My Response to LDS Discussions Blog

LDS Discussions Blog wrote a response to the Church's video on Joseph Smith and Freemasonry, which may be viewed here. In my opinion, the video itself was accurate and very well done, if not a bit watered-down (which can be expected, given that the target audience likely will not know much about either the Church or Freemasonry and given that it is a brief video).

There are a few claims that LDS Discussions has made in this response that do not sit right with me, so I thought that I'd respond to them here. (Please keep in mind that quotes from LDS Discussions are indented once, while transcribed quotes from the Church's video are indented twice).

Video

"Was Joseph Smith a Mason? And if so, what connection does it have to temple worship practiced by members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? Well, there could be some confusion between the similarities with and the differences between Masonic ritual and the way Latter day Saints worship in the temple of the Lord.

"Let's explain. The term Mason or [Masonry] refers to Freemasonry worldwide network of fraternal organizations dating back hundreds of years that promotes morality and service to others. And, yes, Joseph Smith, the founder of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, was a [Freemason]. Joseph Smith's brother, Hyrum, was also a Mason and a member of a lodge in Palmyra, New York, and their father, Joseph Smith Sr., was also known to be a master mason in Canon Degla, New York, as early as 1818. While prophet and president of the church, Joseph joined the Masonic Lodge in Nauvoo, Illinois on March 15th, 1842, rising to the level of Master Mason just a day later under the recognized authority of the [grand master] of Illinois."

LDS Discussions

​"The church is instantly trying to soften and muddy the timeline of Joseph Smith's history with the Masons and the temple ceremony being introduced. The video talks about Joseph's family being Masons for decades, but there is no record of Joseph Smith himself being a Mason until he was initiated on March 15, 1842. Just seven weeks after learning the Masonic ceremony, he introduced the endowment ceremony which mirrors the Masonic ceremony."

The author of the blog's article is falsely conflating Joseph himself with his family. The video in no way claims that Joseph Smith, Jr was a Mason prior to March 15, 1842. It clearly and simply states that Joseph, Jr's father and brother had been Masons before he joined.

Video

"Masonry wasn't new to the thousands of Latter-day Saint converts already living in and around Nauvoo at the time. Although new to the faith, some members of the church, even those within the ranks of church leadership, were already Masons. Eventually, over 1,500 members of the church were listed as [Freemasons] in Nauvoo alone, more than in all the rest of Illinois. In towns across early America, many elected officials were Masons. President George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and many signers of the Declaration of Independence were also Masons."

LDS Discussions

"This part seeks to do nothing more than to try and make everything feel more normal and common. As you'll see with other troubling issues with Mormonism, the church will look to point to others who also believed in similar ideas to try and imply there's nothing to see here."

The video literally provided historical context; LDS Discussions claims that the Church is seeking nothing more than to try to make this feel normal and common; this feels like a poor attempt to mask the fact that it was normal and common. Back in those days, it was common and encouraged to join a Masonic lodge (Kearsley Masonic Speaker Series 2020). If LDS Discussions views the provision of historical context as some kind of weird cover-up, then I'm not sure that this bodes well for the rest of their post.

Video

"In the years prior to becoming a mason, Joseph Smith had received instruction from God; revelations about eternal promises which God desire to make with church members. These promises are often called covenants. Some of these covenants, along with instruction about the purpose of life, are presented to members of the church in a ceremony called the endowment held in holy temples.

"So does the temple endowment ceremony borrow from Masonic ritual at the time? Latter day Saints in Nauvoo, who experienced both Masonic rites and the temple endowment, did notice some common characteristics between the two ceremonies, specifically the common methods of presentation and clothing of the participants. They acknowledge parallels between masonry and the temple ceremony, as given to Joseph. Based on their experience with both, they concluded the temple ceremony was of divine origin."

LDS Discussions

"This is the part of the video that everyone needs to pay the most attention to, because it concedes that early members who were Masons immediately noticed how similar they were, to the point that they considered the Masonic ceremony of divine origin that was restored by Joseph Smith."

The author of the post seems to make two logical fallacies in this evaluation:

1. False Equivalency: Just because there were common characteristics between the two does not automatically mean that they were overall similar.
2. Bandwagon: Just because many members of the Church opined that Masonry in and of itself was of divine origin does not in any way, shape, or form equate to any doctrine on the matter.

The author of the post then provides various quotes of early Church leaders who held the opinion that Freemasonry was of divine origin and/or was some apostate form of an original temple endowment ceremony; it should be noted that LDS Discussions returns to this claim a few more times throughout their blog post. It should be noted, however, that none of these statements are written nor based on any teaching found in the Church's open doctrinal canon, which currently only consists of the following:

• The Holy Bible
• The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ
• Doctrine and Covenants
• The Pearl of Great Price

If it's not in the doctrinal canon, then it's not doctrine; that's the point of a doctrinal canon in the first place. If it's not doctrine, then it's opinion. If it's opinion, then it is a non-issue.

LDS Discussions

"Now what the [Church] also does not tell you in this video is that the Masonic ceremony did not begin until [medieval] Europe, and that Solomon's Temple was about animal sacrifice and had nothing to do with the Masons or LDS endowment ceremony."

This is a red herring logical fallacy. The purpose of the video is not to explore the origins of Freemasonry nor to explore the ceremonies of Old Testament rituals. It is simply to explain the brief, superficial influence that Freemasonry had on the Church during the early 19th century.

LDS Discussions

"The church states as fact that 'Yes, the presentation methods may have parallels to Masonic ritual, but the content of the instruction, the covenants, and truths introduced by Joseph Smith as part of the endowment, were revealed to him prior to his encounter with [Masonry].' But if this is the case, why not provide the revelations that show it was given to him before he became a Mason?"

We do have record of him having received at least one revelation in regard to the temple endowment over a year prior to his Masonic initiation. It is found in Doctrine and Covenants 124:40-41; it reads:

And verily I say unto you, let this house be built unto my name, that I may reveal mine ordinances therein unto my people; For I deign to reveal unto my church things which have been kept hid from before the foundation of the world, things that pertain to the dispensation of the fulness of times.

This flies right in the face of the issues brought up by LDS Discussions; the Church's doctrine claims that the temple endowment is ancient because it had been hidden from before the foundation of the world; if it had been hidden, however, then how does the claim that it shares the same origin as Masonry make sense? I believe that this was overlooked in Joseph's day when the opinions about Masonry's supposed divine origins began to abound. Given, then, that the Church's doctrinal canon does not support such opinions, it is therefore a non-issue that critics of the Church may disregard.

LDS Discussions

"In my experience in the temple, two of the big things we were told not to talk about or show were the signs/tokens and the words at the veil to get into the Celestial Kingdom. While we make covenants with God during the endowment, we make a lot of those same promises in other ceremonies in church (baptism, sacrament, ordination, etc). So if the presentation is not the divine part from God, why are we not allowed to talk about the signs/tokens or text at the veil with non-members? It's confusing, because if Joseph had these revelations before becoming a Mason as the video declares, why are these crucial parts of the ceremony taken directly from the Masons?"

In operative Masonry, signs and tokens were used for various degrees of mastery in lieu of written credentials (given that most were illiterate and traveled between countries for work). If everyone knew the signs and tokens, then anyone would be able to pose fraudulently as a Mason. In the Church, this concept of physical credentials was adopted and adapted to its already-existing doctrine. In the context of the Church, we learn the value of keeping things sacred by not telling anyone what they are. Anyone can mimic the physical signs and tokens; however, the spiritual portion of the endowment (just like any other covenant or ordinance), which those signs and tokens represent, will not be able to be faked upon our entry to the Celestial Kingdom.

In addition, there is a time and a season for everything (Authorized King James Version Eccl. 3:1). We reserve the sharing of sacred experiences for the appropriate time(s) and place(s); I have personally had various experiences in and out of the temple that are sacred to me, and some of them are sacred to the point that I will not cheapen them by discussing them outside of the temple and outside of the time that I feel it to be appropriate.

LDS Discussions

"Furthermore, the word 'parallels' is simply not accurate. We do not post temple videos/scripts/etc because we know they are sacred to members, but just to highlight what is the same between Masonic ceremonies and the temple endowment:

• "The compass and square. From the Masonic ceremony: 'The candidate then enters, the Senior Deacon at the same time pressing his left breast with the point of the compass…As he enters, the angle of the square is pressed against his right breast.' (These symbols are on the temple garments in the same manner. If they are not from God, why are they the same?)
• "The Masonic ceremony begins with a washing and anointing just as in the LDS temple
• "The Masonic ceremony gives their members a new name, just as the LDS ceremony does
• "The signs and tokens of the Aaronic and Melchizedek priesthoods are the same as the Masonic grips
• "The Masonic ceremony included the "five points of fellowship," which the LDS church also had until it was removed in 1990
• "The Masonic ceremony included penalties if you disclosed these secrets just as the LDS temple did until they removed them in 1990 due to members feeling uneasy about them. These penalties included making motions of slitting your own throat, cutting out your own heart, or having your body cut in two.
• "The introduction at the veil is almost identical to the Masonic ceremony, with small changes to adapt to the priesthood language in the church
• "The clothing is almost identical in the Masonic ceremony as the LDS temple. A picture below is from the Royal Arch Masons in Illinois
• "Both the Masonic lodge and LDS temples use the same symbols of the Beehive, All Seeing Eye, and Sun, Moon, and Stars"

That's quite a bit to unpack. Here is my point-by-point response.

• Symbols are finite and ambiguous; there is not a single symbol whose variations are limited to a sole group or interpretation. Case in point, the square and compass were adopted by the Church and adapted to its own doctrine. They are not used for any Masonic purpose, in any Masonic context, nor in correlation to any Masonic ritual.
• None of the degree ceremonies of Freemasonry begin with a washing and anointing as claimed by LDS Discussions.
• Some grand lodge jurisdictions do have in their ritual to give a new name to the candidate, though that name is standardized in ritual for every candidate (Hams 2008), whereas the new name given in the Church is not standardized and has no Masonic purpose or context; some grand lodge jurisdictions do not give the candidate this standardized new name in their rituals (Cole 2018).
• The majority of the signs/tokens in Masonry wholly differ in form from those used in the Church's temple endowment ceremony. The few that the Church has that look similar are not used in Masonic context nor for Masonic purposes; I refer the reader to my first bullet point in this list regarding the nature of symbols in general.
• The Church did have the Five Points of Fellowship in its ritual. This, like many other aspects of the Masonic teaching model that Joseph adopted, was a non-doctrinal carry-over. The Church removed this just as it has removed various other aspects of the ceremony; however, the covenants and doctrine remain unchanged.
• The Church also had penalties, which were removed also due to being non-doctrinal carry-overs. Like in Masonry, however, these were only symbolic; for the Church specifically, these symbolized how much value we place in what is sacred. The culture of the membership of the Church seems to have acclimated to the concept of holding sacred things in such high and special regard, which I believe also contributed to the penalties being removed.
• The introduction at the veil is not similar to anything whatsoever in Masonry.
• Clothing in Craft Masonry (of which Joseph was a member) only has one thing in common across all grand lodges: aprons. Some grand lodge jurisdictions require suits or tuxedos, whereas other grand lodge jurisdictions allow shorts and flip-flops. I have never heard of a grand lodge jurisdiction, however, that has its members wear robes.
• This stated, the author shows a picture of Royal Arch Masons (which can be seen here). I am not aware of any record indicating that Joseph, Jr had become a Royal Arch Mason; I also find no such record for Brigham Young (who later standardized the ceremony for the temple endowment). Until such can be provided, let us adhere to that logical adage that correlation does not equate to causation.
• In regard to the Beehive, the Eye of Providence, the Sun, the Moon, and the Stars, I refer the reader again to the to my first bullet point in this list regarding the nature of symbols in general.

So, yes; "parallels" is the correct term as used by the Church in its video. For the claims that LDS Discussions makes in regard to what Masonry does or does not do and which I have disagreed with above, I would love to know which grand lodge's ritual the author has depended upon in order to make such claims. The invitation is extended to provide that information; I will humbly wait for this invitation to be answered.

To those of you members of the Church who may have doubts about Freemasonry, feel more than welcome to leave a comment here and I will do my best to respond. Of course, you could also see about petitioning a grand lodge to become a Freemason yourself.

Works Cited

“About That New Masonry and the Temple Video.” LDS Discussions, 17 Jan. 2020, www.ldsdiscussions.com/blog-masonry-temple-video.

Authorized King James Version. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 2013.

Cole, Brandon T. “When Your a Member of the Masons, Are You given a Different Name? For Example, If You First Name Is Daniel, but in the Club Your Called Tom?” Quora, Quora, 11 Apr. 2018, 1:52 PM, www.quora.com/When-your-a-member-of-the-Masons-are-you-given-a-different-name-For-example-if-you-first-name-is-Daniel-but-in-the-club-your-called-Tom/answer/Brandon-T-Cole.

Doctrine and Covenants. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2013.

Hams, Byron E. “Why a Life Time Apprentice.” Pietre-Stones Review of Freemasonry, Pietre-Stones Review of Freemasonry, 9 Oct. 2008, 4:50 AM, www.freemasons-freemasonry.com/Hams.html.

Kearsley, Mike. “Rob Morris, the Conservators, and the Failure to Establish a Grand Lodge of the United States.” Grand Lodge of California, Masonic Speaker Series, 12 Aug. 2020, californiafreemason.org/2020/05/21/grand-lodge-sponsored-virtual-events/.