The United Protestant Council
reject
"Royal" Black Institution

 The United Protestant Council received an application from the "Royal" Black Institution on 4th October 2001 to become affiliated to this evangelical umbrella group. This precipitated the customary enquiry into their evangelical credentials, a process that became protracted due to the secretive nature of the order and its beliefs / practices. Over the course of a few years they attempted to establish the core beliefs and practices of the Black Order. As part of that process, the United Protestant Council interviewed several current members at their meetings in England and also travelled to Belfast Friday/Saturday 30th/31st January 2004 and interviewed various former members of the "Royal" Black Institution that had attained to the final Red Cross degree and had since resigned on biblical grounds.

Their conclusion after years of carefully examination was that the rites of the "Royal" Black Institution were “pagan and even blasphemous,” and they accordingly rejected the application of this neo-Masonic secret society. Not only did they reject their application but they made a call for Christians within her to seperate from it.

The UPC summed its position up in two different letters to the Royal Black. On 14th February 2004 it wrote: “It could be said that some of the rituals of the RPB are nothing more than harmless buffoonery (but which should have no part in the Christian church), but others are of the most serious, obnoxious and blasphemous character, so that even to hear of such things has been very painful to us that we would say to anyone involved: ‘Come out from among them’.”

On the 25th September 2004 it soberly concluded: “Following consideration of the evidence, the majority of the affiliated societies have been persuaded that there are aspects of the ritual and degree process of the Royal Black Institution which are wholly devoid of biblical support. It was judged that the presence of the Royal Black Institution on the Council would severely compromise our stand for truth and would completely wreck our credibility.”

These short statements hit the nail on the head. This Christian grouping subsequently rejected the Royal Black Institution for its anti-Christian procedures and its extra-biblical theology, and later released an informative booklet warning others of the error of this Templar order.