December 6, 2010

Religious Right Refudiated

Adullam Films
Filmmaker Christian Pinto, ironically, is an evangelical Christian. He is also the founder and owner of Adullam Films, which has produced several films promoting the Biblical point of view. Interestingly, he has recently produced a documentary refuting the Religious Right's Christian nation claims.

The three-hour DVD, The Hidden Faith of the Founding Fathers, includes details of the early contributions of Thomas Paine in the formation of this republic. The film provides documentary evidence that our Constitution’s call for separation of religion and government is exactly as Thomas Jefferson describes.

Pinto also shows that the lies and distortions offered by David Barton and his ilk are nothing other than a covert effort at subversion of our founder’s and our Constitution’s intent.

Thomas Paine was the foremost promoter of Deism in his time, doing more to promote that philosophy than anyone in history. Pinto quotes from Paine's most important works, Common Sense, and The Age of Reason, demonstrating beyond doubt that Paine was far from Christian. Pinto further draws direct lines tying Paine's influence to the Revolutionary War, and to our Founders, most of whom were also Deists.

The latter parts of the documentary provides good resource for those desiring to challenge the religious right’s attempts at historical revisionism, showing it to be a complete subversion of our Constitution, and that the attempts at creating a Christian theocracy are based upon lies. In this part of the film Mr. Pinto points an accusing finger specifically to WallBuilders founder, David Barton.

Barton is well known for distorting American history and misleading Americans with his revisionism. The WallBuilders website is rife with distortion and outright lies. In this film, Barton's assertions that our Founders were Christian, and that our republic was built on Biblical principle, is roundly debunked. This documentary goes further, doing a good job of showing how the neocon lies pose a real danger to our freedoms, our country, and threaten our Constitution.

In many ways the documentary is quite good, but certainly not perfect. While Pinto cites Thomas Paine's works, revealing his Deistic beliefs and detailing Paine's influence on our Declaration of Independence, his Christian evangelical bias against Paine’s Deism are obvious. As an example, Pinto unnecessarily cites age-old and unproven gossip implicating Paine as participating in a ménage à trois with a French friend and his wife. This adds nothing to the conversation and serves only as a distraction.

More so than Deism Pinto focuses on the influence of Freemasonry on our Founders. Both Paine and Jefferson were undeniably Deists, but neither were Freemasons. Pinto offers no evidence, yet speculates that they may have been. Inversely, Freemasons George Washington and Ben Franklin were also Deists, and Pinto documents these facts quite well.

More speculation presented by Pinto is that Benjamin Franklin, while living in London, may have been involved in Satanic sacrifice while a member of The Hellfire Club. The Hellfire Club was little more than a 16th century swinger's club that spent more time conduct orgies and mocking traditional religion than conducting satanic rituals. While it is documented that Franklin was a member and undoubtedly participated in the debauchery, there is nothing more than speculation linking him to the rumored sacrifice ceremonies.

You probably shouldn’t expect that an evangelical Christian would produce a film without some attempt to proselytize. Pinto does not disappoint, but oddly enough the proselytizing is done in a way that seems to fit in with the documentary and can easily be overlooked.

In spite of Pinto’s Christian bias this documentary is well worth the $30.00 price tag. The producer has compiled an impressive arsenal of resources for Americans and true constitutionalists in their quest to keep our nation true to our founding roots.


The film trailer is on YouTube.


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