Thursday, January 10, 2013

Historical Attempts to MAKE the Constitution Christian, proving that it is not and never was a Christian document

I hope Chris Pinto doesn't mind if I quote a whole article of his from his website (below), including the URL of course. 

He's many times on his radio show mentioned the attempt by some to introduce a Christian Preamble to the Constitution, and this article is where he documents various attempts of that sort made over the period from the Civil War to 1910 and then another attempt in 1947. 

Such efforts to introduce Christian principles into the Constitution ought to make it clear that the nation was NOT founded on such principles as so many have been claiming for some time.  The documents that form the law of the nation are NOT Christian.

There are quotes easily enough available from Jefferson, Adams, Franklin and Paine to demonstrate not only their NONChristian beliefs but frankly ANTIChristian beliefs as they outright deny the Deity of Jesus Christ and ridicule such basic Christian doctrines as the supernatural conception of Christ by a virgin.   For anyone to go on presenting any of these men as Christians after knowing this about their beliefs involves either great delusion or an attempt to deceive.

George Washington carefully kept his beliefs to himself, but it is known that he refused to take Communion at his church during his Presidency, and the pastor of that church specifically called him a "Deist."  As I've mentioned here before, it's not right to call him or the others Deists by today's understanding of the term, because they did believe in prayer and God's Providence, but all five of them appear to have denied the most basic Christian principles.  There is some reason to believe that Washington may have converted to Romanism on his death bed which would imply he accepted the deity of Christ at least at that time, but Romanism was not considered to be Christian then and shouldn't be now either.

There is a great deal of confusion over the fact that these men can sound very "Christian" at times in their statements that favor Christian morality and their references to "God," as in "Nature's God," but this is deceptive. 

It ought to be a red flag to anyone who understands even a little about Masonry that the Declaration of Independence was written on a Masonic lambskin apron.  How often are we given that bit of factual information?   It ought to give us a clue as to what "God" was invoked in that document under the phrase "Nature's God."

Christians don't balk at that phrase because it's not in any obvious way inconsistent with Biblical views of God, and you could find some Biblical support for it if you were determined to, but in the context of the making of the founding documents of America, in the context of the philosophical frame of mind of at least the main names involved in that enterprise, it is NOT a Biblical concept at all.  In fact it identifies God as part of Nature rather than as the transcendant Creator God of the Bible.  Pinto says the phrase was specifically chosen to CONTRADICT the Biblical understanding of God, though I don't have access right now to his source for that.  In any case it's not hard to find that the phrase "Nature's God" was associated with DEISM and not with Christianity.  Wikipedia's entry on that phrase says flatly that it's Deist, and here's a quote from another article on the subject:
"Nature's God" was clearly the God of deism in all important ways. That Jefferson included God in the "Declaration of Independence" is very significant because it helped lay the foundation for a civil religion in America. Paul Johnson addressed the civil religion begun by the founders in his article, "The Almost-Chosen People,"[20] saying that the United States was unique because all religious beliefs were respected. People were more concerned with "moral conduct rather than dogma." So Jefferson helped create a society in which different religions could coexist peacefully because of the emphasis on morality over specific belief.[21]
Get the phrase "a civil religion" for which the Declaration of Independence is said to lay the foundation, NOT Christianity.  It's always sounded good even to Christians that "all religious beliefs were respected" in America, but when the fog of delusion that surrounds this concept clears for a moment, can't we see that this is nothing else than supporting the idolatrous religions of the world as if they are equal to the true religion, and violating the commandment to "have no other gods before Me?"  It's right to tolerate other beliefs, but our great error is that we've put them on an equal footing with Christianity and given them powers they should never have been allowed to have if the nation really was in any sense Christian.  What have we been thinking?  Why hasn't this FACT been screamed from pulpits so that it couldn't have been missed, instead of treated as righteous?  And "moral conduct" is what ALL religions promote, why is that made the foundation of anything American and worse than that, why is it mistaken for something CHRISTIAN?  Even if it's based on the Bible it is NOT Christianity.  Yet what have Christians done with all this?  We thank God for our freedom to worship in this nation as if that's all that matters, not taking note of the fact that every idolatrous, satanic and evil religion is likewise given freedom which is an affront to God and can only promote the release of demonic powers against Christians in the end, which is already curtailing OUR freedoms and may soon bring them to a halt.  What HAVE we been thinking?

Another clue to the NONChristian nature of our founding documents is that whether or not to include references to God in the Constitution was debated in Congress and decided AGAINST. 

There is also the controversial Treaty of Tripoli which flatly states that America is not a Christian nation.  This is controversial but I believe Pinto has shown that it was clearly intentional and reflected the anti-Christian beliefs of Washington and Adams who had most to do with it.

And here's Pinto's article on later attempts to MAKE the Constitution Christian, which by itself ought to demonstrate that it was NOT Christian at its inception:

CHRISTIAN PREAMBLE TO THE CONSTITUTION
Friday, April 1, 2011 at 11:30AM Chris Pinto

Once one gets away from the popular propaganda about the United States being founded as a “Christian nation,” and looks to the real history, the pieces of the puzzle make much more sense.

In truth, Christians have been lifting up a shout against our “God-less” and “Christ-less” governing documents since they were first written. In 1845 a pastor by the name of Rev. D.X. Junkin published the following against the oath taken by an American President sworn into office:
The oath of the President of the United States could as well be taken by a pagan or a Mohammedan as by the Chief Magistrate of a Christian people: it excludes the name of the Supreme Being. Indeed it is negatively atheistical, for no God is appealed to at all. In framing many of our public formularies, greater care seems to have been taken to adapt them to the prejudices of the infidel few than to the consciences of the Christian millions.” (Source: Proceedings of the National Convention to Secure the Religious Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, by T.P. Stevenson, Corresponding Secretary of the National Association, p.iii)
The above quote is perhaps the most damning piece of evidence against the Revolutionaries, who began their declaration with “We the People” as if to suggest that they represented the interests of the greater body of Americans. In reality, as we see so often today, they did not represent “the People,” but rather their own minority opinion. We must note that this did not begin with Carter, Clinton, Obama and Pelosi – it began with Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Franklin.

In the 19th century, T.P. Stevenson, the Corresponding Secretary of the National Association to Secure the Religious Amendment of the Constitution wrote:
“That there is no acknowledgement of God or of the Christian religion in the Constitution of the United States, has been deplored by many devout and thoughtful men ever since that otherwise admirable political instrument was framed.” (Ibid, p.iii)
During the Civil War Era, the National Reform Association launched an effort to re-write the Preamble to the Constitution because it was believed that the war was God’s punishment on the country for leaving God out of the Constitution. In 1863, we read the following which had been drafted by Mr. John Alexander of Philadelphia:


“In this, the day of our national calamity, it becomes us to inquire what the Lord would have us to do ... In the earlier struggles of the people for national independence, the frequent acknowledgement of God and his authority ... gave evidence of a religious public sentiment in the nation ....But alas for human frailty and ingratitude! Instead of going on to promote more and more the glory of God and the rights of man, a terrible, and ... fatal backward step was taken in adopting that otherwise noble instrument (i.e. the Constitution) without any direct recognition of God or his authority and with a toleration of human slavery ... From that day the nation has been demoralized by the promulgation of an instrument as the paramount law of the land, which is far beneath the Christian sentiment of the nation .... And now God has arisen in His anger and is vindicating His own glory and the cause of the poor and the oppressed. Therefore His just judgments are upon us as a nation, and we must repent and forsake our national sins, or be destroyed.”(Ibid, p.iv)
It is quite interesting that the Christians of America recognized the wickedness of the slave trade in this country. Kidnapping men, women and children from their own countries and then selling them into demoralizing circumstances stood contrary to the commandments of God, and the mercy of Jesus Christ. It was for the cause of slavery that the children of Israel themselves became slaves in ancient Babylon. Because they refused to let their slaves free, God punished them severely (Jeremiah 34:14-17). It seems that believers in America at that time had an understanding of this. Alexander went on to say:

“We regard the Emancipation Proclamation of the President and his recommendation to purge the Constitution of Slavery as among the most hopeful signs of the times. But we regard the neglect of God and His law, by omitting all acknowledgement of them in our Constitution, as the crowning, original sin of the nation, and slavery as one of its natural outgrowths. Therefore the most important step remains yet to be taken, -- to amend the Constitution so as to acknowledge God and the authority of His law ...” (Ibid, pp. iv, v)
Alexander went on to say,
“True, it may be said that under our present excellent Constitution we have enjoyed great prosperity ... But do we not know that God is long- suffering and slow to wrath ... Does not every one see that God is displeased with us as a nation, and has been provoked to bring upon us this terrible calamity?”
All this having been said, the following amended Preamble for the Constitution was set forth by Alexander and his committee:

“We, THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES, [recognizing the being and attributes of Almighty God, the Divine Authority of the Holy Scriptures, the law of God as the paramount rule, and Jesus, the Messiah, the Saviour and Lord of all] in order to form a more perfect union ... do ordain this Constitution ...” (Ibid, p.v)
As we know, the attempt at implementing this Preamble in 1863 proved unsuccessful, but was far from the end of the issue. In the book, “Separation of Church and State” by authors Johnson and Yost, we read the following:

“From time to time efforts have been made to put what has been termed ‘God into our Federal Constitution.’ An Amendment was proposed to that effect in 1844. Again in 1865 President Lincoln had a delegation of ministers representing a number of different denominations call upon him in a similar effort. The National Reform Association has been instrumental in spearheading such attempts on various occasions. In an effort to recognize the Christian religion and Jesus Christ as its author, religious amendments were introduced in Congress in 1894, 1895, 1896, 1908, 1909, and in 1910."
It appears that no attempts have been made since then until July 15, 1947, when in the House of Representatives, Representative Louis E. Graham of Pennsylvania proposed that the United States acknowledge Jesus Christ as Saviour and King by an amendment to the Constitution of the United States. On July 18 of the same year, Senator Arthur Capper of Kansas proposed a similar amendment. These two resolutions, House Joint Resolution 239 and Senate Joint Resolution 150, introduced in the Eightieth Congress, are identical and read as follows:

“Resolved by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America ... The Preamble of this Constitution shall hereafter Read: ‘We, the People of the United States, DEVOUTLY RECOGNIZING THE AUTHORITY AND LAW OF JESUS CHRIST, THE SAVIOUR AND KING OF NATIONS, in order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice ...” etc. (Source: Separation of Church and State in the United States, by Alvin W. Johnson, Frank H. Yost)
The importance of showing this information to a modern Christian audience is to demonstrate that the United States, its Constitution, and original government was not a “Christian” entity as is often portrayed by certain teachers in our churches. The history as presented by these men can only be called “propaganda” designed for some other purpose, than giving an accurate portrait of America’s past. It is provable beyond any doubt that Bible believers in this country have objected to the pagan, deist, infidel Revolutionaries and their God-less government from the beginning.

Recognizing that false histories have been used to foment some of the most horrid and bloodthirsty movements in recent memory (Nazism, Communism, etc.), as believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, we must be on the alert, and do our diligence to keep watch, and be certain to “prove all things” as the Lord has commanded us to do. For if we allow ourselves to be deceived, as the serpent beguiled Eve with his craftiness, will we not be without excuse before God? Have we not been warned? If we shut out the voices of the past, and those sober witnesses who have cried out, will we not be all the more guilty in the sight of heaven? Tyrants, wolves, and wicked men of every stripe have endeavored to manipulate the Church of Christ for their own evil purposes. Our responsibility is to maintain holiness and to walk in the fear of God, and resist these deceivers, lest we allow the churches in our nation to be used for a worldly and diabolical end.    [end Pinto quote.  My boldings]

6 comments:

Bill Fortenberry said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Bill Fortenberry said...

The conclusion to my book Hidden Facts of the Founding Era lists 49 points in the Constitution that find their precursors in the Bible. You can read the entire list by clicking on the link to the conclusion at this page: http://christian76.com/hidden-facts.

Also, I have read Madison's notes on the Constitutional convention, and he does not record any decision to leave God out of the Constitution.

Faith said...

Hello Mr. Forten, thanks for your comment.

You seem to be missing the core of the argument here. I don't doubt that there are Biblical influences on -- and IN -- the Constitution, but there are at least two reasons why that doesn't affect this argument:

1) The "Big Five" Founders did not reject all of the Bible, in fact they affirmed its moral teachings quite strongly and wanted the nation to adhere to them. Their belief in Providence had to do with the idea that God would bless a nation that honored His moral law. But that belief in Providence was not part of a Christian frame of reference, but either a Masonic or a Deistic or a Unitarian frame of reference instead.

These things, while Biblical, are not specifically CHRISTIAN. The five founders in question denied the specifically CHRISTIAN teachings of the Deity of Christ, His virgin birth and other supernatural events that are evidence of His identify as the Messiah, and the gospel of salvation by His death. Adams RIDICULED these basic Christian tenets.

Nobody is disputing that you can find Biblical principles in their thinking and probably also in the Constitution, though I'll have to check out your link some other time.

2) As I keep saying, Christians are very often confused and deceived by what SOUND like very Christian statements by these men and in our documents as well, although they can often be shown to have been derived from the philosophy of Deism or Unitarianism and other anti-Christian beliefs.

As for your remark about Madison's notes, I hope you aren't accusing anyone of making it up that God was intentionally excluded from the Constitution, and if you aren't then we simply need to find out what the source of that knowledge was. As I recall, it was a Christian pastor who was quoted on this subject in the film Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers, and I don't recall his name and don't know if a source was given for his information.

Bill Fortenberry said...

In my book, I present original source evidence to prove that Mr. Pinto is very much mistaken in his conclusions about those that he presents as the "big five" founding fathers. For example, I have proven that the first of his five, Thomas Paine, was not a founding father at all. He had no influence on any of our founding documents. In fact, John Adams said of Paine that "He understood neither government nor religion," and when Paine was imprisoned in a French jail, several of the founders wrote to each other that it would be best for everyone if he stayed there.

In regards to Thomas Jefferson, I actually agree with Mr. Pinto's conclusion that he was not a Christian. However, I have shown that he was not the least bit hostile to the Christian faith as Mr. Pinto claims. Mr. Pinto went to great lengths to paint Jefferson as a monster - even to the point of falsely accusing him of condoning the Reign of Terror. Here is the statement that Mr. Pinto made in this regard:

"When Jefferson heard of the terrible bloodshed happening during the Reign of Terror and the countless thousands that were murdered during the French Revolution, he commented that: ‘...rather than it should have failed, I would have seen half the earth desolated ... were there but an Adam and Eve left in every country, and left free, it would be better than as it now is.’ In other words, mass murder as many people as necessary in order to accomplish the cause of so-called freedom.”

This is a gross mischaracterization of the worst caliber. Mr. Jefferson’s comment is used to accuse him of being complicit in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people, but there is a simple little fact about this statement that has been hidden from the public. Mr. Jefferson’s comment was made in a letter dated January 3, 1793. This fact may seem inconsequential until we remember that the Reign of Terror did not begin until eight months later in September of 1793. It is not possible for Mr. Jefferson to have been speaking of the Reign of Terror in the past tense eight months before it took place.

To discover Mr. Jefferson’s view of the actual Reign of Terror, we must turn to a letter which was written after the events of that era not one that preceded it by nearly a year. In a letter dated June 1, 1795, Mr. Jefferson wrote:

"This ball of liberty, I believe most piously, is now so well in motion that it will roll around the globe. At least the enlightened part of it, for light & liberty go together. It is our glory that we first put it into motion, & our happiness that being foremost we had no bad examples to follow. What a tremendous obstacle to the future attempts at liberty will be the atrocities of Robespierre!"

Bill Fortenberry said...

The other three of Mr. Pinto’s “big five” founders were all Christians. Mr. Pinto’s claims to the opposite are founded on nothing more than misquotes, mischaracterizations and pure deceit. Whether Mr. Pinto is the one deceiving or is himself being deceived I do not know, but I have documented multiple proofs of the deceptive nature of the information in his film. For example, Mr. Pinto claims that Benjamin Franklin said, “Original sin was as ridiculous as imputed righteousness.” This quote was presented toward the beginning of the segment on Mr. Franklin, and I would appreciate it if you would go back and find the quote in the film. You will notice something very interesting. Mr. Pinto does not give any source for this quote. The reason that he does not give a source for this quote is that there is no record of this phrase ever being uttered by Mr. Franklin. Mr. Pinto used this undocumented quote to claim that Mr. Franklin rejected the atonement offered by Christ and believed instead in a works based salvation. This belief was flatly rejected by Mr. Franklin who wrote:

“Christ gave himself for us that he might redeem us from all Iniquity, and purify to himself a peculiar People zealous of Good-Works. And there is scarcely a Chapter in the whole Gospels or Epistles from which this Doctrine can’t be prov’d.”

And also:

“Christ by his Death and Sufferings has purchas’d for us those easy Terms and Conditions of our Acceptance with God, propos’d in the Gospel, to wit, Faith and Repentance.”

These are not the statements of a Deist but rather of a Christian. Those who claim that Mr. Franklin was a Deist invariably cite the statement in his autobiography in which he confesses to have become a Deist. What is seldom pointed out, however, is that this occurred when Mr. Franklin was a 15 year old boy. The very same paragraph in which Franklin states that he accepted Deism as a boy also states that he soon found reason to reject that philosophy. Of course, that portion of his autobiography is not mentioned in Mr. Pinto’s film.

Mr. Pinto’s claims about John Adams are mostly based on a collection of artfully edited quotes. Once again, I do not know if Mr. Pinto edited these quotes himself or if he has simply repeated the deception, but he seems to have claimed the material in his film as his own research into the original documents of our founding fathers. In my book, I show the reader the full, unedited source of each of the quotes that Mr. Pinto presented. When the statements that appeared so damning in Mr. Pinto’s film are read in their original context, most of them are immediately recognized as stating the opposite of what Mr. Pinto claimed. To prove that Mr. Adams was a Christian, one need only turn to the letters that he wrote to his wife in which he made multiple attestations of his faith in Jesus Christ as his savior. I included several of these statements in my book.

The last of Mr. Pinto’s “big five” was George Washington, and his defamation of this man’s character is one of the worst examples of historical research that I have ever seen. For example, Mr. Pinto quotes Mr. Washington as having said:

"Being no bigot myself to any mode of worship, I am disposed to indulge the professors of Christianity in the church, that road to Heaven, which to them shall seem the most direct plainest, easiest, and least liable to exception."

But if you will take the time to notice, Mr. Pinto did not document this quote from the writings of George Washington. Instead, he included a small footnote under the quote to show that he discovered it in Peter Lillback’s 2006 book George Washington’s Sacred Fire. A high quality scan of the original letter in Mr. Washington’s own handwriting is readily available online, and I take the time in my book to show the significant difference between this quote as it appears in Mr. Lillback’s book and as it was originally written by Mr. Washington.

Bill Fortenberry said...

Another example of Mr. Pinto’s poor research in this segment can be seen in his claim that the concept of religious freedom was introduced into England as part of a Jesuit plot in 1688. Either Mr. Pinto is extremely ignorant of the history of religious freedom or he is intentionally deceiving his listeners. As I show in my book, the concept of religious liberty was introduced in England by Thomas Helwys, the founder of the first Baptist church in that nation. This concept was then brought to America by the Baptists and established in Rhode Island long before Mr. Pinto’s Jesuit plot was ever even dreamed of. No one who has ever actually studied our religious freedom can possibly disagree with the statement by historian George Bancroft that “Freedom of conscience, unlimited freedom of mind, was, from the first, the trophy of the Baptists.”

Also in my book, I provide evidence that Mr. Washington did partake of communion, that he did pray daily to the Christian God and that he admitted in his own words that he was not a Mason during the time of the Revolution. The latter of these is proven by this statement from Mr. Washington:

“I have heard much of the nefarious and dangerous plan and doctrines of the Illuminati, but never saw the book until you were pleased to send it to me. The same causes which have prevented my acknowledging the receipt of your letter, have prevented my reading the book hitherto; namely, the multiplicity of matters which pressed upon me before, and the debilitated state in which I was left, after a severe fever had been removed, and which allows me to add little more now than thanks for your kind wishes and favorable sentiments, except to correct an error you have run into, of my presiding over the English Lodges in this country. The fact is I preside over none, nor have I been in one more than once or twice within the last thirty years. I believe, notwithstanding, that none of the Lodges in this country are contaminated with the principles ascribed to the society of the Illuminati.”

Also in my section on Mr. Washington, I provide the following quote which I have observed in Mr. Washington’s own writings as proof of his Christian faith:

“O God, who art rich in mercy and plenteous in redemption, mark not, I beseech thee, what I have done amiss; remember I am but dust, and remit my transgressions, negligences & ignorances, and cover them all with the absolute obedience of thy dear Son, that those sacrifices which I have offered may be accepted by thee, in and for the sacrifice Jesus Christ offered upon the cross for me; for his sake, ease me of the burden of my sins, and give me grace that by the call of the Gospel I may rise from the slumber of sin unto newness of life.”

Of course, the material in my book extends much further than this brief response, and I would be more than willing to email you a free copy to read in its entirety. If you would be so kind as to fill out the “Contact Us” page on my website, I will be sure to send you a copy right away.