National Christian Association (anti-secretist)

The National Christian Association was an American anti-secretist organisation, formed in 1868 and incorporated in 1874 at Chicago, Illinois, existing in order "to expose, withstand, and remove secret societies, Freemasonry in particular, and other anti-christian movements, in order to save the churches of Christ from being depraved, to redeem the administration of justice from perversion, and our republican government from corruption." Toward that end, the association published a regular newspaper, The Christian Cynosure, and hosted conferences across the United States, at which speakers "directed attention to the anti-christian and despotic character of the secret lodge system," as well as "its deceitful and dangerous work."

Among the groups early lecturers was Edmond Ronayne (1832-1911), a former Past Master of the Keystone Lodge No. 639 (Chicago, Illinois), who wrote anti-Masonic books, including The Handbook of Free Masonry (1876) and The Master's Carpet, or Masonry and Baal-Worship Identical (1879).

Resources

 * &mdash; scanned issues of the NCA's primary organ