"The political value of biblical rhetoric"

The phrase "Even presidents such as Thomas Jefferson saw the political value of biblical rhetoric," carries heavy and troubling implications. Jefferson, sometimes characterized as a Deist and hardly a Christian by any orthodoxy, revered Thomas Paine, later declaring Paine's The Rights of Man  the answer to "the political heresies that have sprung up among us." Benjamin Franklin, another "founding father" and a Deist preferred the separation of common, everyday life and religious tradition (especially evidenced in his time galavanting about in France). So why would enlightened men like Paine and Jefferson turn to "God" in the time of revolution?

As Dr. Byrd mentions, Paine wrote that "the Old Testament  was a 'history of wickednes' and more appropriately judged 'the word of a demon than the word of God." So why would a man on the opposite end of the religious spectrum from men like John Adams (a man who actually opposed an established, long-term military) use the term "God" seventeen times in addition to the biblical characters of Israel, Samuel and David to motivate an opposition to the tyranny of England? I think it can be drawn from Dr. Byrd's phrase at the beginning of this writing; propaganda and political manipulation. Was a tradition of the manipulation of the lower classes by the use of popular religious institutions established during the revolution? Did patriotism and nationalism replace protestant Christianity as the popular religious tradition post-revolution AND was this simply a manipulation by the country's elite (who, if Paine is any example, did not seem to actually believe what they were writing)?