Let me start by making a seemingly shocking statement for a proponent of Christian fundamentalism.

For those of us who truly believe in the Messiah...

We are not 'Christians'.

The title 'Christian' and all the Western Europeanized 'holy' names that go along with it are largely in error.

Let us understand the meaning of the word 'Christ'. This word is based on the Greek translation for 'messiah', Christos, which means 'Anointed One'. Check the beginning of a King James version of the New Testament. You will see 'Translated out of the Original Greek'. Was Jesus Christ a Greek? Negative. He was an Israelite. Israelites spoke Hebrew. 'Messiah' is much closer to the original Hebrew word mashiyach. [1]

But then understand clearly. Neither Christ nor Messiah are proper names in the sense of family names such as Smith or Johnson. They are actually titles appended to the Saviour's original name to distinguish Him from others who also had His name. [2]

And so removing the titles attached to the sacred Name, we are left with just the divinely ordained name Jesus.

Matthew 1:20,21 ~ But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.

Matthew 1:25 ~ And knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.

Luke 1:30, 31 ~ And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.

And one may ask: Just how important is this name ?

Very important.

John 14: 6 ~ Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth and the life: no man cometh unto the Father but by me.

Acts 4: 12 ~ Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved

Such a powerful statement �none other name given among men� makes a very simple request. And that request is that we get the name right. Remember, there is no other name. There is no substitute.

Before continuing, let us understand the difference between 'translate' and 'transliterate'. Translate, generally speaking, means to take a word in one language and wholly supplant it with a word having an equivalent meaning in another language. Transliterate, on the other hand, means to take a word in one language and represent it with the corresponding letters or characters of another language. Here the goal is to reproduce the sound of the word.

These two processes, translating and transliterating, may produce entirely different results. When employing a translator, say from French to English, the translator is concerned exclusively with supplanting the French words in a phrase or sentence with English words having an equivalent meaning. The translator gives no thought whatsoever to trying to make the English words that have been translated 'sound' like the French words that he started with. An example would be the French word dieu. Translated into English this would be god. Dieu does not sound like god in any way, shape or form, but it is nevertheless an exact translation.

If, on the other hand, the French word 'dieu' was transliterated into English, the result �because French and English have the exact same alphabet� would still be 'dieu'. However, 'dieu' has no meaning in English. The equivalent English characters have been supplanted for the original French but one must be aware of the original French meaning in order to understand the word if it were, hypothetically speaking, 'transliterated' into English.

When two languages have entirely different alphabets, such as Hebrew and Greek, the process of transliteration becomes much more precarious. Furthermore, when transliteration of a word or name takes place many times, goes across several different languages and spans numerous centuries, then some gross errors may become the final result.

With the sacred Name that was divinely ordained to the Messiah, the process of translation, i.e. simply supplanting the Name with a word having an equivalent meaning in another language, is entirely inappropriate. In prayer and worship, the actual Name must be respected.

The New Testament may have been originally written in Greek but, as previously stated, our Saviour was not Greek. Rather He was an Israelite whose mother tongue was Hebrew. Therefore the original name divinely ordained as described above in the scriptures �Matthew 1:20,21� must have been a Hebrew name.

According to Strong's Concordance reference #2424 (Greek) which leads to reference #3091, the original Hebrew name is (Yahushua). What is important here to remember is that (Yahushua) was not translated into the final Greek-Latinized-Anglicized name 'Jesus'. Rather it was transliterated into the final Greek-Latinized-Anglicized name 'Jesus'. Moreover, as one can plainly see, went through many transliterations before it finally came to the English form of 'Jesus'. [3]

All these transliterations that took place in the sacred name of the Messiah eventually rendered a name that sounds completely different from the original. Pronouncing the name 'Jesus' fails to respect the original Hebrew pronunciation of the sacred name of the Messiah and, hence, fails to convey the original meaning. In reality, the Greek-Latinized-Anglicized name 'Jesus' has no root meaning in either Hebrew, Greek, Latin or English. On the other hand, the original Hebrew name, , Yahushua, has a specific meaning. According to Strong's Concordance, this meaning is Jehovah is salvation.

Now, all of a sudden, the statement "Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved" has a profound meaning. Saved. Jehovah is salvation. The connection is crystal clear.

Let us now follow the various transliterations that the original Hebrew name , Yahushua, went through to finally come upon the name Jesus. Starting from the name Jesus and working back through time, the first thing to understand is that the letter 'J' was unknown in any alphabet in form or sound until the 14th century. Therefore, it is at once impossible that anyone living during the time of the Messiah, i.e. ancient Rome, referred to Him as Jesus. Before the soft 'G' sound, currently attributed to the letter 'J', came into general use in England in the early seventeenth century, 'J' was pronounced with the consonantal 'Y' sound. Hence, the Latin rendition of Janaurius was pronounced 'Yanaurius'. Traces of this are still evident in our modern pronunciation of the word 'hallelujah'. Here the letter 'J' is plainly pronounced with a consonantal 'Y' sound. Prior to fourteenth century, the letter 'J' did not even exist in written form and the letter 'I' was the original letter used where 'J' now appears in words in the English language. Thus in Latin, during these times, Jesus was written Iesus and was pronounced 'Yesus'. This, in turn, was derived from the Greek version of the sacred Name, Ιησους Iesous (pronounced ee-ay-sooce'). The Greeks transliterated this from the late Hebrew or Aramaic Yeshua. The 'sh' sound in Yeshua could not be properly transliterated by the Greek alphabet so this was replaced with Greek sigma s, a character that simply produced an 's' sound. Likewise, the 'a' ending in Yeshua was problematic because it had a feminine connotation in Greek (although it didn't in Hebrew). Hence the 'a' ending was changed to 'us' to make the name masculine. This was how the late Hebrew/Aramaic 'Yeshua' became the Greek 'Iesous'. Yeshua, in turn, was a syncopated variant or short form of the original Hebrew Yahushua.

Chronologically speaking then, the various transliterations can be charted as follows:

Language	Original rendition	English transliteration
Early Hebrew		Yahushua
Late Hebrew		Yeshua
Greek	Ιησους	Iesous
Late Latin	Iesus	Iesus
English	Jesus	Jesus

We can see (and hear) that the spelling and pronunciation of the original sacred Name transliterated directly into English, Yahushua, is dramatically different from the current rendition Jesus.

So... Yahushua translated = Jehovah is salvation.

Now the question is: Who is Jehovah?

Suddenly the commandment has greater meaning. There is an actual name that is not to be taken in vain.


ENTER ADONAI...

Original written Hebrew consists of only consonants with no vowels. Vowels in the Hebrew language were remembered as part of an oral tradition. Around the time of the exile to Babylon, and more profoundly around 300 BCE, the Jews began to forbid the utterance of the sacred name of Yahweh. This was largely because of the increasing exposure to the Gentile community as well as from a misinterpretation of the third commandment (thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh in vain). It was feared that the sacred name would become 'discovered' and defiled by the heathen. Because of this, the name of YHWH began to substituted in worship and when reading the scriptures. Whenever it became necessary to utter the sacred name YHWH in worship or when reading scripture, the Hebrew word 'adonai' was used instead. Later, around 400CE, for fear of losing the ability to read and speak Hebrew, the practice of applying special markings known as vowel points came into existence with Hebrew scripture. With the name of YHWH, according to the now long standing oral tradition of substituting 'adonai', the vowel points of 'adonai' ('a', 'o', 'a') were applied to indicate to the reader that he was to pronounce the Hebrew word 'adonai' (meaning 'lord') instead of YHWH. This practice went on for many more centuries and eventually when medieval Christian scholars later came to study the scripture, they mistakenly applied the three vowel points, 'a', 'o', 'a', to the sacred name of YHWH. In this manner, the sacred name of YHWH was mistransliterated into 'Yehowah'. With the advent of the 'j' sound and the 'v' sound in the Middle Ages, this was then eventually Europeanized into 'Jehovah'. [4]

Meanwhile, back in pre-Christian times, around 250 BC, the Hebrew text of the Old Testament was translated into Greek. This volume became known as the Septuagint (LXX) because the translation was alleged to have been performed by seventy-two men, six from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. In this translation, although the sacred Tetragrammaton YHWH was initially rendered in its original Hebrew, , it was soon replaced with the Greek word kyrios. [5]

It was from the Septuagint that the New Testament was based when quoting scriptures from the Old Testament and in this fashion the sacred name of Yahweh came to be represented in the New Testament by the Greek word kyrios (Lord) and sometimes theos (God).

For these reasons, in the King James Version of the Holy Bible which eventually emerged from all of the above, even the mistransliterated name Jehovah only appears four times in the entire bible. All the rest of the time, the sacred name of Yahweh is rendered as 'the LORD' or 'God', both of which are generic titles (not names!) which could conceivably apply any 'lord' or any 'god'. In this sense, this is how the sacred name of Yahweh became 'hidden' from modern believers of the one and only true Creator of the universe. But this was never meant to be so.

Exodus 3:15 ~ And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, the LORD God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

Now remember, this should read:

Exodus 3:15 ~ And God said moreover unto Moses, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, Yahweh, God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, hath sent me unto you: this is my name for ever, and this is my memorial unto all generations.

In reality, when the scriptures are properly understood, there is NOWHERE IN THE HOLY BIBLE where it is specifically forbidden to call upon the sacred name of YAHWEH. In fact, the opposite is encouraged and even commanded.

Exodus 9:16 ~ And in very deed for this cause have I raised thee up, for to shew in thee my power; and that my name may be declared throughout all the earth.

Deuteronomy 32:3 ~ Because I will publish the name of the LORD: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

In the latter verse, 'publish' translates the original Hebrew word qara which is defined as 'to call, call out, recite, read, cry out, proclaim'. Moreover let us now once again replace 'the LORD' with 'Yahweh' ~

Deuteronomy 32:3 ~ Because I will call out the name of Yahweh: ascribe ye greatness unto our God.

The third commandment was misinterpreted and the fear of blaspheming the sacred name of YAHWEH overrided the actual worshipping of YAHWEH which is done, in effect, by calling upon His real Name. The final result of this misinterpretation hid the sacred name of YAHWEH altogether.


WHY NOT WORSHIP 'GOD'?

Some may wonder why not just worship 'God'? After all, there is only one 'God'.

...right?...

And some may postulate:

"Well, what about those for whom the Bible is not their 'book', yet they worship 'God', love their neighbor as themselves, strive to live right and do no wrong, wish or do no harm upon others and are, hence, really following the way of 'God' (choose whatever the faith tradition)...?"

And yet they worship God.

In other words, how close is close enough?


Well the plain fact of the matter is:

When we worship 'God', once again, we worship a title �not an actual name, big difference� that could apply to any pagan god, e.g. Jupiter, Zeus, Ba'al, etcetera. On the other hand, when you worship Yahweh, you worship the one and only true Creator of heaven and earth according to His real name. The worship is direct and properly attributed.

Worshipping 'God' specifically avoids the sacred Name and supplants it with a generic title that anyone could use and apply to their own practice or belief system no matter how different it may be from others.

Consider the doctrine of an international secret society known as the Freemasons and the principles that one must adhere to in order to become a member. One of these principles is that one must believe in 'God'. But it doesn't matter which god. According to masonic authors Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas:

Colour, race creed or politics have always been irrelevant to membership ^[6] and its two driving goals are a social order based on freedom of the individual, and the pursuit of all knowledge. The only absolute requirement is a belief in God ... any god.

The Hiram Key � 1997 by Chris Knight and Robert Lomas (Red emphasis mine)

Any god. It doesn't matter if it's Buddha, Allah, Krishna or 'Jesus Christ'. It just has to be A GOD. Then, after joining, everyone's god becomes the same god, whom they all refer to in prayer at lodge meetings as the 'Grand Architect Of The Universe', or sometimes, the 'Supreme Governor Of The Universe'.

All this seems very fine and dandy, eh? Interfaith, peace, love, and grooviness, hands across the waters, etcetera...?



...right?...



*BUZZER SOUND*


JUST A MINUTE HERE!

Let's take a closer look.

With the Freemasons, one of the most powerful interfaith organizations on the planet, there is a hidden agenda going on behind the scenes. It is described as a secret organization, but more accurately, it is an 'organization of secrets'.

In the Freemasons, there are 33 ascending classes of membership called 'degrees' with the 1st degree being the lowest and the 33rd degree being the highest. As you ascend up the ladder of membership, this seemingly innocuous interfaith gentlemen's club takes on increasingly darker overtones and the true nature of the 'craft', as it is called amongst the insiders, becomes revealed.

From page 48 of The Lost Keys of Freemasonry by Manly P. Hall, 33rd degree Knights Templar (closely related to Freemasons) and highly respected Scottish Rite Freemason author:

"When the Mason learns that the key to the warrior on the block is the proper application of the dynamo of living power, he has learned the mystery of his Craft. The seething energies of Lucifer are in his hands and before he may step onward and upward, he must prove his ability to properly apply energy. He must follow in the footsteps of his forefather, Tubal-Cain, who with the mighty strength of the war god hammered his sword into a plowshare."

(Emphasis mine)

Moreover, here's a brief description of some of the ceremonial trappings involved when one is initiated into 33rd degree (top level) Freemasonry:

33. SOVEREIGN GRAND INSPECTOR-GENERAL

This degree, mainly executive in character, "is conferred as an honorarium on those who for great merit and long and arduous services have deserved well of the Order." The mottos of this degree are "Deus Meumque Jus," "Unio. Toleratio. Robur.," "Ordo ab Chao," "S.A.P.I.E.N.T.I.A.," and "Ad Universi Terrarum Orbis Summi Architecti Gloriam."

The Lodge, styled a Supreme Council, is hung in purple, with skeletons and skulls and cross-bones. A magnificent throne with a purple and gold canopy is in the East, and a delta with the "ineffable characters" is beneath it. In the North is a skeleton holding the white banner of the Order (with a black double-headed eagle, and gilded in gold), and in the South is the flag of the country. The Lodge is lit by eleven lights (five in the East, three in the West, one in the North, and two in the South).

Lucifer? Skeletons and cross-bones?!?

Whoa. Stop the presses.

As you can see, all of this is, no doubt, very occult. Freemasonry clearly demonstrates the dangers of submitting oneself to an interfaith belief system. Once your worship is compromised to a generic title, i.e. the 'Grand Architect of the Universe' or 'God' or anything but that which has been divinely ordained, such as Yahweh, the third commandment is broken to a new extreme.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain.

Now remember, this should really read:

Thou shalt not take the name of Yahweh in vain.

Now understanding this according to the original Hebrew:

take = nacah (Heb.) or 'to lift, bear up, carry, take'
vain = shav (Heb.) or 'emptiness, vanity, falsehood'

Therefore:

Thou shalt not bear up the name of Yahweh in falsehood.

But when we worship a generic title, such as 'God', we cease to 'bear up' the name of Yahweh altogether. This is the true danger of 'interfaith'.

When we ponder this situation in its true light, we can only come to the conclusion that the interfaith belief system is of Satan. It is, in fact, a grand conspiracy perpetrated by Satan that has been going on since the beginning of time. It gained alot of steam when ancient Hebrews, through their overzealous misinterpretation of the third commandment, began suppressing the utterance of the sacred name of Yahweh and it became full-blown when generic titles were substituted. Maintaining this tradition for the many centuries that followed has cast a spell on us and caused us to forget the true meaning of the sacred Name.

And this, my dear friends, is how Yahweh became 'God'.

Now under the New Covenant we worship YAHWEH whom we praise through His sacred Son YAHUSHUA. We are told that YAHUSHUA comes in His Father's name:

John 5:43 ~ I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.

If we compare the Hebrew spellings of tetragrammaton YHWH to the sacred name Yahushua, we see that the first three Hebrew characters, 'yod', 'hey', 'waw', are the same in each Name. In this sense then, Yahushua (ee-ah-oo-shoo-ah) comes in the name of Yahweh (ee-ah-oo-eh).

To exemplify this even further, we can look at the following scripture:

Psalms 68:4 ~ Sing unto God, sing praises to his name: extol him that rideth upon the heavens by his name JAH, and rejoice before him.

Here 'JAH' transliterates the original Yahh. There are 47 other times in the King James Version where 'the LORD' replaces the original Hebrew word spelt (from right to left) 'yod', 'hey',   or 'Yahh'. This is transliterated into English as 'YH' and is an abbreviation of the Tetragrammaton YHWH.

There are numerous other instances in the scriptures where an abbreviation of the sacred name YHWH appears in the names of prophets and other personnages.

Y^eshayahuw (Isaiah) - YHWH has saved
Yirm^eyahuw (Jeremiah) - YHWH has appointed
Obadyahuw (Obadiah) - servant of YHWH
Ts^ephanyahuw (Zephaniah) - YHWH has treasured
Z^ekaryahuw (Zechariah) - YHWH remembers
Achiyahuw (Ahijah) - brother of YHWH
Abiyahuw (Abiah) - YHWH is my father

This is what Yahushua, i.e. YHWH is salvation, means when He says that He comes in His Father's name.

Neglecting to worship and call upon the true sacred name of Yahushua would be akin to a teacher having taught his pupils that his name is really Charles and no one should call him anything but Charles and one or more of his pupils going around behind his back saying to the rest of the group, "It's okay. Just call him Chuck. That's what everyone does."


Therefore...

We are not 'Christians'.

We are disciples of Yahushua the Messiah.

Christ - anointed, the Greek translation of the Hebrew word rendered "Messiah"

~ Easton's Bible Dictionary under "Christ"

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In the New Testament the name Christ is used as equivalent to the Hebrew Messiah (anointed)...

~ Smith's Bible Dictionary under "Jesus Christ"

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JESUS CHRIST (or JESUS THE CHRIST, the Anointed or Messiah: Greek Christos; Hebrew Mashiakh)... Matthew (1:21) interprets the name (originally Joshua, that is 'Yahweh is salvation')...

Encyclopedia Americana, 1979, Volume 16 under "JESUS CHRIST"

Christ - anointed, the Greek translation of the Hebrew word rendered "Messiah" (q.v.), the official title of our Lord, occurring five hundred and fourteen times in the New Testament.

Easton's Bible Dictionary under 'Christ'

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...The titles (such as 'Christ') given to Jesus during his lifetime and later by the first Christians illustrate how their thinking about him was moulded by their experience of him.

The New Concise Bible Dictionary, 1989 under "JESUS CHRIST, TITLES OF" (Titles in the early church, page 272)

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The word Christ, Christos, the Greek equivalent of the Hebrew word Messiah, means "anointed." According to the Old Law, priests (Ex., xxix, 29; Lev., iv, 3), kings (I Kings, x, 1; xxiv, 7), and prophets (Is., lxi, l) were supposed to be anointed for their respective offices; now, the Christ, or the Messias, combined this threefold dignity in His Person. It is not surprising, therefore, that for centuries the Jews had referred to their expected Deliverer as "the Anointed"; perhaps this designation alludes to Is., lxi, 1, and Dan., ix, 24 26, or even to Ps., ii, 2; xix, 7; xliv, 8. Thus the term Christ or Messias was a title rather than a proper name: "Non proprium nomen est, sed nuncupatio potestatis et regni", says Lactantius (Inst. Div., IV, vii).

The Catholic Encyclopedia under "Origin of the name of Jesus Christ"

Jesus - This is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua, which was originally Hoshea (Num. 13:8, 16), but changed by Moses into Jehoshua (Num. 13:16; 1 Chr. 7:27), or Joshua. After the Exile it assumed the form Jeshua, whence the Greek form Jesus.

Easton's Bible Dictionary under "Jesus"

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Je'sus - (saviour ). The Greek form of the name Joshua or Jeshua, a contraction of Jehoshua, that is, "help of Jehovah" or "saviour." (Numbers 13:16)

Smith's Bible Dictionary under "Jesus"

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Jesus - [1200-50; Middle English < Late Latin Iesus < Greek Iesous < Hebrew Yeshua', syncopated variant of Y@hoshua God is help]

Random House Webster's College Dictionary, � 1992

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Jesus - the Founder of Christianity. Not used in Old English, in which it was rendered by H�land Saviour; in Middle English (XII) not usually written in full, but almost always in the abbreviated forms ihu and ihs, ihus, ihc, ihu, etc.; represented Christian Latin Iesus -- Greek Iesous, Iesou -- late Hebrew or Aramaic yeshua, for earlier y'hoshua, Joshua, which is explained 'Jah (Jahveh) is salvation'.

Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology, � 1966 by Oxford University Press

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Jesus (dzizus). [a. Latin. Iesu-s, a. Greek 'Ihsouz, ad. late Hebrew or Aramaic yeshua, Jeshua, for the earlier y'hoshua, Jehoshua or Jehoshua (explained as 'Jah (or Jahveh) is salvation', which, as that of the founder of Christianity, has passed through Greek and Latin into all the languages of Christendom...]

Oxford English Dictionary at the Clarendon Press, 1933

Jehovah - is an erroneous form of the name of the God of Israel. The ancient Hebrews, like many other peoples, believed that names had mysterious power and therefore rarely pronounced "Yahweh," the personal name of their God. In early biblical manuscripts they used the Tetragrammaton, or four consonants of his name --YHWH-- which were pronounced from memory. After the Babylonian Exile in the 6th century B.C., Adonai ("My Lord") and Elohim ("God") were gradually substituted for "Yahweh" and its pronunciation was forgotten.

In the 6th and 7th centuries A.D., Masoretic scribes wrote the vowels for Adonai under the Tetragrammaton to remind readers to use the substitute term. Medieval Christian scholars mistakenly combined the consonants and vowels of the two words in the new word "Jehovah," which was used in the King James Version. Greek, Latin, and Modern English versions use "Lord" or "Yahweh."

Encyclopedia Americana, 1979, Volume 16 under Jehovah

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Jehovah - The Hebrew word Yahweh is in English versions usually translated 'the LORD' (note the capitals) and sometimes 'Jehovah'. The latter name originated as follows. The original Hebrew text was not vocalized; in time the 'tetragrammaton' YHWH was considered too sacred to pronounce; so ' ^adonay ('my lord') was substituted in reading, and the vowels of this word were combined with the consonants YHWH to give 'Jehovah', a form first attested at the beginning of the 12th century AD.

The New Bible Dictionary under "God, names of", � May 1962 The Intervarsity Fellowship

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Jehovah - [The English and common European representation, since the 16th century, of the Hebrew divine name . This word (the 'sacred tetragrammaton') having come to be considered by the Jews too sacred for utterance, was pointed in the Old Testament by the Masoretes, with the vowels (=a), o, a, of   (adonai), as a direction to the reader to substitute ADONAI for the 'ineffable name'; which is actually done by Jerome in the Vulgate translation of Exodus vi. 3, and hence by Wyclif. Students of Hebrew at the Revivial of Letters took these vowels as those of the word (IHUH, JHVH) itself, which was accordingly transliterated in Latin spelling as IeHoVa(H), i.e. Iehoua(h. It is now held that the original name IaHUe(H), i.e. Jahve(h, or with the English values of the letters, Yahwe(h, and one or other of these forms is now generally used by writers upon the religion of the Hebrews... The principal and personal name of God in the Old Testament; in English versions usually represented by 'the LORD'.

Oxford English Dictionary at the Clarendon Press, 1933

The divine name Yahweh, which was no longer pronounced at this time, was replaced by the word kyrios (lord), which renders the Hebrew word Adonai substituted for Yahweh in the reading of the Bible, but it is also a divine and royal title in Hellenistic culture.

Dictionary of the Bible (under "Septuagint") p. 316, by John L. McKenzie, S.J. � 1965, Macmillan Publishing Company p. 787

[6] - From The Hiram Key:

"Colour, race creed or politics have always been irrelevant to membership..."

This is not true. Freemasonry has traditionally excluded those of African descent. This is clearly exemplified in the '25 Ancient Landmarks' �a set of guidelines for freemasonry� in which Landmark #18 states:

Masons must be male, free-born, unmutilated, and legally adult.

The term 'free-born' refers to the forbidding of slaves from becoming Freemasons. More specifically, it refers to the forbidding of slaves of African descent from becoming Freemasons and subsequently, after the proclamation of emancipation in the U.S., simply forbid those of African descent from becoming Freemasons.