Comments on: William Penn founded the Quakers and other tall tales from David Barton https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/ A [retired] college psychology professor's observations about public policy, mental health, sexual identity, and religious issues Wed, 30 May 2018 19:51:42 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=7.1.3 By: Warren https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-90946 Wed, 30 May 2018 19:51:42 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-90946 Jon Rowe wrote:

Though I am starting to see some consistency in Barton’s understanding of Christian minimums. If non-Trinitarians like Mormons can qualify as “Christians,” so too can many if not most of the Founding era unitarian Christians.

Jon – I was thinking something similar as well. He does a similar thing with Beck that he does with Adams and sometimes Jefferson. I suppose I should add Washington in there too. Barton hears a Founder say Christian and that means evangelical to him. He hears Beck invoke Jesus (the Mormon Jesus was a spirit child of the Heavenly Father and Mother and thus a brother to all of us) and he hears the Jesus of evangelical creed.

]]> By: Patrocles https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-90947 Wed, 30 May 2018 19:51:42 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-90947 That’s more a battle about words and their meanings. We know that Barton sees Mormons as Christians. He seems to see everyone as a Christian who has a particular devotion for the gospel and Jesus as unique phenomena – which would include Penn, the Unitarians of 1800, Adams and Jefferson – but not most contemporary “universalist” Quakers and Unitarians. (Adams,in fact, had some inclinations to universalism, but didn’t subscribe to it.)
As for “evangelical”, the word simply referred to the gospel; and in that way it was, of course, used by the founders of the “evangelical” movement. Afterwards it has often been confined to the adherents of the evangelical movement, That would exclude most persons of the 18th century, but would include e.g. nearly the half of the Quakers after 1830. The meaning of “evangelical” changed once more when the remainders of the Great Revival melted with the remainders of orthodox Calvinism (Princeton theology) after 1900 and “evangelicals” got to be seen as fiercely dogmatic (which wasn’t the case in the 19th century). In any way, Barton is completely free to use the word in a broader sense.
Barton seems (unconsciously?) to strive for a new (or lost) concept: the concept of a unity of all people who are devoted to the gospel and Jesus as unique phenomena, confronted against the people who don’t. So he inevitably stumbles over the traditional words which are inept to this unwonted concept. (And yes, maybe his “new unity” is only built as a base for his political aims -but none the less, it’s an interesting idea.)

]]> By: Bernie https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-90952 Wed, 30 May 2018 19:51:42 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-90952 Oh Lordy! I hate to think what else he contrived whilst speaking from ‘his’ pulpit.
Thanks for the info Warren. I may, if time permits this weekend, put it, to rather some good use.

]]> By: Lynn David https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-90955 Wed, 30 May 2018 19:51:42 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-90955 Well, Liberty University lists his talk as a sermon. So you that straight-away tells a person that Barton is will not necessarily deal with factual truths.

]]> By: Jon Rowe https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-90959 Wed, 30 May 2018 19:51:42 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-90959 The idea that Unitarians (of the Founding era) can’t be Christians is not modernism; it’s orthodoxy.
Founding era Unitarianism (I term it “unitarianism” and leave the “u” uncapitalized because the unitarianism of the Founding era — mid to late 18th Century — usually wasn’t an official denomination, but a theology) defined itself by disbelieving in the Trinity. They identified and understood themselves to be “Christians.” It was the orthodox of that era and of today who claim, no, you must believe in the Trinity to be a “mere Christian” (as CS Lewis would term it).
I think the kernel of Truth in Barton’s claim might be the unitarians of the Founding era weren’t quite like today’s UUs. They were quite theistic, devout and very often biblical.
In this sense, they may be more like today’s Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Non-Trinitarians, but nonetheless very devout and theistic. Though the Founding era unitarians were also very rationalistic, “enlightened” and “liberal” for their day.
Though I am starting to see some consistency in Barton’s understanding of Christian minimums. If non-Trinitarians like Mormons can qualify as “Christians,” so too can many if not most of the Founding era unitarian Christians.

]]> By: James M. Martin https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-80619 Wed, 30 May 2018 18:16:02 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-80619 A couple of years ago, I read a letter to the editor in a local paper from a retired lawyer who wrote that the separation of church and state was “a myth.” This is wrong. The myth is Jesus Christ. At the time, I thought the guy was an isolated idiot. Then I heard about Barton and the rest of the “Christian founding fathers” bunch and realized that the real myth is that Adams, Jefferson, et al. were Christians. My education informed me that many of the founders were Christian, but just as many were Deists at most, and some, including Jefferson, denounced organized Christianity in no uncertain terms. He held a proto-Nietzschean view toward it. (Nietzsche said that Christianity was the worst catastrophy to befall the human race.)
But most early American critics of Christianity merely mistrusted the clerics pushing it. They had in mind, and fresher in memory than we do, the pogroms against Jews and Muslims during the Crusades, the extirpation of the Cathari and Bogomils in Gnostic southern France, the torture and burning of “witches” (read crones peddling abortifacients), and countless other costly errors of judgment amounting to a willed ignorance of what the religion’s prophet preached.
This Barton guy is a piece of work. He regularly pops up on Fox News. He cannot be as ignorant as he comes off. I think he is an unregistered lobbyist. He tries to come of as scholarly and uses what are called “presentist” arguments that amount to nothing so much as extrapolating backward some two centuries to put into early Americans’ mouths words or sentiments having no semblance to what actually was said or written. Barton knows that generations of Americans younger than my own have been dumbed down by an educational system that is burdened with unfunded mandates and legislative bodies that favor vouchers and private schools only the well-off can afford.
At most, some of those listening to Barton on Fox do a Google on the topic — say, “Jefferson religion,” and come up with some semblance of veracity, but, sadly, many Americans are couch potatoes who absorb an inordinate amount of their views on issues from the passive medium of TV. It almost goes without saying that Americans read only infrequently and confine that practice to cell phone statements and the 9th grade-level press, from local papers to People. Some might even ask, “Jefferson who?” And since they’ve watched more televangelism than History Channel, one finds it necessary to explain “Deism” as a belief in a creator who, once finished with his creation, disappeared.
The Bartons of this world are no less dangerous for all that. Goebbels said that if a lie is repeated often enough the people will believe it true. Big Brother governments rewrite history to suit their ideology. The ideology of Barton is evangelical theocracy. This is inimical to American democracy. I hope some writer comes up with a devastating biography of this dunce.

]]> By: Warren https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-53013 Sat, 17 Sep 2011 19:42:27 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-53013 Jon Rowe wrote:

Though I am starting to see some consistency in Barton’s understanding of Christian minimums. If non-Trinitarians like Mormons can qualify as “Christians,” so too can many if not most of the Founding era unitarian Christians.

Jon – I was thinking something similar as well. He does a similar thing with Beck that he does with Adams and sometimes Jefferson. I suppose I should add Washington in there too. Barton hears a Founder say Christian and that means evangelical to him. He hears Beck invoke Jesus (the Mormon Jesus was a spirit child of the Heavenly Father and Mother and thus a brother to all of us) and he hears the Jesus of evangelical creed.

]]> By: Jon Rowe https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-53012 Sat, 17 Sep 2011 16:19:39 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-53012 The idea that Unitarians (of the Founding era) can’t be Christians is not modernism; it’s orthodoxy.
Founding era Unitarianism (I term it “unitarianism” and leave the “u” uncapitalized because the unitarianism of the Founding era — mid to late 18th Century — usually wasn’t an official denomination, but a theology) defined itself by disbelieving in the Trinity. They identified and understood themselves to be “Christians.” It was the orthodox of that era and of today who claim, no, you must believe in the Trinity to be a “mere Christian” (as CS Lewis would term it).
I think the kernel of Truth in Barton’s claim might be the unitarians of the Founding era weren’t quite like today’s UUs. They were quite theistic, devout and very often biblical.
In this sense, they may be more like today’s Mormons or Jehovah’s Witnesses. Non-Trinitarians, but nonetheless very devout and theistic. Though the Founding era unitarians were also very rationalistic, “enlightened” and “liberal” for their day.
Though I am starting to see some consistency in Barton’s understanding of Christian minimums. If non-Trinitarians like Mormons can qualify as “Christians,” so too can many if not most of the Founding era unitarian Christians.

]]> By: James M. Martin https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-53011 Sat, 17 Sep 2011 14:18:45 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-53011 A couple of years ago, I read a letter to the editor in a local paper from a retired lawyer who wrote that the separation of church and state was “a myth.” This is wrong. The myth is Jesus Christ. At the time, I thought the guy was an isolated idiot. Then I heard about Barton and the rest of the “Christian founding fathers” bunch and realized that the real myth is that Adams, Jefferson, et al. were Christians. My education informed me that many of the founders were Christian, but just as many were Deists at most, and some, including Jefferson, denounced organized Christianity in no uncertain terms. He held a proto-Nietzschean view toward it. (Nietzsche said that Christianity was the worst catastrophy to befall the human race.)
But most early American critics of Christianity merely mistrusted the clerics pushing it. They had in mind, and fresher in memory than we do, the pogroms against Jews and Muslims during the Crusades, the extirpation of the Cathari and Bogomils in Gnostic southern France, the torture and burning of “witches” (read crones peddling abortifacients), and countless other costly errors of judgment amounting to a willed ignorance of what the religion’s prophet preached.
This Barton guy is a piece of work. He regularly pops up on Fox News. He cannot be as ignorant as he comes off. I think he is an unregistered lobbyist. He tries to come of as scholarly and uses what are called “presentist” arguments that amount to nothing so much as extrapolating backward some two centuries to put into early Americans’ mouths words or sentiments having no semblance to what actually was said or written. Barton knows that generations of Americans younger than my own have been dumbed down by an educational system that is burdened with unfunded mandates and legislative bodies that favor vouchers and private schools only the well-off can afford.
At most, some of those listening to Barton on Fox do a Google on the topic — say, “Jefferson religion,” and come up with some semblance of veracity, but, sadly, many Americans are couch potatoes who absorb an inordinate amount of their views on issues from the passive medium of TV. It almost goes without saying that Americans read only infrequently and confine that practice to cell phone statements and the 9th grade-level press, from local papers to People. Some might even ask, “Jefferson who?” And since they’ve watched more televangelism than History Channel, one finds it necessary to explain “Deism” as a belief in a creator who, once finished with his creation, disappeared.
The Bartons of this world are no less dangerous for all that. Goebbels said that if a lie is repeated often enough the people will believe it true. Big Brother governments rewrite history to suit their ideology. The ideology of Barton is evangelical theocracy. This is inimical to American democracy. I hope some writer comes up with a devastating biography of this dunce.

]]> By: Patrocles https://wthrockmorton.com/2011/09/16/william-penn-founded-the-quakers-and-other-tall-tales-from-david-barton/#comment-53010 Sat, 17 Sep 2011 09:37:49 +0000 http://wthrockmorton.com/?p=10195#comment-53010 That’s more a battle about words and their meanings. We know that Barton sees Mormons as Christians. He seems to see everyone as a Christian who has a particular devotion for the gospel and Jesus as unique phenomena – which would include Penn, the Unitarians of 1800, Adams and Jefferson – but not most contemporary “universalist” Quakers and Unitarians. (Adams,in fact, had some inclinations to universalism, but didn’t subscribe to it.)
As for “evangelical”, the word simply referred to the gospel; and in that way it was, of course, used by the founders of the “evangelical” movement. Afterwards it has often been confined to the adherents of the evangelical movement, That would exclude most persons of the 18th century, but would include e.g. nearly the half of the Quakers after 1830. The meaning of “evangelical” changed once more when the remainders of the Great Revival melted with the remainders of orthodox Calvinism (Princeton theology) after 1900 and “evangelicals” got to be seen as fiercely dogmatic (which wasn’t the case in the 19th century). In any way, Barton is completely free to use the word in a broader sense.
Barton seems (unconsciously?) to strive for a new (or lost) concept: the concept of a unity of all people who are devoted to the gospel and Jesus as unique phenomena, confronted against the people who don’t. So he inevitably stumbles over the traditional words which are inept to this unwonted concept. (And yes, maybe his “new unity” is only built as a base for his political aims -but none the less, it’s an interesting idea.)

]]>