Warren….. Given that David Barton has responded to one critic, I think he now needs to respond to the rest of us, but this time really address a substantial issue – namely the December 5 letter from Rush to Adams.

I really doubt it. Barton said in that post:

Normally, we simply ignore these types of absurd claims…..

Absudity, thy name be Throckmorton! At least to Barton. Which is sufficient to say that he’s deluded himself enough not to care what you or anyone else might say. Afterall, he got on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart…. and you didn’t.
And I hope you take that with the tongue in cheek humor in which it was given. No doubt Barton would say I was defending him, however.

LocoBreath – If you are correct about Adams, then he was a liar in public. As far as I can tell, Barton has never dealt with Adams’ statements about the Trinity to Thomas Jefferson. Adams views about Providence can be explained within a Unitarian framework, however, his statements on the Trinity, Christ’s atonement, etc., cannot be explained by seeing him as an Protestant evangelical. Until you all deal with that, you are guilty of selective quotation as you say the liberals are.
Barton ignored completely Rush’s December 5 letter which puts this whole issue to rest.

In fact, Barton does not provide one other authority who supports him.”

(You’ve obviously not read much of Barton’s blog or his numerous books.)
2) I found Mr. Barton’s rebuttal of this Pinto guy’s critique to be rational, concise, well-documented and educational.
To each their own.
God bless you, and happy Independence Day!

Adams begins by first establishing the accepted doctrine of the Holy Spirit according to Period III Reformation Christianity, telling Rush:

But my friend there is something very serious in this business. The Holy Ghost carries on the whole Christian system in this Earth. Not a baptism, not a marriage, not a sacrament can be administered but by the Holy Ghost, Who is transmitted from age to age by laying the hands of the bishop on the heads of candidates for the ministry.

This statement is sound, solid, orthodox Christian doctrine. But Adams then contrasts that positive statement about the Holy Spirit with the perverted doctrine from Period II:

In the same manner, as the Holy Ghost is transmitted from monarch to monarch by the holy oil in the vial at Rheims which was brought down from Heaven by a dove and by that other phial [vial] which I have seen in the Tower of London.

Notice his use of the very important phrase: “In the same manner, as….” That is, having stated the right doctrine of the Holy Ghost, he now looks at the distortion of it – at how it was presented falsely “in the same manner,” but this time not in regards to “candidates for the ministry” (i.e., the Church, which is the proper use), but rather by wrongly teaching that the Holy Ghost is transferred from king to king (i.e., the State, which is not the proper use) by way of the oil brought from Heaven. Concerning this perverted view of the Holy Spirit from Period II, Adams laments:

Although this is all artifice and cunning in the sacred original in the heart, yet they all believe it so sincerely that they would lay down their lives under the ax or the fiery fagot [bundle of wood used for burning individuals at the stake] for it. Alas, the poor weak ignorant dupe, human nature. There is so much king craft, priest craft, gentlemens craft, peoples craft, doctors craft, lawyers craft, merchants craft, tradesmens craft, laborers craft, and Devils craft in the world that it seems a desperate [hopeless] and impractical project to undeceive it.

Adams clearly is not condemning Christianity or Biblical doctrine regarding the Holy Ghost, but is rather reproaching its twisting during Period II, noting that those who follow the Divine Right of Kings maldoctrine are willing to die for their belief “under the ax or the fiery fagots,” and thus suffer from that “poor weak ignorant dupe, human nature” – that is, human depravity is on full display, and so thoroughly convinced of the truth of this maldoctrine were its followers that it even seemed a waste of time to Adams to try to convince them otherwise.

But Barton leaves out two very important sentences of that paragraph (double indented to align with the other quotes from Adams).

There is no authority civil or religious: There can be no legitimate government but that which is administered by this Holy Ghost. There can be no salvation without it. All without it is rebellion and perdition, or in more orthodox words damnation.

And these occur just after the “In the same manner” statement in which Barton claims Adams is stating distortions of the doctrine of the Holy Ghost and before the “artifice and cunning” statement which Barton claims is further condemnation of the transmital of the divine right of kings. And yet Adams says “no authority civil or religious” and “no legitimate government” except by “this Holy Ghost.” Thus if Barton must be correct then the government of the United States cannot be so blessed by “this Holy Ghost” or by Christianity because in the end it is all “artiface and cunning” – as in Barton’s.
Barton’s screed is also rather anti-Catholic. Barton’s praise of the Reformation and his comparison of American Christianity to that of “European Christianity” seems a thinly-veiled condemnation of Catholicism.
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