Even though Eric Metaxas didn’t footnote him, he said on his radio show today that he used David Barton’s work to help him with history for his new book, If You Can Keep It. He lauded Barton’s historical work as helping him understand the Christian foundations of the nation.
This explains a lot, including his smug reaction to actual historians who have exposed the problems in his new book. Barton didn’t spend much time trying to defend errors until his brand was threatened. Now that WorldNetDaily Press has republished his book The Jefferson Lies, Barton accuses his critics, including evangelical scholars, of being liberals.
At the end of the segment, Metaxas said he had critics in common with Barton and again seemed surprised that his work had been critiqued. Both Barton and Metaxas dismissed the critics as those who don’t like their conclusions about America. Metaxas said he took pride in the critiques but knew he was right. Listen:
I think many people will be surprised at homage Metaxas paid to Barton. Metaxas seemed genuinely impressed with what Barton had to say and with his work overall. This is amazing to me because quite a few distinguished Christian historians have been vocal and prolific in their negative assessment of Barton’s work. Metaxas claims his recent critics have nitpicked and written whole essays about minor things.
Barton chimed and said that his critics never tells readers to go read the entire context. This, of course, is a bold faced lie. At least in my critiques, I link to Barton’s sources and link to the primary sources so readers can make up their own minds.
At the end, setting aside publisher Thomas Nelson, scholar Jay Richards, and numerous Christian historians, Metaxas recommended Barton’s The Jefferson Lies to his audience.
For more on the controversy surrounding Metaxas’ new book, see the following sources:
John Fea’s series
Tracy McKensie’s blog
Gregg Frazer’s review
My article in the Daily Caller
My blog posts addressing the errors
The errors and problems pointed out via the above links are not minor. I challenge Eric Metaxas to invite one or more of us to discuss this with him on his show.
For more on David Barton’s The Jefferson Lies see this link.