Category: david barton

Greatest Hits: Should Christians Be Nationalists? Julie Roys Radio Show 2017

My schedule these days is keeping me from blogging much so I thought I would bring up some of past material which is relevant to now. One of my earliest meetings with Julie Roy was in 2017 when she hosted a radio show with Moody. This program related to Christian nationalism.

…………..

At noon (ET) tomorrow, I will be on the Moody Radio Network program “Up for Debate with Julie Roy” to discuss the question, “Should Christians Be Nationalists?”

The guest taking a contrasting position will be Ken Klulowski who is the Legal Editor at Breitbart News and Senior Counsel & Director of Strategic Affairs at the First Liberty Institute.

I originally wanted to debate whether or not America is a Christian nation.
You can listen online here: https://www.moodyradio.org/upfordebate (updated link).

As background, see these posts on the subject (here, here, and here)

UPDATE: (7/1/17)
The show went well I think in that both sides had the ability to make important points. I do want to correct or least amend a couple of Ken Klukowski’s claims.

On one occasion he said he didn’t recognize James Madison from my quote of Madison and then said Madision’s views could be discerned by his vote for chaplains in Congress. He also said most of the founders had seminary degrees.

One. my Madison quote is sound and two, Klukowski did not tell the rest of the story on Madison. Later, Madison forcefully disagreed with the funding of chaplains and said so here.

On the founders and seminary degrees, this is a distortion made famous by David Barton. See this piece about that misleading claim.

David Barton Gets Called Out in Colorado

There isn’t much new here for regular followers of this blog, but I just wanted to give a shout out to Rich Allen and the Aspen Daily News.

David Barton and friends have been traveling around the country on a post-COVID, pre-midterm election scare out the vote tour. Reporter Allen and the Daily News folks were on top of it. Allen noted that Barton’s 2012 book on Jefferson “was voted the least credible history book in print by the independent History News Network.” Oh, and Allen just happened to cite a certain blogger and his co-author, who opined on Barton’s The Jefferson Lies. What was it The Blogger and Michael Coulter said?

“Barton misrepresents and distorts a host of Jefferson’s ideas and actions, particularly his views and practices regarding religion, slavery and church-state relations,” they said in a co-statement.

As good as Allen’s article was, it could have gone a little deeper. I wish some enterprising reporter would do a deep dive into Barton’s fleeting claim to have an earned doctorate. Of course that turned out to be a big old story about as true as his NCAA basketball story.

In any case, readers in that part of the country have a little more of the story than people usually get when Mr. Barton shows up.

John Throckmorton and Separation of Church and State

In 1640, thirty-nine male residents of Providence in what is now Rhode Island voted to ratify a system of government that allowed residents complete freedom of conscience in religious matters. The exact phrase they agreed to was “Wee agree, as formerly hath bin the liberties of the town, so still, to hould forth liberty of Conscience.”

This was the settlement of Roger Williams, the Baptist minister who had been expelled from Salem, MA and who championed religious freedom next door to John Winthrop’s Massachusett’s Bay colony. As Williams and other Rhode Island dissenters learned, the wrong beliefs earned you trouble not just with the ministers and the church but also with civil authorities.

Williams founded Providence in 1636 and deeded shares of the land to twelve other men in 1638. One of those men was John Throckmorton. Throckmorton, a direct ancestor of mine, came from England with Williams and was also one of the 39 residents of the city who signed the first charter guaranteeing liberty of conscience.

Doing a little Ancestry.com research, I recently discovered this direct line back to John Throckmorton and I must admit it gave me an irrational measure of pleasure. I have taken pretty clear stands for separation of church and state and vigorously opposed Christian nationalism. My David Barton fact checking work was partly motivated by passion for the belief in church-state separation. The current revival of Christian nationalism motivates me to counter it as I am able. Learning that a great, great, (five more greats) grandfather was involved at the beginning as a co-laborer and friend with Roger Williams is deeply satisfying.

Even after John Throckmorton became a Quaker, he stood up to Williams when Williams criticized the Quaker movement. It appears my ancestor was zealous to defend his independence of mind, even when his old friend came against him. Another plus in my mind.

Baptists Then and Now

The story of Williams and Great(x7)-Grandpa Throckmorton reminds me that once upon a time Baptists were known for their fierce dedication to separation of church and state. Now, they are known for these shenanigans:

Here is John MacArthur declaring that he doesn’t support religious freedom.

John Leland, the great Baptist who preached in MA and VA, said:

No national church can in its organization be the Gospel Church. National church takes in the whole nation and no more, whereas the Church takes in no nation but those who fear God and work in every nation. The notion of a Christian commonwealth should be exploded forever.

Should one sect be pampered above others? Should not government protect all kinds of people of every species of religion without showing the least partiality? Has not the world had enough proofs of the impolicy and cruelty of favoring a Jew more than a Pagan, Turk, or Christian, or a Christian more than either of them? Why should a man be proscribed or any wife disgraced for being a Jew, a Turk, a Pagan, or a Christian of any denomination when his talents and veracity as a civilian, entitles him to the confidence of the public?

Government should protect every man in thinking and speaking freely, and see that one does not abuse another. The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.

Many Christian nationalists today want the government to privilege Christianity. They don’t like what some people do in their private lives and want the government to legislate against it. Even though the state has no compelling interest in regulating this private conduct or conscience, Christian nationalists appeal to concepts like biblical law and biblical morality to suggest that the civil law should reflect their idea of what the Bible teaches.

 

Getting Jefferson Right Gets a Rise from the Fall of Mars Hill Church

I haven’t written much about the Rise and Fall of Mars Hill Church because I wanted to hear the whole thing before I did. Now that I have, I will say more about it over time. On the whole, I recommend it. Several years ago when Mars Hill Church was unraveling, I assumed someone would do a deep dive into the rise and fall of the church; I just didn’t think it would be Christianity Today.

On the level of individual work, Mike Cosper did an superb job of weaving characters and various story lines in and out of the narrative.  Having written and produced a documentary in the past, I can appreciate the amount of work that goes into that beast.

What brings me to the blog backroom at this time is something I just learned over the weekend: Mike Cosper’s casual mention of my book with fellow Grove City College professor, Michael Coulter, has led to a modest Mars Hill bump in interest in Getting Jefferson Right since The Tempest episode came out on November 12. I’ll call it a Mars Hill Rise.

Here is what Cosper said about the Jefferson book starting at 1 hour and 11 minutes into The Tempest episode.

There’s a sense in which he (Throckmorton) was an ideal candidate to respond to this particular moment in the story (the plagiarism aspect). For several years, much of Throckmorton’s blogging had been focused on debunking the work of David Barton, a Christian nationalist, known for writing books and curriculum about the origins of the U.S. that are popular in some very conservative homeschool circles.

That led to the publication of a book called Getting Jefferson Right which Throckmorton co-wrote with Michael Coulter. The book carefully deconstructs many of Barton’s Christian nationalist myths and it led to one of Barton’s books being pulled from publication. His foray into looking at Driscoll didn’t come from any specific interest in his work. I think in a way that’s also reflected in his interest in Barton. Warren has a mind for detail; a mind attuned for the kind of research and cataloging necessary to track instances of plagiarism.

I love it when threads of my life come together and this was a significant couple of minutes for me. The modest sales boost or the Facebook page interest aren’t the remarkable points here. For me, it was Cosper’s matter-of-fact dismissal of Christian nationalism. The reference to David Barton’s “Christian nationalist myths” was extremely gratifying. As I listened, I became aware that numerous people who had never thought about Christian nationalism in a negative way (or at all) were listening to the podcast since Rise and Fall has remained near the top of the podcast charts since it came out.

Indeed, in Getting Jefferson Right, we deal with some of the foundational stories that Christian nationalists like to tell. Did Congress publish the first English Bible in the U.S. for the use of schools? Did Jefferson create an abridgment of the New Testament to evangelize native Americans? Was Jefferson forbidden to free his slaves by Virginia law? Did Jefferson sign his presidential documents in the Year of our Lord Christ? Christian nationalist history is unlike any history most of us have heard or studied. In our book, we focus on claims involving Thomas Jefferson and give the facts.

For more on Getting Jefferson Right, click through this link. You can find the book in Kindle and paperback format on Amazon. Conveniently, Amazon says it arrives before Christmas!

For more on the removal of Barton’s book from publication, see this link.

David Barton in the News: Remember His Earned Doctorate and Division One Basketball Stardom?

Self-styled historian David Barton is in the news calling State Department officials “clowns” while he and Glenn Beck claim to rescue people in Afghanistan. Ministry Watch issued an appropriate “close look” at Beck and Barton’s charity — the Nazarene Fund — since it is unclear what they are doing in the midst of this disaster.

I am not an apologist for the Biden Administration’s handling of the end of the American military presence in Afghanistan. However, if David Barton makes a claim, my experience is that it should be checked out. Here are at least two reasons why.

Unearned Doctorate

Almost 5 years ago now, David Barton released the following video on his Facebook and Youtube accounts:

In this video, Barton very clearly claims to have an earned doctorate while, at the same time, he covers it up and fails to say where he got it. THe day after I saw the video, I discovered the “degree” came from church based LIfe Christian University. The school doesn’t offer history or education degrees and isn’t accredited by any recognized agency. It is registered with the IRS as a church and has no campus. Furthermore, Barton never attended any classes nor did he do any specific work for the so-called “earned” degree.” The president of the school just gave him a degree, perhaps for a fee, although that much was not revealed.

When I posted this information, Barton removed the video from his websites and stopped referring to himself as “doctor.” He never mentioned it again and has refused to ever explain or apologize for the deception. To their discredit, no Christian news outlet has ever pursued him and demanded answers about why he castigated progressives for making up stories, when he spun the yarn.

There are so many more reasons to be skeptical but here is just one more.

David Barton’s Division One Airball

IN 2015, David Barton told a seminar audience that he played basketball with the Oral Robert University Division One basketball squad when he attended the school as a student:

The main claim was:

I remember when I was playing basketball, the college stuff that we did. We started every day with a five mile run, then we lifted weights, then we had an hour of racquetball, then we had two hours of full-court basketball, then we came back for another run. It wasn’t particularly enjoyable, but in those years, our college team set the NCAA record for two years in a row for most points scored. We averaged 105, 104, 103 points a game, I forget what it was. But you had to run a lot, it wasn’t a lot of fun, but you get the results.

As it turns out, Barton did not play for the D-1 team at Oral Roberts.

This was confirmed by the NCAA and school records, calls to the university, and the testimonies of the head trainer and a sports reporter for the school paper at the time. He simply didn’t play on the team but told a story that made it sound like he did.

If a man can weave together those kind of stories about himself, shouldn’t we demand a much higher level of verification before we accept what he says about other things?