In Response To The Inquiry Whether Membership In A Masonic Lodge Is
Incompatible With Membership In A Baptist Church

Abner V. McCall, 33, Grand Cross
President, Scottish Rite Foundation of Texas
President Emeritus, Baylor University
Box 7003, Waco, Texas  76798-7003

Illustrious Brother Abner V. McCall gives a moving personal
testimony of how Freemasonry has benefited his life and, since
1933, his Southern Baptist faith.

One December day in 1918 during the great influenza epidemic of
World War I, my father received a call for help from the wife of a
fellow Freemason stricken with the dreaded plague. My father
responded to the call for help and tended his Masonic Lodge Brother
until he died a few days later. My father returned to his home
having contracted the highly contagious disease and himself died
thereof in a few days. I was then three years old. 

        When I was seven, and my widowed mother's health had
collapsed, Perrin Lodge No. 1082, A\F\ & A\M\, sponsored me and my
sister and two brothers for admission to the Masonic Home and
School of Fort Worth, Texas. In 1922 I entered the first grade
there and remained eleven years as a ward of the home until I
graduated as valedictorian of my class in 1933.

        A Masonic organization gave me a four-year college
scholarship which enabled me to go to Baylor University, a Southern
Baptist university. I was the first member of my family to earn a
university degree. I joined Baylor Lodge No. 1235, A\F\ & A\M\,
over fifty years ago and have since served in a score of Masonic
organizations. For seventy years I have observed and been involved
in Freemasonry. I  have  worked in thousands of meetings with
Masons.

        I graduated from Baylor University in 1938, and with the
exception of four years of absence during World War II, I have been
at Baylor ever since as professor, dean, executive vice president,
president, chancellor, and now president emeritus.

        After enrolling in Baylor University in 1933, I learned
about the distinctive beliefs of Southern Baptists and was baptized
into the local church. I have been a member of a Southern Baptist
church since 1933. For many years I have been a deacon in the First
Baptist Church of Waco, Texas, and have taught the same men's Bible
class there since 1949. I was elected twice as president of the
Baptist General Convention of Texas (1964-1965) and in 1979 was
elected first vice president of the Southern Bapti ention. I have
served on scores of local, state, national, and international
Baptist committees, commissions, conventions, and boards. I have
worked with fellow Baptists in thousands of meetings.

        In these thousands of meetings of Freemasons and of
Baptists stretching back sixty years, I have seen nothing that made
my belief and work in the Fraternity of Freemasons incompatible
with my belief and work as a member of a Southern Baptist church.
From a long lifetime of personal observation and experience, I can
verify that membership and work in the Masonic Lodge and the
Baptist Church have supplemented and supported each other and in no
way supplanted nor subverted each other. They conflict onl e mind
of a person who subscribes to a perverted version of Freemasonry,
the church, or both.

        During the past four centuries there have been millions of
Baptists in many parts of the world, and they have written
thousands of articles and books about the Baptist version of
Christianity. As to some of the symbolic passages in our Bible, it
has been observed that there are almost as many interpretations as
there are Baptists. 

        I am a Baptist, but I do not agree with everything some
fellow Baptists write about our religion, nor do I expect to be
held responsible therefor.

        During the past four centuries, there have been millions of
Freemasons in many parts of the world, and they have written
thousands of articles and books about Freemasonry. While the
purpose and goals of Freemasonry are clear, most of its Rituals are
filled with imagery and symbolism. The incidents and characters
portrayed in these Rituals have varied origins-the Holy Bible,
apocryphal writings, ancient legends, and secular history. The
stories and characters are symbolic and are seldom equivalent to
originals. It has been observed that there are almost as many
interpretations of this Masonic imagery and symbolism as there are
Freemasons.

        I am a Freemason, but I do not agree with everything that
some fellow Freemason writes about our Fraternity, nor do I expect
to be held responsible therefor.

        Of this I am sure, anyone critical of either the Baptists
or Freemasons can select writings by Baptists or Freemasons which
are calculated to give one a distorted view of either. No one who
does not observe, participate and experience the life and works of
the Church or the Lodge will be able to understand them.
Understanding comes not from just talking the talk, but from
walking the walk.

Abner V. McCall has been a Southern Baptist for 60 years, and he
presently serves as a deacon for the First Baptist Church of Waco,
Texas, where he has taught the same men's Sunday School for 43
years. He was president of the Baptist General Convention of Texas,
1964-65, and first Vice President of the Baptist General Convention
in 1979. Raised a Mason in 1941, he served as Master of Baylor
Lodge No. 1255, as a member on various Grand Lodge of Texas
committees and, for 20 years, as president of the Scottish Rite
Foundation of Texas.
