If you mean a new Israel or a covenant nation, Southern Baptist leader Russell Moore — writing for The Gospel Coalition — says no.
The Founders were influenced by Christians but there is no religious test in the Constitution. Moore says the Bible doesn’t assign America a providential place in history. Moore makes it clear that Ted Cruz’s stump verse of II Chronicle 7:14 was a promise to Israel and not to America as a political entity.
While Moore didn’t call out specific people, this is a pretty clear rejection of David Barton’s Christian nationalism on theological grounds.
Month: May 2016
Even At Liberty University, David Barton Is Known For Historical Fallacies
Previously, I believed that at Liberty University, David Barton was viewed positively as a great historian. Since he speaks there frequently, some in certain circles must believe that. However, I was surprised to learn that Barton’s reputation is not as positive in the history department. John Fea was able to get a first hand look into the matter from a former history graduate student at Liberty. Russ Allen has his masters degree from Liberty and attended a talk given last week at Liberty by Barton. About Barton and his history classes, Allen told Fea:
The first time that I heard Barton’s name was in a graduate-level history classroom at Liberty University. In that setting Barton was almost unanimously viewed as a model of someone engaging in historical fallacy. His works are discussed only in light of their faults and supplemented with strong scholarly criticism.
This is pretty encouraging and raises my estimation of Liberty’s history department.
After Barton speaks to the student body, the history department must be busy undoing his many fallacies.
K-LOVE’s Pledge Drive: Money Behind the Music
The Christian radio empire K-LOVE (find a station near you) is in the middle of their Spring Pledge Drive. To be blunt, the constant solicitations are annoying.
After hearing a claim recently that K-LOVE’s CEO Mike Novak’s salary is over half a million dollars, I decided to do some exploration of K-LOVE’s finances. K-LOVE is one of two radio enterprises run by Educational Media Foundation (Air One is the other). Because EMF is a non-profit, their finances are available via their 990 form. The organization is quite large and took in just over $152-million during 2014.
Concerning the salary claim, it is true that CEO Mike Novak got a hefty sum of $531,256 in 2014. Numerous employees, including one of the DJs got over $200k in compensation. K-LOVE pushes an “easy” giving level of $40/month on the air and their website. It takes 1107 people making that monthly pledge just to pay Novak’s salary. By comparison, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders, Sophie Delaunay, got just over $160k for running an organization that took in twice what K-LOVE received in donations.
K-LOVE also spent $267,463 on “pledge drive coaching.” The return on investment was phenomenal in 2014 in that they raised over $32-million attributed to the effort.
As annoying as the gimmickry is, it is apparently quite successful.
Are Board Members Paid?
In reviewing K-LOVE’s claims about their finances, I found one claim to be technically true but misleading. On their website, K-LOVE says:
K-LOVE claims that the Board of Directors at large serve without compensation. While it is true that the 2014 990 form doesn’t report any income paid to non-staff board members, CEO Mike Novak is one of the board of directors and is well compensated. However, readers wouldn’t know that by reading the website. The website description makes it seems as though none of the board members get paid. When one looks at the list of board members on K-LOVE’s website, at large members are not identified.
The 2014 990 identifies CEO Novak as a salaried board member:
Does K-LOVE Need Your Money?
K-LOVE’s net revenue over expenses for 2014 was over $64-million. At $40/month, that means 133,761 donors could have given their money elsewhere and K-LOVE would have covered operational expenses. While it clearly takes lots of money to run a high quality media operation, it may come as a surprise to donors who sacrificially give $40/month that K-LOVE is doing quite well financially.
I am not saying that K-LOVE is doing anything wrong (although I think they could make it more clear that staff board members are handsomely paid). My intent is simply to provide potential donors with information that is not provided by K-LOVE. It may be that your local church or food pantry needs that money more than this mega-station.