Ministers are reconsidering making it compulsory for police officers to declare if they are Freemasons after a poor response to the voluntary scheme. So far 38,875 of the 126,000 officers in England a
This is a new edition of the book formerly called Freemasonry - a religion? (Kingsway, 1987) and written by an Anglican minister. The publisher (Monarch) is actually unchanged, but is using a different group imprint. The author has not been a mason, but has family connections. Apart from the official reports of certain churches, it is probably, for the U.K. the standard Christian handbook today, convenient for the Christian worker to keep on the shelf. .In the new edition, the author responds to criticisms (e.g. p.101), updates his bibliography partly, and describes recent developments in Church and State, but does not add an index.
Leslie Price
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Newham, arguably the most Labour dominated council in the country, used to brag it was the poorest borough in Britain, and had been badly run for many years. 'It had periods in the past when the masons were bigger than they should have been,' she says.
(Interview with Wendy Thomson, Director of Inspection, Audit Commission, formerly Chief Executive of Newham LBC. Local Government Chronicle 4 February 2000.)
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'The Bible is God's revelation and is complete. To add to it, or to take away from it, is a serious sin. The ritual of craft freemasonry does both. It takes away in that it denies the essential mediation of Christ for the world and it adds a new system which is in fact an extension of Old Testament legalism, which purports to lead to salvation.' (Lawrence, p.104)
FREEMASONRY: A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE
By John Lawrence
Gazelle Books. 221 pages. £8.99
ISBN 1 899746 21 8
