Having looked into the Masonic texts myself, I can only partly agree with this sentiment.

There were a number of Masonic Sects which didn't have the dogmatic uniformity of today's modern sects, and some did dismiss Jesus in particular, but they all affirmed the existence of the Christos figure.

The Christ is the embodiment (incarnation) of Man's Perfection.

The "Perfect" Man, but said another way.

A Perfect being who is equally between all things -- the Quintessence of the Realm of Man.

The Quintessence is the Physical Christ. Christ is the Spiritual Quintessence.

In modern parlance, we could say they are "quantumly entangled."

In the time of the Founding Fathers, the term was "Con-Substantial"

Or, "of the same Substance" as God.

Our Founding Fathers, therefore, believed in the Christian model, but left room for the proper Messiah to be determined. The majority revered Jesus as the Christos, as there had not yet been any figure as appropriately deserving of the title.

So, again, "Christ" to the Founding Fathers did not necessarily mean Jesus, but that which Jesus represented both symbolically and substantially as the "Materia" by which the Creator molded his Creation.

That is why they refer explicitly to a "Creator" in their documents, including Jefferson's Declaration of Independence.

For one, they were confronting the very basis of a Monarchy and Rites of Succession, so that's one surface-level reason for the dissociation from the "King of Kings" we know as Jesus, but that's a superficial defense in light of the Masonic Teachings.

No...

It's like I stated. They believe in a Christ, and a Creator, but leave open for the possibility that the historical Jesus is not that Christ. But that doesn't mean they don't discount him as Christ, only that they in good conscience couldn't declare him Christ without knowing him first.

As it stands, I'll let Paine's passage on religion speak for himself. Just keep in mind Christ is and is not Jesus in the Masonic mindset.

129

As to religion, I hold it to be the indispensable duty of government to protect all conscientious professors thereof, and I know of no other business which government hath to do therewith. Let a man throw aside that narrowness of soul, that selfishness of principle, which the niggards of all professions are so unwilling to part with, and he will be at once delivered of his fears on that head. Suspicion is the companion of mean souls, and the bane of all good society. For myself, I fully and conscientiously believe that it is the will of the Almighty that there should be a diversity of religious opinions among us. It affords a larger field for our Christian kindness. Were we all of one way of thinking, our religious dispositions would want matter for probation; and on this liberal principle I look on the various denominations among us to be like children of the same family, differing only in what is called their Christian names.

Regardless, without Paine and the efforts of the other Founding Fathers, Christianity would have already been extinguished.

View the United States like a time capsule for Christianity. An attempt at preserving the ideals of Christianity in a World they saw turning totally as profane as it was in the time of Babylon.