Made some good points at the time but now out of date - Rated 
When I first became interested in becoming a mason, and for a couple of years after I had done so, I read a number of books both sympathetic to and hostile to Freemasonry to check that I was not getting into anything improper or incompatible with my christian faith.
Of all the books I read at the time, this was the only one critical of masonry which was honest, intelligent, reasonably well-informed when it was written, and made a genuine attempt to be fair. So it is not surprising that this report is one of the most frequently cited as evidence for their views by opponents of Masonry within the church, particularly where those opponents have any pretensions to fair-mindedness. (Some other attacks on Freemasonry read like prosecution diatribes from the Salem witch trials.)
But although it is unsurprising that this report is still quoted, it is very unfortunate, because most of the specific criticisms it makes are now out of date.
"Freemasonry and Christianity: Are they compatible?" is the report of a small working group set up as a result of a motion passed by the Church of England General Synod in 1985, which was to meet five times to address this question. The seven members of the working group included two freemasons, one of whom, the Very Reverend Peter C Moore, then Dean of St Albans, was also Grand Chaplain of United Grand Lodge.
The concerns raised by the report come into four categories
1) At the time the working group was set up, the promises which candidates joining freemasonry had to make, not to give away the signs by which freemasons can identify one another, included some pretty horrible penalties for anyone who broke them. However, the conclusions of the report recognised that by the time this book was published, any suggestion that these penalties might actually be required or imposed had already been removed from the ceremonies.
2) Many, though not all, masons are members or "Companions" of a masonic order called the Royal Arch. Back in 1985 the meeting room of a chapter, as Royal Arch branches are known, included a representation of the altar of King Solomon's Temple on which was written the word "Jahbulon." Some critics of Masonry charged that this word was an invocation of ancient pagan Gods.
The study quotes some prominent Companions of the Royal Arch who, while not necessarily accepting that this was the intention, agreed that the relevant Royal Arch rituals could be taken that way. It also recognises that those people were therefore campaigning that the rituals should be changed.
I subsequently learned that as a result of his service on the working group, the late Peter Moore concluded that this particular criticism of the Royal Arch had some force. Consequently he resigned, not from Masonry as a whole, but from the Royal Arch, until they acted to remove the offending words. Within a couple of years, they did.
3) The majority of the working group formed the opinion, with which I disagree (as did the masons on the working group) that the heretical Pelagian doctrine of "salvation by works" is supported by Masonic rituals.
On the basis of the arguments used in the report to justify this allegation, several biblical passages describing parables told by Jesus Christ could be misrepresented to show that our Lord himself believed the same heresy.
(For the avoidance of doubt, I am not suggesting that Jesus believed the Pelagian heresy, I am making the point that almost any passage encouraging listeners to obey the ten commandments or to lead moral lives is easy to misunderstand or misrepresent as support for the doctrine of "justification by good works".)
4) The working group were very concerned about the steps which Freemasonry took several centuries ago to make itself accessible to a wider range of religious believers than just christians. They considered these measures to make Freemasonry a "Deist" organisation. (I will come back to that charge, made in para 110 of the document.)
The working group were fair-minded enough to recognise that managing relations between faiths is also a real problem for all churches. As the report puts it (para 74)
"it needs to be said that Freemasonry has been trying for more than two hundred years to find a solution to a problem not always candidly faced by Christian Churches of the present day when they attempted to organise or participate in 'inter-faith' services."
The report goes on to recognise that the criticisms made of masonry for bringing men of different religions together can also be made of inter-faith services supported by mainstream Christian leaders at the highest level. For example, to quote from Paragraph 112:
"Only last year the Bishop of Rome himself was in Assisi praying for peace alongside Buddhists, Sikhs, Jews, and medicine men of North American indian tribes. When he listened attentively to their prayers was he joining in them or unobtrusively dissociating himself from what was going on? Was the whole affair, in which the Archbishop of Canterbury was himself prominent, just an exhibition of spiritual sleight-of-hand or ecclesiastical hypocrisy?"
Incidentally, it rings major alarm bells for me when any non-catholic other than a historian refers to the Pope by the ancient title of "Bishop of Rome". Except within his own diocese, this ancient title is hardly ever used except in a historical context or with anti-Catholic undertones.
As for the absurd suggestion that Freemasonry reflects "18th century Deism" this bit of gross ignorance stands in stark contrast to the rest of the document which, whether you agree with it or not, was intelligently argued and reasonably well informed at the time.
Theists, including the Christians, Jews and Muslims who form the vast majority of the membership of masonic lodges, believe in a God who created and sustains the universe. 18th century (and later) Deists believe in a Creator or "first cause" who originally made the universe, but not in the continuing support or guidance of that creator.
Apart from the fact that Freemasonry is known to have existed in the 17th century, and therefore pre-dates Deism, anybody familiar with masonic ritual who has the least idea what Deism actually is should have no difficulty recognising that Freemasonry as practiced in England is Theist, not Deist. One of the first questions that a candidate for masonry is asked when he joins is "In all cases of doubt and difficulty, in whom do you put your trust?" and he would not have been invited to join unless he had previously satisfied the lodge committee that he can freely give the answer, "In God."
While writing this review I looked through a couple of masonic ritual books for any sign of Deism. I found none, but there were plenty of clearly Theist comments such as a reference to the constant vigilance of God, "to whom, whatever our creed or race, we are taught to attribute not only the creation but also the preservation of all things." (This quote, which could almost be a definition of the belief which distinguishes Theism from Deism, is an extract from the lecture on the Mark degree Tracing Board.)
In the twenty years since "Freemasonry and Christianity: are they compatible?" was published, both masonry and the Church have moved on.
It is now made clear in masonic ritual that the penalties for breaking the oaths which a new mason or a candidate for higher status in masonry takes are purely symbolic. The ceremonies now use phrases like "the symbolic penalty at one time associated with the degree."
Royal Arch ritual was indeed reformed, partly as a result of the points made by this report and Peter Moore's resignation from the Royal Arch: as Grand Chaplain of United Grand Lodge I suspect that when he took this stand it probably had a great deal of weight.
And the churches have moved on to the extent that both ecumenical dialogue within the christian traditions and with other religions is now seen as natural.
To give an example of how far the churches became more ecumenical in the decade or so after this report came out, when my children were baptised in 2001 the ceremony was conducted in an Anglican church by a Catholic priest with Church of England priests assisting, and the baptismal candles stated that their baptism was recognised by a range of churches including the Wee Frees. At about the time this book was written some 14 years before, the Lord Chancellor of this country, an elder in the Wee Frees, was nearly excommunicated for attending the funeral of a catholic judge.
In the past 20 years Christians have made huge strides in recognising that belief in the truth of our own faith does not mean that we have to believe that everything in the faith of other christian denominations, or even other religions, is rubbish. You only have to believe that their faith is wrong on the specific points where it contradicts your own, and even there you can respect their views without agreeing with them.
And that is why this book is now relevant only to study of what was believed in the past, as an interesting historical document describing some theological problems which a group of churchmen found in freemasonry 20 years ago. It is not suitable for quoting by chuch leaders of anyone else in the 21st century as if it described the current situation.
The real reason behind the vast majority of religion-based criticisms of freemasonry, including this book, is that the people making the criticism have a problem with wholehearted religious toleration. People who take a hardline stance against the Masons on religious grounds usually turn out to be unable to tell the difference between support for religious tolerance and Satanism.
More moderate critics of masonry such as the majority of the working group which wrote this report often have a problem with ALL inter-faith services because, as paragraph 113 argues, they fear such services carry a serious risk of promoting "theological indifferentism" e.g. the idea that different religions are equally true.
Fortunately the majority of mainstream christians today do not suffer from such difficulty in respecting the faith of others.
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