Thanks Flame. Some interesting points, but all saying the same thing, incompadibility with a Church, not the Christian Religion, but a Church's view of that religion.
Among Christians, those groups most committed to submiiting themselves to either a conservative, systematic theology of the Scriptures, or the systematic teachings of a tradition (Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodoxy), are most likely to have qualms about Freemasonry.
Those who see their faith in messier terms, as providing comfort, solace, meaning, and truths--but NOT Absolute Truth--those who see their faith more as a pilgrimage than as a destination at which they have arrived--are most likely to feel that Freemasonry is compatible with and even helpful to their faith.
Fowler's
Stages of Faith Development may also be relevant here. Fowler's ideas have become popular to help people passing through a faith crises. Fowler postulated six stages of natural progression of faith. Only a very few ever attain the sixth stage. Nearly all pass through the first two stages as a natural part of maturing.
As people mature they typically reach what is defined by Dr. Fowler as
Stage Three faith, a faith which admits to some areas of uncertainty and of areas of growth -- but, basically people in
Stage Three are focused upon discovering The Truth, and feel themselves in possession of a good portion of this. Only rarely do mature, healthy adults naively presume themselves in full possession of The Whole Truth--that tends to be the preserve of those fanatics discussed earlier in this thread. I will return to those in a moment.
Most
Stage Three individuals are aware that others also think that they have The Truth, and that the other's Truth is a different Truth in some sense. But, they try not to think too deeply or often about this. Those
others are just wrong, or at best have some fragments of the Truth. The mature
Stage Three individual focuses on living their own Truth.
This may or may not include becoming a Freemason. Masonry doesn't actively try to deny that "
my Church" is the One True Church. (Or, the One True Political Party, for that matter: any ideology can become the One Truth for some: even the Lodge, itself).
However, the whole enterprise of bringing men of good will from all sorts of philosophical backgrounds, political beliefs, and faiths is not conducive to a militant conviction that I am right and all y'all are wrong.
Most who feel this way probably shy clear of the Lodge, and develop good reasons for doing so. They just join a good church, or some other great Cause, and serve there.
About half of us, btw, will pass into Fowler's
Stage Four: faith crisis. Maybe due to an abusive Church, maybe due to a life tragedy, maybe because we suddenly intuit that we do NOT have
The Truth: that The Truth either lies elsewhere, or else that the best we can do, in this life, is to find a handful of
truths--lower-case "
t"--and use those, as well we can to help others and to serve God.
Around half of us revert back to
Stage Three: we convert to a new Church or religion, or political cause, we find a new Truth.
We find closure to our grief, we resolve the abusive situation.
We go back to
Stage Three -- or may more like Stage 3.5. We are not exactly the same, we have integrated a few elements of Stage Five.
A few people remain '
stuck' in
Stage Four, in angry atheism or agnosticism, or in bitterness, resentment of the organization which failed us, etcetera.
Freemasonry may snag a few of those, the ones who believe in God but hate Him or at least His Church, or who are disillusioned in the Party or ideology which once represent their One Truth. They may not generally be our best or most effective members.
And some people remain on the interstices between Stage Three and Stage Four-- chronically on the cusp of a faith crises, which drives them to extremes. Those are the fanatics, and they deserve our compassion, our sympathy. They are sufferers of a most exquisite torment, ever afraid of losing their Faith, and often directing that fear towards the Lodge (or some other evil--but we experience it as anti-Masonic fervor).
Because, many, perhaps most Masons probably are numbered among that other, nearly-half, of those who pass through Stage Four. Many of us achieved Stage Five: we are less focused on having The Truth, more accepting that this life presents us with many, seemingly contradictory truths. We believe, we hope, that somewhere, somehow, someone will reveal to us the Grand Unifying Truth, the thing that will weave together all the other truths.
Meanwhile, however, we have what we have and do with it what we can. We accept thay tge quest for knowledge and wisdom can be ambiguous, messy at times. But what we have found succors us, strengthens us, and givesus hopevand a desire to help others.
We glean a few more bytes of wisdom, and we pass those in, in our Lodge, in our service to our families and communities, in the caring and the compassion we show to those need it. In our fraternal charity towards our fellow Lodge Brethren.
As annoying as they can be, our compassion should include the anti-Masons. We don't have to endorse them nor even engage them: but we can realize what is likely to be driving them, and we can make them objects of our prayers.
Hope this helps.