Treachery in the Founding of America

A few weeks ago Jan Markell hosted a discussion on her Understanding the Times radio show, America's Roots and Founders, about the Founding Fathers of America, with Eric Barger and Jill Martin Rische, along with pastor Dan Fisher, in which the aim was to argue against those who say that the American Founders were not Christian. 

It was clear right from the start that there's a really huge confusion about these things that has to be resolved.  I was rather surprised that the main focus was on proving that the Founders were not Deists, surprised because I did think that idea had been clarified by now. 

First let's be clear that the Founders whose faith is in question are mainly the Big Five: Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Franklin and Thomas Paine.  Although I was vaguely aware of problems with their beliefs for some time, over the last few months I've been convinced in stark and startling ways, mostly through Chris Pinto's film Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers, that they were far from Christian, and in fact were clear rejectors of the gospel of Jesus Christ.  This is what needs to be discussed here.

Other men involved in that era were brought up on the program but they only tend to confuse the issues further.  Patrick Henry for instance was clearly a Christian, he referred to Christ and to the gospel of salvation on many occasions.  Many preachers of the gospel were also discussed who were certainly Christians.  John Jay was mentioned, who was definitely a Christian.  There were many true Christians in various roles in government during the founding era, and in the Revolutionary War.  Much time was spent on the subject of the "Black Robed Regiment"* made up of Christian pastors who preached for Revolution and willingly fought and died for it.  And certainly the Christian foundations of America go back to the earliest settlers who were also true Christians, the Puritans and Pilgrims, and the nation can look back to them for strong Christian inspiration. 

But there is nevertheless a controversy about the true beliefs of the five founders I list above, the shapers of the new union through the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and other documents.

It is quite true, as the participants on the program all agreed, that these Founders were not Deists in the sense that we understand that term to mean belief in a God who is not involved in human affairs.  Certainly Washington, Adams, Jefferson and Franklin believed in Providence and in prayer, and the protection of God over a country that adhered to His moral laws.  And a great deal of what they say along those lines can sound awfully Christian to Christian ears, much of which was quoted on the program.  Franklin, for instance, who was considered the least religious, nevertheless is the one who called for prayer by the Constitutional Congress. 

The confusing thing is that they can sound so Christian and yet in fact reject the essentials of the Christian faith.  ALL of them deny the Deity of Christ, even in the case of Adams and Jefferson ridiculing it.  Adams was a Unitarian, so he officially denied the Trinity, he also ridiculed it in his letters as did his wife Abigail, and ridiculed such basic Christian doctrine as that Christ was God incarnate born of a virgin.   Jefferson denied ALL the supernatural elements of the Bible.  Franklin said he doubted the deity of Christ.  Washington refused to take communion at his Anglican church while he was President in Philadelphia.  His pastor called him a "Deist" in so many words, though there is reason now to regard that designation as not quite on the mark as I go on to discuss below.

Yet they all approved of the MORALITY of Jesus Christ, or at least some of the morality taught in His name.  That's really ALL they approved of.  They thought it would be fine if the nation were founded on that MORALITY, but certainly not on the gospel of salvation by Christ, which they considered to be a primitive myth not worthy of belief by intelligent people   They were men of the Age of Reason, as Paine titled his book that made it once and for all evident that he was no Christian however much he might have supported Christian principles in a general sort of way through the Revolutionary era.  These were Enlightenment men, who believed that human reason was the arbiter of all truth, so they rejected all claims to supernatural occurrences such as a virgin birth or resurrection from the dead as contrary to Reason, and believed humanity was growing up and would soon do away with such foolishness.  Sound familiar?  Lot of that we hear today as well.

The God they believed in was the God of Masonry and Unitarianism or even the God of Reason if that makes any sense, but NOT the God of the Bible.

Gregg Frazer is a scholar who is affiliated with John MacArthur's Masters College who did a thorough study of the beliefs of the Founding generation and published his findings in a book, The Religious Beliefs of America's Founders: Reason, Revelation, Revolution in which he argues that they were neither Deists nor Christians.  He came up with a new term, "theistic rationalism" to describe their beliefs. 

They did believe in a God who intervened in human affairs, they did believe in prayer, they did believe the nation needed to submit to God's moral law if it was to prosper, but they also adamantly and pointedly rejected the fundamental tenets of the Christian faith.

Surely it doesn't serve our cause to go on being deceived by this.  America has plenty of true Christian history to lean on that we can invoke, including true Christian leaders who went on affirming the Christian nature of the nation even after the Founders had done their dirty work of treachery against the majority Christian population. 

And that is how I've come to think of it. They were traitors.  Chris Pinto's film Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers, makes this clear.

The Understanding the Times broadcast starts out quoting the famous line from the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights...

And we as Christians have pointed to that reference to the Creator to prove the Christian underpinnings of the Declaration.  But this turns out to be a deception.  Chris Pinto in his film about the founders points out that the concept of "self-evident" truths is an Enlightenment idea, that in fact it was specifically put in the Declaration as a CONTRADICTION to the Biblical claim that it is GOD who determines our equality, NOT REASON.  Reason declares some philosophical positions to be self-evident according to human judgment but to a Christian it is the Biblical revelation that establishes humanity as equal because of our descent from Adam and Eve.  The "Creator" referred to in the Declaration is not the God of the Bible, but "the God of Nature" who is more compatible with the antiChristian beliefs of the Founders.

In his film Pinto also interviews ex-Mormon and expert on Mormonism and Masonry, Ed Decker, who states that the Declaration of Independence was written on a MASONIC LAMBSKIN.  THAT was supposed to be such a great boon to the nation, but to a Christian it ought to be recognized as blasphemy and a denial of the God of the Bible.

A pastor who researched the beliefs of the founding fathers is also quoted in the film as having discovered that they were all "infidels," and also that it had been debated whether or not to refer to God in the Constitution and it was decided NOT to.

Now, that ought to be enough to show that the founders that are so often misreprsented as Christians were actually antichrists (those who deny that Jesus is God come in the flesh) and traitors to the Christian population of America.

But Pinto also delves deeper and finds some very interesting historical background on the concept of "religious liberty" as written into our Constitution.  This concept goes back to the Catholic monarch James II of England who introduced something called The Declaration of Indulgence which would have rescinded strict limitations on the role allowed to Catholics and others in political positions.  Here's what I found Douglas Wilson saying about that, which is what Pinto's film also affirms:

Why Anglicans Matter to the Rest of Us by Douglas Wilson.

In the brief and troubled reign of James II, an event took place that illustrates how connected Anglicans and non-Anglicans can sometimes be.  James the Second was a fervent supporter of the interests of Rome, and during his reign—in the memorable phrase of J.C. Ryle—“traitors were hatched in the sunshine of corruption.”

James had begun his reign by persecuting the Nonconformists—jailing the great Richard Baxter after a farce of a trial, for example, and being responsible for the death by drowning of the young Scottish martyr Margaret Wilson. Because of this kind of thing, the pitch was set for the song he intended to sing, and the Nonconformists were reinforced in their intention not even to get their Psalters out.

But in April of 1688, James issued a “Declaration of Indulgence” along with a requirement that the declaration be read in all the chapels and churches of the kingdom by their officiating ministers. Seven bishops refused to have anything to do with it, and their subsequent trial was the cause celebre that brought James down in the Glorious Revolution.

But there was a striking element in this Declaration of Indulgence. James was trying to make room for the Church of Rome, and yet the declaration allowed both Roman Catholics and Protestant Dissenters the freedom to perform worship publicly. Before the bishops had made their decision to refuse to obey the king, the Nonconformists stepped forward, in the words of Ryle, “to their eternal honour,” and offered their support to the bishops in their defiance of the king, even though it meant their continued exclusion and exile. “They refused to be bribed just as they had formally refused to be intimidated.”

 “They would have none of the Royal indulgence, if it could only be purchased at the expense of the nation’s Protestantism.  Baxter, and Bates, and Howe, and the great bulk of the London Nonconformists, entreated the clergy to stand firm, and not to yield one inch to the King.” (J.C. Ryle,

Light from Old Times (London: Thynne & Jarvis, 1924, p.438)

How NICE the idea of Religious Liberty sounds.  And haven't we all affirmed this idea with pride in our tolerant nation?  We've even thought it is in keeping with Christian principles.  How hard it is then to begin to consider that it could be a huge deception that is only turning the nation over to internal enemies.  What Muslim nation allows nonMuslims to hold office?  NO nation that has an established religion allows members of another religion that kind of power.  But America stupidly does.

James was looking for a way to give Rome a foothold in England again after they had so wisely limited her influence, and the nation wisely rejected his plot.

But guess what. What England so intelligentlhy rejected got enshrined in our American Constitution. Plots within plots that nobody ever suspected.

Things are NOT what they seem.  We Christians need to wake up and start to realize that we're threatened in ways we had no idea.  May God give us wisdom even at this late hour.

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* The stories of the Black Robed Regiment which were told by Pastor Dan Fisher on the radio show, are very inspiring and something we should know more about.  But I have to wonder why nothing was made of the fact that Mormon Glenn Beck has been invoking the Black Robed Regiment in a way that confuses the "Christian" basis of American history even further.  Understanding the Times is a DISCERNMENT ministry.  Let's have a little more DISCERNMENT there folks.

Post on the Wiles of Rome

Been falling down on the Blog Upkeep here.  Working fitfully on a post that's really hard to get organized, but hope to get it up soon.  Also distracted elsewhere. 

But I did just put up a new post on my Catholicism blog, so thought I could post an advertisement of that here for now.

Judgment abides on the American Church because of the Church's compromises. It's the Church that needs to repent.

Chris Pinto had a good radio show, well two shows Thursday and Friday, and I got a needed reminder from him how the election is God's judgment, on the nation yes, but first of all on the church.  This is a recognition I sometimes have clearly in mind myself but then lose for a while.  Why not talk about the merely political side of it occsaionally?  Well, that's OK, but not when I leave out the overarching picture of God's judgment.  He's sovereign, He's in charge of the election as well as everything else, it doesn't matter how Obama got into office from a human or political point of view, he got into office because God allowed him to be in office.  Nothing but nothing happens without God's willing it.

He also made the point that it isn't just a matter of abandoning God's law, important as that is, but that we've abandoned the gospel itself and that means the CHURCH has abandoned the gospel.  He referred to a recent article by Brannon Howse, which I haven't read, about the compromises true Christians have been making by joining with nonChristians for the sake of political conservatism.  That's a denial of the gospel of Christ, it's a denial of Christ Himself.  Glenn Beck is not a Christian, his beliefs are in fact what scripture calls antichrist, scripture warns us we must not have anything to do with such a person or we share in his sin.  Yet apparently true Christians, or we've assumed they are, such as David Barton, are receiving him as if he were a true Christion.  This is a denial of Christ, and if Barton doesn't soon see it and repent of it he'll only destroy his own spiritual life if he really is a Christian. 

We ought all to know that when Joel Osteen says he thinks Glenn Beck or that Mormons in general are really Christians he's compromising the gospel too, he's denying the gospel of Christ, he's speaking in the spirit of antichrist.  Are there Christians in Joel Osteen's church?  I don't know, but if there are they need to leave so as not to come under his condemnation.

Then there's that question of appearing on a program such as Beck's or at a prayer rally that includes apostates such as the one Rick Perry held a few years ago that I wrote about here, or Glenn Beck's, or a conference with the leaders of the New Apostolic Reformation who hold apostate views, whether that also compromises the gospel.  There is no doubt that Christians cannot, must not, pray with apostates and unbelievers.  That I have no doubt about.  We must not pray with Mormons or NAR members or with Catholics either.  This principle is violated all the time in many ways among conservatives who want to see the nation returned to God, including many I know to be true Christians. 

As for merely appearing on a program where you might be inadvertently giving public support to the unbelieving host, such as Glenn Beck, I've gone back and forth on this one.  I think there must be some borderline cases, or certainly cases where it is done innocently where the person does not come under condemnation, but I'm coming back to the position that this is something that only feeds the lies of Satan and should be shunned.  And I'm now including those time honored Fox shows like Hannity and O Reilly and whoever else there is Catholic, which is a lot of them, IF your message is a Christian message.  If it's just politics there's less of a problem although I even wonder about that these days.  Yes, think about it, they're Catholics and no matter how good their conservative politics by bringing a Christian message through them you are treating them as Christians WHICH THEY ARE NOT. 

I'm glad I finally got this cleared up in my own mind, I've been suffering from some confusion and oppression about these things for some time. 

So I have to step on some toes of people I happen to like and think are true Christians. 

There are bloggers who are true Christians who "host" many friends who come to comment, who are Catholics, Jews, Mormons, even one who out and out denies the deity of Christ, even treating them as Christian, even defending them against true Christians who try to tell them truth.  The reasoning is that you must be nice to everbody, they hold siolid conservative beliefs, and if you're nice to them they may come around to true Christianity because you're being a proper representative of Christ.  And occasionally the gospel may be given in rather mild terms.  Well, niceness has some place of course, but compromising the gospel for the sake of niceness is denying the Lord yourself.

And it's inviting judgment on America.  the very judgment conservatives are working so hard to push back, by all the wrong methods, methods that only invite more judgment.

Michele Bachmann was very wrong to appear with the apostate group the NAR.  I have no reason to doubt that she's a true Christian but she too needs to separate herself from those who aren't if she wants God to work through her.

Jonathan Cahn is wrong to appear on Glenn Beck, on Sid Roth, on any platform where women pastors are accepted, on any platform that recognizes NAR members, and his doing so can only defeat the very purpose for which he's doing it, to promote his book which he believes is a message from God.  Yes, I've come to believe that is the case.  I do not see the problems with the book itself that his critics claim to discover in it, I see all that as an expression of their own bad Dispensationalist theology (which I believe they need to repent of and apologize for), but I do agree with them to the extent that Cahn is compromising the gospel by his appearances on some public media and in some false church contexts, certainly Benny Hinn's show, Roth's, possibly also Jim Bakker's but I don't know enough about Bakker's current theology to be sure in that case.

Jonathan says he is doing it to get the message of his book to as many people as possible, and he believes the message to have come from God.  But if it is from God then God must get it to the public, and Cahn knows that sometimes, forgets it at others.  Accepting invitations to publicize the book in venues that promote a compromised or blasphemous version of the gospel is a decision made by the flesh.  The only way the message COULD get out in the power he hopes for it is if he gives it completely over to God and steps out of the picture as far as his own decision-making goes.

The one thing that is absolutely necessary if we want God to withhold judgment on the nation, if we want revival, is holiness, that is, separateness from the world and especially separateness from anybody who represents a false belief in God, and it is this one thing that Christians are compromising at an astounding rate these days.  \

Whatever we do in the flesh is going to come back to us in the flesh.  If we promote revival in the flesh we may get revival in the flesh and what would that be but a work of the devil?  We can even get a phony repentance of the flesh.  If we want a true move of God Himself, our job is to DIE TO OURSELVES and to all the work we think we're doing for God and to all our aims, hopes, ambitions and whatnot, and lay ourselves at His feet to wait on Him and Him only.  THEN He may do what we are hoping He will do.  He may not, but He's ceertianly not going to do it as long as we're depending on "the arm of flesh" and compromising with His enemies.

Yes, HIS ENEMIES.  Catholics are His enemies, sorry to say but it's so, they have to come out from under that antichrist church if they believe even vaguely in the true gospel, and Mormons are even more obviously His enemies because they don't even have a shred of right understanding of the true Christ, which at least the Catholics do.

Thou shalt have no other Gods before Me.  This is what we are compromising.

Again,the nation is being judged by God BECAUSE of all these compromises among His people these days.

Do we want revival, do we want the true repentance that Cahn's book promotes?  Then we have to be ABOLUTELY uncompromising in our separateness from the world and especially from false Christians.

Holiness COSTS.  Many relationships have to go.

Oh if we would do that, cut ourselves free from our compromising connections and methods, blessings would rain down on the Church and the nation, there is no doubt. 

Another case of Dispensationalist literalmindedness? -- the Jewish food laws

Got into a discussion about the food laws God gave the Israelites, the distinction between clean and unclean and why God forbade the eating of unclean animals.   Friend has the belief you sometimes hear preached these days that these laws were given in God's wisdom for their health and nutritional value.  I've always thought that idea to be one of those physicalistic interpretations that drag God down to our level, like those ideas that try to explain the parting of the Red Sea in some naturalistic terms.  But apparently this is a common way of thinking about the food laws among Christians these days, and I'm beginning to suspect this is another piece of nonsense out of Dispensationalism.

I've understood that the food laws were one of the ways God required that the Jews be separate from the nations surrounding them, partly because those nations used unclean animals in their sacrifices but at least as a way to make a distinction between God's people and the heathen.  There may be deeper explanations than I'm aware of, but to sum up my understanding, the food laws were a "type" or a picture, or a symbol, of holiness, the holiness of God's people, kept apart from the uncleanness of the world. 

When God told Peter in Acts 10 that he was now no longer to make a distinction between clean and unclean foods because God was accepting the Gentiles into His flock, the message to my mind is that the food laws never were a mere matter of what's the right thing to eat, but symbolized something else, and again, it would have to be the separateness or holiness of God's people from the heathen.  Now that the Gentiles are being brought into the fold there is no longer a distinction between Jew and Gentile but all are one in Christ.  The distinction is now between the saved and the unsaved, believers and unbelievers.

 Here's what one source said:

Although God did not reveal the specific reasons some animals may be eaten and others must be avoided, we can make generalized conclusions based on the animals included in the two categories. In listing the animals that should not be eaten, God forbids the consumption of scavengers and carrion eaters, which devour other animals for their food.

...When it comes to sea creatures, bottom dwellers such as lobsters and crabs scavenge for dead animals on the sea floor. Shellfish such as oysters, clams and mussels similarly consume decaying organic matter that sinks to the sea floor, including sewage.

A common denominator of many of the animals God designates as unclean is that they routinely eat flesh that would sicken or kill human beings. When we eat such animals we partake of a food chain that includes things harmful to people.

There can't ever have been any health reason or nutritional reason for the food laws.  People have eaten pork and lobster forever without problems. When God told Peter he was no longer to regard foods as unclean that the Gentiles ate, do you think He was giving the Gentiles some kind of second rate form of salvation?  Shouldn't he have said that Peter should explain to the believing Gentiles that they shouldn't eat some of the foods they'd always eaten because they are part of a "chain that includes things harmful to people?"

Clearly not eating scavengers is symbolic of something, like touching dead bodies was also. It isn't ABOUT what's "suitable for human consumption," it never was. It was about keeping Israel separate from the unclean idolatrous heathen and their worship of demons.

The metabolic systems of the "unclean" animals clean up the stuff they eat, reduce it to its constituents, sugars, proteins, fats and so on, which happens with ALL the digestive systems of all the animals. That's why as far as mere food goes it's fine for us to eat it. Pork and shellfish are WONDERFUL foods. I wouldn't eat bugs myself but some cultures do apparently without harm and I'm not going to say they're wrong to do so even though the idea turns my stomach. Apparently it can be life-sustaining if necessary.

It's a kind of Judaizing to treat the Jewish food laws as nutritionally superior to what Gentiles normally ate. If it had anything to do with the value of the food itself then God would be at fault for depriving the Gentile believers of that supposed wisdom.

This kind of literal-minded teaching misses the whole spirit of the Bible.

Again, I'm supposing this is just another of those wrongheaded Dispensationalist "hermeneutics" that I've identified as the basis for the attacks on The Harbinger.

The Right Wing is NOT Christian. We need a new true Protestant Reformation or we're sunk

This video was posted on the "humor" thread at EvC because to them the opinions and worries of conservatives are laughable. It's a production by Right Wing Watch, who also apparently think the Right is funny. So polarized is this nation.

There's some good stuff on it, by true Christians, but what scares ME the most is how many on the "conservative" side are in fact apostates, that is, pseudoChristians like Mormons and Catholic priests, all of them antichrists by the Biblical definition of that term.  MOST of the spokesmen on the video have to be described as apostates.  This makes a HUGE difference because God is NOT going to hear the prayers of those who have such false and unBiblical views.

Such as Glenn Beck has for instance. He's a true-blue conservative, a very good spokesman for the conservative cause, but when he appeals to God he's appealing to an idol and not the true God. That is not going to do the nation one bit of good.

And there he has David Barton with him on his show, they've become good buddies. All that proves is that David Barton's Christian beliefs are strongly compromised, if not completely cancelled out.

The very fact that we had a Mormon as our Presidential candidate already gave me a case of clenched teeth. Nice guy, good family man, solid patriot, important experience that could help the economy, great Presidential looks and so on, but a voting record against core Biblical positions, although he waffled on all that which doesn't help matters, and a blasphemous idea of God. How does that help the country?

Then there was Rick Joyner, again a good spokesman for the Right but he represents an apostate Christian positiion, the New Apostolic Reformation that accepts false prophecies and so on.  Joyner even apparently approvingly, even believingly, quoted the Mormon "prophecy" that a Mormon would become President just in time to save the Constitution which was to be "hanging by a thread" when he came to the office.

It's been hanging by a thread for years, if it's still hanging at all, and really, it isn't, it was done in years ago already.