Appeal: direct answer
From Jay Dyer vs 2 Freemason Christians.
- #118118:16upheld Ryan Terbibull epainos: direct answer (+1)
The council upheld the call: Ryan Terbibull earned 1 point.
“There's no scenario where my oath or my obligation or my love of the fraternity supersedes my belief in Christ or my love for my Christian brothers. I do believe in the trinity.”
Diogenes: This meets Jay's specific charge that Masonry creates a tiered strata in which uninitiated Christians are "profane" and only Masons are true Christians, by stating the ordering of loyalties and affirming the Nicene doctrine Jay said Masonry downplays.- Aristotle uphold: On the record: S2's opening and consistent position was that Masonry does not override or replace a member's own Christian doctrine, and this line is a direct restatement/application of that position to the specific accusation just made, not a departure. Jay's opening charged that Masonry's initiate/profane structure implies non-Masonic Christians are excluded from a Gnostic-style true faith and that Masonry downplays the Trinity; S2 directly answers both prongs by stating the ordering of his loyalties (Christ over the lodge) and affirming Trinitarian belief, which is a genuine response to the specific charge rather than an evasion.
- Socrates uphold: Read blind, found "direct answer". This directly answers Dyer's opening charge that Masonry's structure elevates initiated Masons above the "profane" (including non-Mason Christian clergy) and implicitly subordinates ordinary Christian commitment to the lodge; Terbibull states plainly that his fraternal obligation is subordinate to his Christian belief and love for fellow Christians, engaging the actual concern about hierarchy of loyalty rather than sidestepping it.
- Plato uphold: On the record: S2's opening declared he holds personal Christian doctrine (trinity, Christ) separately from Masonic membership and treats Masonry as non-doctrinal; this line responds directly to Jay's opening charge that Masonry's inner/profane tiering makes non-Mason Christians second-class, and it is consistent with, not a departure from, S2's declared position. Although framed as a statement rather than literally posed as a question, Jay's opening explicitly charged that Masonic tiering renders non-initiated Christians "profane" and implicitly not true Christians; Ryan's line squarely rebuts that specific charge by stating the actual ordering of loyalties and affirming trinitarian belief, which is a fair reading of a direct answer to the point raised.
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