For the first like half of the Documentary the only thing I strongly object to is when they get into the Bavarian Illuminati while talking about Thomas Paine where they repeat a lot of the common misinformation that people like Terry Melanson have been trying to correct. And make a false claim of Voltaire being Jesuit trained.
During the part on Washington I noticed first they are largely now contradicting the position they took on Washington in their previous documentary I'd watched, "Secret Mysteries of America's Beginnings".
The big deal made out of him not taking Communion did not strike me as evidence of being a non-Christian. If he was attending the Church only as a public show but was in fact a Deist or Atheist there would be no reason for him to object to Communion. Rather I'm reminded of how as someone raised Catholic I know that some devout Catholics are willing to attend Protestant Churches for whatever reason but would not take their Eucharist. (and indeed later a Catholic accusation is what they make).
But I also considered the opposite explanation, this Church he was attending sounds like one of those Protestant Churches that was pretty effectively Catholic in many areas. If I were attending it out of some obligation I too depending on my mood would refuse to take the Eucharist or genuflect (the not kneeling issue).
It seemed like this was a Church he was attending because his Wife went there.
I was naturally intrigued by their Jesuit spy conclusion, and amused at how certain they were their target audience wouldn't object to not counting Catholics as Christian. They are a from of Christianity that I agree is heretical, but they are Christians.
My last post on this blog observed an overlap between Jesuit activities in Masonry and the Jacobite Stuart cause. And I remembered the laughable Pseudo History book "Bloodline of the Holy Grail" by Laurence Gardiner. Because one claim made in it that seemed pretty well documented compared to most of his claims was that Washington had sent a delegation in 1782 to Charles III Stuart to offer him to be King of America. Mr. Galloway of Maryland, two Sylvester brothers from Pennsylvania
and Attorney Fish of New York made up the delegation. It is supposedly documented in the Senate Archives and in something called the Manorwater Papers. It has not been easy for me to look into it.
False accusations of Jesuit connections are quite common however, so I shall reserve Judgment on this.
My major objection to the film came as it reached the climax of this Jesuit centric section. When they had the audacity to proclaim Religious Liberty a bad thing, because the Jesuits supported it at a time when it would have benefited them. Never mind that any Christians with the views most modern American Evangelicals have would have been equally persecuted under that Anglican Government of 17th century Britain, which is why our Spiritual Ancestors came to this continent to begin with.
They cite The Ten Commandments as proof that Religious Freedom is unBiblical. That's not even about Civil Authority. But yes the Law of Moses had no Freedom of Religion, but we are not under The Law of Moses. It was not Masonic Founding Fathers who invented the idea of Religious Liberty as an American Value. It goes back to Roger Williams the founder of Rhode Island.
I often say disparaging things about the Puritans, especially the ones that stayed in England and became part of Oliver Cromwell's proto-fascist regime. But I am a big fan of certain individuals who started out in the Puritan community but became rebels against the mainstream of Puritanism and thus effectively excommunicated from it. Roger Williams was one of those. He argued based on the examples of The Bible's praise of Cyrus and Artaxerxes that even before The Cross God always preferred Gentiles Governments to take the position of religious liberty. Williams also strongly disagreed with the common racist views people had of Native Americans and opposed slavery. To me he is the true Founding Father of the America I Love.
The documentary goes on to shows how deceptive David Barton is. But I find it all pointless when he effectively advocates the same contemporary political agenda as Barton. He's more honest about it at least, when Barton is interviewed by a liberal like John Stewart he'll seek to assure the viewers he's all for religious freedom. But the obvious end result of his Dominionist political agenda (which is also now strongly attached to Ted Cruz) would be the destruction of Religious Liberty.
At the end he cites the Book of Revelation to prove that even under The New Testament God clearly has no respect for Religious Freedom. I suggest he read Luke 19 starting in verse 11 The Parable of the Ten Minas. And if that passage confuses you and you honestly can't tell it's instructing believers to never force people to convert, I recommend this good analysis of it.
It's sickening because he would not be able to freely and openly make and distribute this film without the Freedom he's condemning, because you can't have Freedom of Speech without Freedom of Religion, or visa versa, they go hand in hand. Would a nation without Freedom of Speech allow someone to make a documentary effectively vilifying that nation's founders? Of course not.
As far as the basic question of if the Founding Fathers were Christians. The desire of people on either side to make it a unilateral yes or no is really ridiculous. The Founding Fathers were a large group of people, only a handful of whom are house hold names today. They did not all agree with each other and in fact they argued bitterly taking over a decade to settle on the final Constitution.
Barton manipulates quotes to make them all seem Christian, even the most flagrantly heretical of them. But his less famous and more savvy counterparts will concede the obvious Deists among the most famous names while focusing on many mostly lesser known individuals who this documentary didn't acknowledge at all. Names that escape me at the moment. But the quotes I recall reading are pretty Fundamentalist, including one of the first of our Judges calling for Homosexuality to be a Capital offense based on Leviticus 20.
Indeed before the Civil War the Bill Rights was viewed as only applying to the Federal Government and many state governments codified the first four commands of the Decalogue into Civil Law.
This documentary singles out 5 founding fathers to talk about extensively. Of those 3 were indeed Masonic style Deists. They weren't the only Deists of course.
But this is one of those Christians who feels you're NOT a Christians if you don't agree with HIS interpretation of Christianity. He considers the accusation that Obama is a Muslim just as obviously proven as Jefferson being a Deist. And I myself hold positions he considers proof of not being a Christian (like support of Gay Rights).
Now I agree you're not Biblical Christianity just because you say nice things about Jesus, in which case yes even Jefferson was a Christian. But fact is Muslims believe more of what the New Testament says about Jesus then Jefferson. Muslims believe in The Virgin Birth but not in His Divinity.
But I consider you a fellow Bible Believing Christian as long as from your own POV you believe The Bible, (and from there we can debate what The Bible says). Which generally Unitarians like John Adams do. But yes I do consider denial of The Trinity heretical enough to be effectively no different then being a Deist. John Adams was up and down about his faith over the course of his life, this documentary focused on quotes from when he was down on it.
I object only to their certainty about Washington. Which mostly seems to come down to him not wearing his Faith on his Sleeve. Now you can hold the personal view that a "good Christian" is someone who never goes five minutes without saying they're a Christian all you like. But the fact is many Christians don't feel that way.
To quote one YouTube comment.
Among the delegates were twenty-eight Episcopalians, eight Presbyterians, seven Congregationalists, two Lutherans, two Dutch Reformed, two Methodists, two Roman Catholics, one unknown, and only three deists — Williamson, Wilson, and Franklin. 51 of 55 — a full 93 percent — of the members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political underpinnings of America, were Christians, not deists.I'll try to fact check that later.
As far as the treaty of Tripoli goes. It was firstly a political decision when trying to make an agreement with a non Christian nation. But even so I as a Christian if I ever started my own country would state clearly in every founding document that it was NOT a Christian Nation. That it would be a nation with full Freedom of Religion.
I agree fully with the Christian objections to Freemasonry. But the fact is through out history and to this day plenty of Christians are members of Maonsic Lodges and don't get the conflict, to them it's compatible. You can criticize that all you want, but not every Mason is an Anti-Christian carrying out an Anti-Christian agenda, those people tend to be the ones who dedicate their lives almost solely to Freemasonry.
What Washington personally believed we really don't know.
Update August 20th 2024:
Washington's odd behavior attending an Episcopal Church could be just much explained by his true allegiance being to Low Church Protestantism. There a story that he was Baptized by Baptist John Gano, but I am skeptical of the story since it originates with Gano's grandson decades later.
As far as the official nominal religious affiliations of the signers of the three founding documents so I found these links.
Also our first five Presidents and five Vice Presidents I consider among the Founding Fathers.
Plenty of Deists in this period consider themselves still Christian at the same time, even Franklin and Jefferson. Jefferson said he fully agreed with the views of leading Unitarian Joseph Priestley, making him in a sense more Unitarian then Adams.
Rush is listed as Presbyterian in those links but he actually never settled on a specific denomination being close to both leading Episcopal Bishop William White and Baptist Pastor/Universalist Church co-founding Elhanan Winchester.
