Latter-day Templar

Today a link was shared with me that goes to a video entitled " Mormons and Freemasonry, a Satanic Cult ." For some reason, I was expecting something new; not only were these expectations not reached, but I found that over half of the video is dedicated to other subjects completely irrelevant to the Church's relationship with Freemasonry. The video wastes the viewer's time by starting off talking about how Joseph found his seer stone (a topic that is completely irrelevant to the subject of Freemasonry). The video later makes the following claim: "On March 15, 1842, Joseph joined the Masons, which is an organization that believes that Jesus is not divine, and is on the same level as Buddha, Mohammed, or any other religious teacher." This is a false claim. Freemasonry does not advocate any such belief, given that it is neither a religion nor a substitute for one . Since Freemasonry is not a religion, it does not take any stance concerning Christ being on a hig

Over the past few years, a user on Reddit's ExMormon community has been posting, deleting, and reposting the same thing over and over again. So I decided to take to my blog so that I can just repost a link containing my response any time I come across the same claims that pretend to be uncontested. "Did you know that prior to April of 1990 members used to pantomime in the Temple slitting their own throats and disemboweling themselves? "… "Did you know that members used to say[,] 'I suffer my life to be taken' if they broke the Covenant and obligation of Secrecy they were taking?" This was referred to as the symbolic penalty and is a part of the Masonic teaching method . Just as in Masonry, it was only ever symbolic (in this case, of the importance/value of our covenants with God) and was never carried out by Church authority. By this portion of the ceremony, the value of sacred things was instilled into the culture of the Church. "Did you know that

As a Latter-day Saint, I have been directed more than once by enemies and critics of the Church to " Chapter XVIX: Masonry and the Mormon Temple Ceremony ." As a Freemason, I find this webpage appalling for three reasons: William Morgan is referenced as if he were a credible source; this despite the facts that: He was never a Captain in the American military , yet still he used the title (stolen valor) He lied his way into a Royal Arch chapter by pretending to be a Freemason (which he later admitted was not the case) . It makes various claims about Freemasonry that simply are not true, such as: There is no such thing as a washing ceremony in Freemasonry. There is no representative impersonation of Adam in Freemasonry. Note that the website provides a source for this claim: the Knight of the Sun  degree. This is a degree of the Scottish Rite, which is a body appendant/concordant to Masonry. This organization was not yet available in Illinois in Joseph Smith, Jr’s day nor befor

On March 1 this year I had the opportunity to be interviewed by David Snell for the YouTube channel Saints Unscripted . It was just published earlier this week and can be found here . I had a lot of fun interacting with David and also with Jake Watson, the videographer for the channel.

It's been a while since I last posted on this blog. I have lately been writing content for MasonicFind. Today my attention was called to an article titled "Freemasonry: 5 Minutes with a Mason" written on a website named Saints Alive in Jesus . It presents various false or inapplicable arguments based on false premises. I will pick it apart piece-by-piece. I was talking to Mason a while back. Right off the bat, we know that we are about to hear a subjective opinion as opposed to any authoritative material from a legitimate grand lodge (i.e., constitutions, legislation, by-laws, ritual, even a grand lodge website, etc.). Looks promising. He was in The Blue Lodge, which is the lower level, encompassing the first three levels of Masonry, so he’s really been in the lower level of “Masonic Knowledge.” There is false premise #1. For those who care for accuracy, Freemasonry in and of itself only has three degrees:[*] Entered Apprentice Fellowcraft Master Mason There are, of cour