In the early nineteenth century, many prominent Freemasons sought to “Christianize” Freemasonry. Distinguished European Masonic writers promoted interpretations of Masonic rituals that were almost clusively Christian. Reverend Salem Town of New york also promoted this Christian application in his widely circulated A System of Speculative Masonry (1818), claiming that the initiate’s progression out of darkness and into the light is symbolic of the fall of adam/man and his redemption through Jesus Christ’s atoning sacrifice. I argue that Joseph Smith participated in this christianization” movement by placing Masonic ritual in the narrative context of Adam’s fall and redemption.

Michael G. Reed, Clair Barrus