The Sydney Anglican Synod has called on all Christian members of Masonic lodges to withdraw their membership and for church facilities not to be used for activities linked with Freemasonry., The motion, passed last week, also "requests that councils of all Anglican schools ... consider any association that their school may have with any Masonic lodge, and to withdraw from any such association”., This was put forward by Reverend Bill Winthrop, rector of St Paul's Church, Lithgow, whose parish council last December passed a motion calling on Freemasons and members of the Order of the Eastern Star to choose between those movements and continuing membership of the congregation, Lithgow's Anglican Church Parish Council called for parishioners to make the choice last December which created divisions within the Lithgow community. Lithgow is considered part of the Sydney diocese. , In his motion to the Synod, Rev Winthrop requested the Synod to "affirm that Freemasonry and Christianity are fundamentally irreconcilably incompatible; and affirms that Freemasonry teaches and upholds false religious and spiritual beliefs that are contradictory to biblical Christianity”., Grand Master of the NSW and ACT Freemasons Tony Lauer responded by saying the resolution is pure discrimination, smacks of bigotry and religious fundamentalism and is a betrayal of all Freemasons who practice the Anglican faith., Commenting on the issue, Bishop of Bathurst Richard Hurford said "while I warmly respect the right of the Synod of the Diocese of Sydney to wrestle with issues and make pronouncements, one needs to keep things in perspective., "I know of no official policy of the Anglican Church of Australia on Freemasonry,” Bishop Hurford said., "In the Christian tradition a diocese is a geographical area cared for by a bishop and a synod is a conference of representatives of the parishes in that diocese. Sydney Diocese is only one of seven dioceses in NSW and of 23 in Australia., "Bathurst Diocese, which covers 20 per cent of the State from Oberon to Bourke, has never expressed an official view on Freemasonry in any way - it is simply not an issue., "As Anglicans we are committed to playing our part along with all religious faiths and humanitarian agencies in building an open and tolerant Australia,” Bishop Hurford said., In April this year, the Archbishop of Canterbury Dr Rowan Williams was forced to apologise to Britain's 330,000 Freemasons after he said their beliefs were incompatible with Christianity and that he had rejected them from senior posts in his diocese., Dr Williams wrote to the Grand Secretary of the United Grand Lodge of England, apologising for the "distress” he caused and disclosed that his own father was a member of the craft.