A Critique of “The Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers”

 I recently watched a documentary entitled “The Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers” by Christian J. Pinto.  I will start my critique with a summary of the work.  The bulk of Pinto’s thesis is that the Founding Fathers (of the United States of America) were not genuine Bible-believing Christians.  He tries to prove this by citing quotes (mainly from private letters or conversations) and various records which, in his mind, prove that they were deists, Freemasons, Illuminati, Catholics, Enlightenment thinkers, and/or idol worshippers.  He focuses almost entirely on five targets for such claims: Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and George Washington.  He repeatedly clarifies that the original settlers (the Pilgrims), who were genuine Bible-believing Christians are to be distinguished from the “Enlightened” Founding Fathers because they are not the same group of people, they don’t have the same beliefs, and that there was 100-150 years of time in between them.  He also frequently remarks that the public statements of the Founders were lies and that their true beliefs were only heard by a close-knit circle of like-minded patriots.  He repeatedly refutes David Barton’s works which claim that the Founders were real Christians and the United States was founded to be a “Christian nation”.  Throughout the movie, you might have a tendency to ask, “Where is all this leading?  What is the relevance of this information for us today?”  He hints at this here and there, but doesn’t really make it plain until about the last 10 minutes of the movie.  His aim is prove that whole concept of freedom of religion is wrong.   The reason why the Founders wanted freedom of religion is that this “right to worship as one sees fit” would legalize their pagan beliefs and practices, which had been, up until that time, illegal.  He reasons that since God hates all false religions, there should be no right worship in any way except the one true religion.  Modern Christians have fallen into error, he argues, by embracing this aspect of Enlightenment philosophy.

Before I address what is really the main point, let us briefly critique at what he says about America not being “Christian Nation” and the true religion of the Founding Fathers. 

Pinto is correct in saying the United States is not, and never has been (legally), a Christian nation.  Religious tests as prerequisite for holding federal offices are prohibited in the Constitution.  The Treaty of Tripoli states that "the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."  The Establishment clause of the first Amendment prohibits Congress making any religion, including Christianity, the official religion of the United States or from prohibiting the free exercise of any religion. 

However most of the original 13 colonies were founded on the Christian religion, remained Christian when they became states, and continued to be Christian after the ratification of the 1^st Amendment.  This is because the Establishment clause only prohibits Congress from making any laws that respect (for or against) the establishment of religion. Contrary to what Pinto says in the movie, the U.S. Constitution does not contain any statement that freedom of religion is an absolute or God-given right.  The foundational Scriptures concerning God’s will for civil government are Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13-16 and 1 Timothy 2:1-2. If compare these passages to preamble to the Constitution, which is the mission statement of the United States (i.e. the Federal Government), you will see that they are in agreement.

Pinto’s approach to proving that the Founders were not Christians heavily relies on proving that they had embraced religions and doctrines that are contrary to the central claims of the Christian faith. These religions include freemasonry, deism, and Catholicism.  Suffering from just as bad of a case of confirmation bias as Barton, he is uses every shred of evidence he can find in this regard even though some of it doesn’t make any sense.  For example, on the one hand, he claims that Founders were secretly deists and Enlightenment adherents and therefore rejected the miracles of the Bible and specifically the virgin birth, the trinity, the redemptive nature of the crucifixion and the resurrection of Jesus.  But on the other hand, he accuses them being closet Catholics.  That is an obvious contradiction. I would also point out the Anglican Church, one that Pinto criticizes Washington for not participating in its communion observance, is very similar to the Catholic Church.  (It broke away from the Catholic Church only because the Pope wouldn’t grant Henry VIII a divorce.  It is not a Reformation or restoration church as the true Protestant and evangelical churches are.)  During the Pilgrim/Puritan era which Pinto speaks of as being different than the era of the Founding Fathers, the Maryland colony was founded to be a safe haven for Catholics.  Virginia, North and South Carolina, and Georgia had the Anglican Church as their official religion long before the American Revolution. 

Like a one-sided, modern day, mudslinging political commercial, Pinto threw everything against the wall, hoping that something would stick.  Pinto even tries to associate them Mormonism, a religion started by Joseph Smith, Jr. who allegedly had his first vision in 1820 and didn’t write the Book of Mormon until 1830, four years after the last of "the five" (Jefferson) was dead.  He shows pictures of various paintings and sculptures of gods and goddess, most of which were made long after their deaths as well.  He digs up all kinds of quotes to try to prove that none of the Founders repented and accepted Christ even in their dying breath, as if that were possible to actually know for sure. (Why is this important?) 

However, Pinto is correct to criticize Barton, who does the same sort of things and cites quotes out of context in his efforts to prove the opposite side of the issue.  I actually already believed, before watching this movie, that Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson were not true Christians (at least not at the time of the Revolution).  John Adams may have started out as a mainstream Christian before converting to Unitarianism.  But I think that the majority of the Founders were real Christians.  But why does this issue really even matter?  Does your spiritual well-being hinge on whether or not you can identify which historical figures were Christians and which ones were not?  If you really wanted hold up a couple of the Founders as being non-Christians, wouldn’t it be much easier to pick the two who had a duel?  (I am talking about Hamilton and Burr, of course.) Wouldn’t that take much less digging into historical documents and wouldn’t it be better to avoid all of these less-convincing “separation of fact from fiction” arguments? 

Enough of that.  Let’s get onto Pinto’s main point. (Pinto actually spends very little time talking about it!)

In Acts 5:38-39, Luke records the words of Gamaliel, “So in the present case I tell you, keep away from these men [the Apostles] and let them alone, for if this plan or this undertaking is of man, it will fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them.”  I recognize that Gamaliel probably wasn’t a Christian.  However he was “held in honor by all the people”.  The fact that his words, which express the idea of religious freedom, persuaded the Sadducees to let the Apostles go free is something that shouldn’t be taken lightly.  But Pinto apparently thinks that Gamaliel’s outlook was wrong.

The reason why not only the Founders, but many ordinary Bible-believing citizens, supported religious freedom was because some of the Christian denominations were persecuting Christians of other denominations.  The Puritans had put some Quakers to death just because they were Quakers.  The Danbury Baptists were persecuted by the Connecticut Congregationalist church.  People also knew that, in times past, the King of England persecuted anybody who did not agree with the specific doctrines of the Church of England.  I suppose it’s possible that some of the Founders may have wanted to have religious freedom in order to practice evil religion (I don’t claim to be able read minds!), but what they did gave us freedom to worship as God wills of us.  Regardless of motives, we should honor our authorities (Romans 13:7) when they do what is right.

The crux of the issue is that Pinto fails to make a distinction between what is a right and what is right.  In other words, just because you believe something is sinful according to God’s Word, that doesn’t necessarily mean that you must believe it should be against the civil law.  Pinto states (I am paraphrasing) that there is nowhere in the Bible where God gives governments the responsibility of ensuring religious freedom.  He framed the issue the wrong way.  If a government does nothing (concerning religion), then people do have religious freedom.  Thus, the burden of proof is actually on Pinto to show that God commands governments to act against false religion, not the other way around.  In the absence of such evidence, it is a best an open question.

To illustrate this point further, suppose someone were to propose a Constitutional Amendment guaranteeing the right to eat pizza.  As silly as this sounds, the amendment would not be unscriptural.  You could argue that this is wrong because somebody could eat too much pizza and thereby be guilty of gluttony.  I think that it is safe to say that there is nowhere in the Bible where it says that government authorities have a biblical prerogative to protect pizza-eating. But this is irrelevant.  The relevant fact is that there nothing in the Scriptures that gives them the responsibility to ban it.

Pinto quotes “The times of ignorance God overlooked, but now he commands all people everywhere to repent…” (Acts 17:30).  In context Paul is talking about idol worship, but Pinto leaves out or glosses over the rest of the verse which says, “…because he has fixed a day on which he will judge the world in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed; of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”  But this passage does not say that it is man’s prerogative to judge the world, but God’s.  (Jesus is obviously the one referred to as “a man”.)  The first part of the statement is in present tense, but the last part of the statement is in future tense and is obviously referring to the Day of Judgment.  In other words, the command to repent is for now, but judgment is later.  The “overlooking” refers to relative leniency in post-death judgment for those who died before Christ in comparison with those of the New Testament dispensation.  Like many other passages Pinto quotes to support his view, there is absolutely no commandment expressly given or implied for civil government.

Many people across the political spectrum similarly twist the Scriptures using this same reasoning to support various worldviews.  Commandments to give to the poor are used to support Socialism, Communism, and/or welfare programs and public education.  “I will bless those who bless you…” is used to politically support the nation of Israel.  I don’t have anything against the nation of Israel, but using such scriptures for that purpose is very bad exegesis.

Here is one example of a time when God gave the people the right to do something that wasn’t right.  In I Samuel 8, God told the people that they should not be desirous of having a king.  Nevertheless, he allowed the people the choice to have a king.  It is obvious from this passage that, if civil government is given too much centralized power, it tends to become corrupt and abuses the people.  This is a point that Pinto would do well to consider before supporting the idea that civil government should be given the power to decide who is to be punished for religious heresy.

Divorce and remarriage after divorce were permitted with minimal limitations under the Law of Moses (Deuteronomy 24:1-4), but Jesus commanded against it (Matthew 19), saying, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery…Not everyone can receive this saying, but only those to whom it is given.”  Thus, this is an example of a case where God permits, even now, something that isn’t right.  Of course this allowance is only temporary.  In the end, those who do not repent will face the judgment of God.  But Pinto is using general statements about God’s judgment to try to prove punishment for religious heresy is for now.

But let me help Pinto with his argument by quoting some Scriptures that he has overlooked.  These are the passages I mentioned earlier, namely Romans 13:1-7, 1 Peter 2:13-16 and 1 Timothy 2:1-2.  According to these passages, the role of civil government is to:

1. Be God’s servant.
2. Be a terror to bad conduct.
3. Be an avenger who carries out God's wrath (or punishment) on the wrongdoer.
4. Refrain from being a terror to good conduct.
5. Praise those who do what is right.
6. Facilitate, for believers, a peaceful and quiet lifestyle, godly and dignified in every way.

If the real purpose of “The Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers” was to try to convince people that government should punish worshippers of false gods, why didn’t Pinto use these verses to prove his point? Of course, it is impractical for a government to punish every evil deed which occurs within its jurisdiction.  Thus the central question is, among the acts of evil that men may commit, which ones should government focus on deterring?  Doctrines like the virgin birth, the trinity, redemption through the cross and the resurrection are vital to our religious faith and for eternal salvation, but has God mandated that a failure to believe these is a crime for today’s governments to punish? 

Consider that Paul wrote in I Corinthians 5:11-13 (ESV), “But now I am writing to you not to associate with anyone who bears the name of brother if he is guilty of sexual immorality or greed, or is an idolater, reviler, drunkard, or swindler—not even to eat with such a one. For what have I to do with judging outsiders?  Is it not those inside the church whom you are to judge? God judges those outside.”  When Paul refers to the judgment of the one “who bears the name of brother”, he is clearly speaking of one of the prerogatives of church authority, not one of civil authority.  This is easy to see because it is the one “who bears the name of brother” who is “inside the church”.  Obviously, civil authority is God’s instrument to judge both those who are outside and inside the Church.  But for the sins that Paul mentions (sexual immorality, greed, idolatry, reviling, drunkenness, and swindling), it is primarily the authority of the Church to judge those in the Church, because, at least in many cases, it isn’t appropriate or practical for civil government to judge such sins in a way that accomplishes God’s purpose for the judgment. (See 1 Corinthians 5:5, 7.)

I see the sixth item in the above list of prerogatives for civil government as being the key to understanding the answer to the central question, “Which acts of evil should government deter?”.  That is to say, government should protect the innocent and promote peace primarily by punishing people who commit unjustified acts of violence, and secondarily by punishing other acts which are potentially dangerous to one’s physical well-being or property, may readily lead to violence, or in some other way prevent peaceful and quiet living.  But Pinto criticizes the Founders for having this aim, quoting I Thessalonians 5:3, “For when they shall say, Peace and safety; then sudden destruction cometh upon them, as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape.”  But of course this passage isn’t teaching that it is wrong to seek peace for your nation. See Hebrews 12:14, Romans 12:18, etc.  I Thessalonians 5:3 is talking about a government which will falsely promise peace with no intentions of delivering it. It is a specific government--one which will be in place at the time of Christ’s return.  Since most or at least a great many of the Founders died peacefully of old age, I certainly don’t see “sudden destruction” as an apt description of their fate.  Pinto certainly did not prove this particular point to my satisfaction. 

In summary, Pinto puts you through so much hearsay evidence just to prove that five men were pagan, Masonic, deist, and Catholic devotees of Rousseau and Voltaire.  Then he asks you to conclude that, guilty by association, the rest of the Founders were also not real Christians.  You are told to be disbelieve the sincerity of what they said in public in front of many witnesses and yet trust the testimony of a small number of witnesses. Then, if he has you convinced that he knows what he is talking about, he hopes to get you to accept, without thinking critically, the conclusion that the reason why the Founders supported religious freedom is so that they could practice their pagan religion without persecution.  From this, without any real proof, he asks us to further conclude that whole idea religious freedom must be wrong and that American Christians both then and now have been duped into believing this supposedly unscriptural concept.