicals, including revivalist Charles Grandison Finney and Wheaton College founder Jonathan Blanchard, created the National Christian Association (NCA) to warn believers that 'all secret societies [are] deistical, antagonistic to Christianity, [and] tend to loosen moral ties.'"