Month: September 2013

Politico: David Barton's Political Usefulness Trumps Scholarship For Evangelical Groups

Politico’s Stephanie Simon has an eye-opening article out today regarding David Barton and his evangelical supporters. Although I don’t agree that Barton’s reputation has fully bounced back, the article correctly reveals the disappointing pragmatism that plagues some Christian organizations. I will have more on this article in a separate post.
This section is especially disturbing:

Focus on the Family, meanwhile, edited two videos on its website featuring a lengthy interview Barton gave to Focus radio. The editing deleted a segment in which Barton declares that Congress printed the first English-language Bible in America — and intended it to be used in schools. That’s one of Barton’s signature stories — it’s a highlight in his Capitol tour — but historians who have reviewed the documentation say it’s simply not true. Focus also cut an inaccurate anecdote about a contemporary legal case, which Barton cited to make the point that society today punishes people of faith.
Asked why the videos were edited, Carrie Gordon Earll, a senior director of public policy at Focus on the Family, at first said they had not been, though before-and-after footage can be publicly viewed on websites archiving Focus broadcasts. Earll then said she could not comment beyond a statement noting that Focus “has enjoyed a long and fruitful relationship with David Barton” and respects his “broad base of knowledge” about early American history.
In an interview with POLITICO, Barton said his remarks were sometimes taken out of context but defended his scholarship as impeccable.

A subset of the evangelical historians who raised issues with Family Research Council brought these problems to Focus on the Family’s attention this summer. In a post later today, I will point out which sections were removed without notice. It is shocking that Focus initially denied they had edited the material. Why is David Barton’s reputation so important that a Christian group would resort to subterfuge to cover it up?
 

Institute on the Constitution Uses Fake George Washington Quote on Second Amendment

Yesterday, I noted concerns about the teaching of the Institute on the Constitution on the National Religious Broadcasters network. Last night, the problems continued during Michael Peroutka’s teaching on amendments two through ten. To bolster his interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, Peroutka cited four founders on guns. One of them is a citation either fabricated or falsely attributed to George Washington, two of them were not cited in proper context, and one was cited properly.
Exhibit A in Peroutka’s speech was this quote he attributed to George Washington:

FakeWashingtonIOTC

First, I looked for this quote in the digital Papers of George Washington and couldn’t find anything. Then, I found a reference to the quote on the Second Amendment Foundation website. Listed under the heading: “BOGUS, FAKE & QUESTIONABLE QUOTES FALSELY ATTRIBUTED TO THE FOUNDING FATHERS,” the quote has been researched by the SAF with no success in linking it to Washington. According to the SAF, this is “perhaps the most ‘infamous’ bogus saying attributed to a Founding Father.”

The second quote comes from Samuel Adams:

The Constitution shall never be construed…to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.

Several sources attribute this proposal to Samuel Adams in the context of the Massachusetts convention to ratify the Constitution. Adams included this proposal along with others.

A motion was made and seconded, that the report of the Committee made on Monday last, be amended, so far as to add the following to the first article therein mentioned, viz.: And that the said Constitution be never construed to authorize Congress to infringe the just liberty of the press, or the rights of conscience, or to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms, or to raise standing armies, unless when necessary for the defence of the United States, or of some one or more of them, or to prevent the people from petitioning, in a peaceable and orderly manner, the federal legislature for a redress of grievances, or to subject the people to unreasonable searches and seizures of their persons, papers, or possessions.

And the question being put was determined in the negative. 

For a complete picture of the sentiment of the day, it would have been helpful for Peroutka to include the context and the fact that the Massachusetts convention failed to approve this language. Furthermore, Adams’ reference to “peaceable citizens” could be taken as a qualification on the right to bear arms. In his NRB broadcast, Peroutka argues that the founders believed possession of arms was a deterrent to government tyranny. However, it could be argued that Adams was not referring to citizens who were seditious or who did not keep the peace.

Next, he cites Thomas Jefferson with a brief quote:

No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

The Jefferson quote is taken from Jefferson’s first draft of the Virginia Constitution. However, Jefferson revised this draft in a way that works against Peroutka’s contention. Jefferson’s 2nd and 3rd draft added a qualification to the first draft. Here are all three drafts:

First Draft: “No freeman shall ever be debarred the use of arms.” (Papers of Thomas Jefferson, 1950, 344)

Second Draft: “No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements].”(PTJ, 1950, 353)

Third Draft: “No freeman shall be debarred the use of arms [within his own lands or tenements]”(PTJ, 1950, 363)

As the Monticello website notes, the draft language was not included by the Virginia legislature into the final Constitution. Jefferson, writing these drafts in 1776, was not referring to the 2nd Amendment. Furthermore, Jefferson qualified his earlier statement by locating the freedom for freemen to their own property. Although the later drafts undermine Peroutka’s argument, he should have made his audience aware of Jefferson’s final draft.
Peroutka then cites Noah Webster accurately.
The 2nd Amendment is important to the IOTC in that they back local sheriffs and police chiefs like PA’s Mark Kessler who claims the 2nd Amendment is a conceal carry permit and who promote the nullification of gun control laws. While some quotes from founders can be advanced in support of a broad reading, other quotes must be invented or adapted.
In any case, NRB viewers now have some history to unlearn. How will this happen?
 

GA House Candidate Barry Loudermilk Says No Greater Expert On The U.S. Constitution Than David Barton

Georgia State Senator Barry Loudermilk is running for Congress from Georgia’s 11th congressional district. Today on Twitter he announced that David Barton has endorsed his candidacy.

On Loudermilk’s website, he has this to say about Barton:

There is no greater expert on the U.S. Constitution and the underpinnings of American government, than David Barton

Wow, no greater expert?
In addition to academia in general, scores of Christian professors would disagree with that assessment. As regular readers know, the Family Research Council removed from view a video of Barton on the “underpinnings of American government” due to historical errors.
Loudermilk has a record of supporting the Christian nation thesis and has spoken at least one Christian reconstructionist event in the past and has cited Barton previously.

Institute on the Constitution: Post-Civil War Amendments Helped Undo The Bill Of Rights

(Note correction regarding the National Religious Broadcasters below…)
Those following my posts on the Institute on the Constitution may have noted that I have only once critiqued the content of the course being offered on Thursday nights at 8pm (ET) on the National Religious Broadcasters network.  There are two reasons for this. One, I think Michael Peroutka’s affiliation (board member) with the League of the South and his stated purposes for the course (support the League and prepare people for secession or something like it) are enough to warrant concern. The second reason is that the videos are not available for embedding on the blog. The NRB and IOTC have has rejected my requests for permission to clip relevant portions of the sessions. Thus, it makes clear presentation of the problems more difficult. (Correction: I asked the NRB for permission to clip relevant portions of the IOTC sessions and they informed me that the network does not have the authority to provide such permission since the network does not own the content. I apologize to NRB for misrepresenting their position).
In fact, I have many concerns about the content of the course.  Generally, Peroutka repeats many of David Barton’s mistakes. For instance, Peroutka insists that the First Amendment only applies to Christian sects.  He quotes James Madison out of context to attempt to prove this and he relies on Joseph Story’s opinion as the last word on the subject. He doesn’t cite other evidence which contradicts his thesis.  I have addressed this topic elsewhere. In fact, elsewhere in Story’s commentaries on the First Amendment, he specifically said that “the Catholic and Protestant, the Calvinist and the Arminian, the Jew and the Infidel, may sit down at the common table of the national councils, without any inquisition into their faith, or mode of worship.” Jews and Infidels were not considered to be sects of Christianity. Peroutka does not cite this section of Story’s commentary.
Last Thursday (session eight), Peroutka began discussing the Bill of Rights and has a curious view of the relationship of the post-Civil War amendments to the Bill of Rights. Peroutka contrasted the Bill of Rights with amendments 13 and following. Concerning those amendments, Peroutka said:

All of those [amendments] acted to break down the walls and expand federal power. They actually helped to undo the work of the bill of rights; to undo the first ten amendments.

While there is a sense in which some amendments may do this (giving Congress power to use legislation to give effect to the amendment), it is also true that the slavery amendments applied the Bill of Rights to millions of newly freed slaves.
Here is the text of the 13th Amendment:

SECTION 1.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
SECTION 2.
Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

It is hard to imagine how this amendment undid the Bill of Rights. If anything, the promises of the Bill of Rights were extended to more individuals.
I will be watching to see what other concerns Mr. Peroutka has with the other post-Civil War amendments. Given this talk at a meeting of the Maryland League of the South by Peroutka’s IOTC senior instructor and pastor, David Whitney, I suspect he will take a dim view of at least the 14th Amendment.

David Barton Says US Literacy Has Declined Since Prayer and Bibles Removed From Schools

You just never know what he’s going to say next.
Actually, according to the NCES, literacy improved steadily from 1870 to 1979 and according to the CIA, the US has a 99% literacy rate.
Sounds like his Bible and crime argument…